Global Venture to Bangladesh

On July 6th four young Global Footsteps members will depart for Bangladesh on a twp week fact finding visit to the newly established community capacity building project, the HRA Foundation in Nowder village, Bishwanath, Sylhet. The visit is being led by Global Footsteps co-ordinator Morgan Phillips who will be accompanied by two young film makers, Josh Sanger and George Allen, who will document the trip and a trainee teacher, Alice Matthews. Alice has made links with the Gloucestershire based education initiative ‘Sharing Communities’ and will gather resources on their behalf.

As well as the HRA Foundation the four will visit several other NGO projects and several other key people involved in improving life for the ordinary citizens of Bangladesh. On returning to the UK they will report back to the Global Footsteps membership the wider community through a short documentary film and a series of presentations.

Global Footsteps has closely assisted Mr. Arosh Ali, founder of the HRA Foundation, in creating a new charitable trust The Friends of Nowder. Mr Ali has lived in the UK for over thirty years but felt moved to transform land and buildings left to him by his late father into a centre to serve his home community. The HRA Foundation is two years old and provides primary healthcare and education for all as well as vocational training for men and women. The Friends of Nowder is a grant making organisation and hopes that the HRA is the first of many similar projects it will support. The goal, in time, for the HRA is to be a self sustaining project funded primarily by an on location women’s textile cooperative and eco-tourism facility. It hopes to grow in line with Social Business principles.

Cheltenham MP, Martin Horwood, is a keen supporter of The Friends of Nowder and will become its patron. He had the following to say about the project and the forthcoming visit:

‘Having worked for Oxfam in the past, I know the immense value to poor communities of well thought out projects based on local knowledge. This project should improve health and education in this very poor part of Bangladesh and empower local people to earn more income and improve their situation. But it’s essential to make sure the project is well run and this trip by Global Footsteps is an important part of that plan. I wish them well.’

Open House

We had a really lovely 'Open House' event last night at FootSteps. It was great to show people around and learn more about what they do and their interests. We told them a little bit about what we do and heard their thoughts and ideas on what we could do with the building and as a charity!

Here are some of the ideas, suggestions and comments we had and I've tried to feedback a little:

Clarify the focus of your charity and its aims and mission; prepare an elevator pitch.

This is so important and something we recognise we need to address. How about: 'We connect people at a grass roots level..... We do this through a variety of events, clubs and activities that all aim to bring people together in ways that are enjoyable and positive for the environment and society.

Offer the space to existing local charities to use for their meetings and so on.

We are very keen to do this and hope local like-minded organisations come along and use our space for meetings and events.

Word of mouth is very powerful as is networking through events like this.

We are trying to network as best we can through things like Transition Cheltenham and we hope our events create a buzz around the charity... please spread the word!

Charge users a nominal fee [to use the space at FootSteps]

We do intend to charge a small fee to hire out our space once it is in a nice usable state. We also have an option for organisations to be members of Global Footsteps, which would give them discounts on hiring spaces etc, as well as in the shop/cafe.

Screen environmental and educational films

We are very keen to do this and are working out a way to do this without breaking license laws, if anyone has any suggestions please get in touch!

Could you benefit from using Community Service people for labouring?

I'm sure we could, we are desperately in need of someone to help co-ordinate the manual work that we need to do, someone with DIY skills who wants to get their teeth into a worthwhile project, do you know anyone?

Contact the Eco-housing set up in Stroud, about their ecological building experience.

Thanks for this suggestion, I looked them up and the co-housing project sounds brilliant, perhaps we'll invite them up to FootSteps to give a talk and some advice. Follow this weblink for more: http://www.cohousing.org.uk/springhill-cohousing

Focus on Poverty in Cheltenham + Gloucester(shire)

We recognise the huge social and economic inequalities that exist here and would love to do something practical to address this as well as spread awareness of this problem. .

Run day trips / weekend trips for people on modest income

This feeds in to the above and is a great idea, who wants to come help us to make this happen? Where shall we go?!

Use the space for various craft-making classes

Yes please! If you want to start something up please get in touch!

More language classes

We have a history of providing language classes and want to resurrect it, we already have people who can teach French, Russian, Tamil and Bengali in our membership. If there is a demand for lessons then I'm sure we can get them going.

Bike repair clinics, maybe located at Freinds Meeting House

Another great idea, we have a few people who I think could offer this, I know that I could do with learning a bit more myself! One of our members has even written books on Cycle craft!

Frock Swap

Simple but really great idea, thanks for this, whoever wrote it down are you up for helping to organise and run a Frock Swap event?!

Have a low cost meal night - meal and a drink for a fiver

Great idea this, the shop floor is a nice cosy spot to have a meal and we have the facilities downstairs for people to join together to cook it. Any budding chefs fancy it?!

Thanks again to everyone who came last night and contributed your ideas, you've seen the resources we have, but the most important resource we have is YOU! Please get in touch if you want to help us to bring people together by the grass roots!

Email info@global-footsteps.org to get involved!