Friends of Nowder

On Sunday 24^th January Global Footsteps members Arosh Ali, Mary Paterson and myself met at the Friends Meeting House in Cheltenham with a host of others involved in the formation of The Friends of Nowder charitable trust.

Arosh Ali has been a member of Global Footsteps for about a year now, he came to us to see how we could help him establish a UK based charity that would support the work of the HRA Foundation, a community capacity building project in Arosh’s home village of Nowder in rural Bangladesh. Since the day Arosh first walked into FootSteps we have been helping him conceptualise, organise and now formally establish the Friends of Nowder. Friends of Nowder will perform three roles. In the first instance, and most importantly, it will raise money to send as grants to the HRA Foundation to help it grow and flourish in three main areas: Education, Primary Health Care and Women’s Empowerment. Secondly, Friends of Nowder will raise awareness amongst the UK population of the issues surrounding development in Bangladesh and the wider developing world. Thirdly, it will advise start-up or emerging community projects that have similar aims and goals as the HRA Foundation. The HRA Foundation has been in operation for just over two years, thanks to the tireless work and enthusiasm of Arosh Ali, once it is well established Friends of Nowder will look for other projects to fund and support.

Sunday’s meeting was also attended by Jerry and Sue Barr from Bishop’s Cleeve who continue to provide invaluable advice and support to the project. Friends of Nowder are also tremendously fortunate to have Martin Horwood MP as a patron and he was on hand on Sunday to witness the official signatures of the first three trustees of Friends of Nowder: Mary Paterson, Tariq Rashid and myself.

Mary visited Nowder early last year and has since been very keen to help the HRA get off the ground. I will visit Nowder on a Global Venture later this year to assist in the production of promotional materials including a documentary on the work being done to cope with and eradicate poverty in Bangladesh. Tariq is also keen to visit Nowder in the near future and we hope to invite an employee of the HRA to the UK on a Global Venture later in the year as well as to Footstep 12 in Slovakia this August.

The links between the HRA Foundation, Friends of Nowder and Global Footsteps represent a fantastic step forward for our charity, it will bring with it many opportunities for improved intercultural understanding and education about many environmental, sustainability and development issues. We will do everything we can to help it flourish and grow.

by Morgan Phillips, Global Footsteps Co-ordinator

Kenyan Venturers in the Echo

Daisy Blacklock at the Gloucestershire Echo interviewed our Founder Dennis Mitchell following the recent Film screening held at Friends Meeting House. Please click on the article to read it in full.

Book Club: The White Tiger

Tina McCausland discusses another successful Global Footsteps book club discussion.

We learnt about the character Balsam who grows up in the underbelly of Indian society, which Balsam also refers to as 'the darkness'.

The story is told in Balsam's voice as we experience life in the slums of India, the caste system and the lives of those in servitude.

The group commented on the many animal references throughout the book such as Balsam being also known as The White Tiger and the metaphor of a chicken in a coop to descibe how Balsam feels about his life and the society that he lives in.

We were encouraged to discuss politics, religion and prejudice as we explored Balsam's long desperate journey from the darkness into the light of a higher 'better' society and so Balsam's apparent freedom from servitude. We commented on the the ugly sacrifices that he makes to move into the light (as he eventually believes that the key to the door of his cage was always open).

We admired the author's language such as "Every now and then an egg will crack open - a woman's hand, dazzling with gold bangles, stretches out of an open window, flings an empty mineral water bottle onto the road - and then the window goes up and the egg is resealed" (p. 134).

Everyone had lots of particularly positive things to say about this book and it also generated discussion about personal experiences of India (and the suggestion to read the book Shantaram, also a book about he slums of India).

The White Tiger opens the door on the harsh injustices experienced by the poor in India and could be applied to other countries. We found it inciteful, brutal, tender, witty and poetic.

Book for next book club session

The 5 People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Suggestions of books for future book club sessions

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafis

The Winter Book by Tove Jansson

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy