Global Footsteps

Introducing Garima Rathore

2011-01-24T16:40:00.008Z

There is a new face at our Footsteps shop and cafe in Cheltenham, Garima has just moved to the UK from India and has already got involved as a volunteer with our charity. I caught up with her via Facebook:

15:59

Hi Garima, welcome to Global Footsteps!

Hello

You have been volunteering in our Footsteps shop in Cheltenham for about 2 weeks now is that right?

Yes, now i am more confident about working there.

How are you enjoying life in Cheltenham so far?

It's goin very fine.. I'm enjoying in volunteer centre

You're originally from India, but which part exactly?

Yes.. Delhi region

Are there any similarities between Gloucestershire and Delhi that you have noticed?

By this time i didn't found yet, but this is very nice place, I love it!

What's your favourite place in Cheltenham? (You don't have to say the Footsteps shop!)

Eating places .. I like most is Gianni's and Nandos and Sudeley castle, but I have visited very few places so far.

I'm sure you will discover more and more as time goes by, where else in the UK or Europe would you like to visit?

all over but, priority is UK 

I recommend a visit to Wales, but I am from there, so am biased!

okay accepted.....I would like to go there.... we are planning to Cardiff for a weekend in February.

Great! 

Tell me a little bit about the things that interest you.... have you been involved in any work to help others or the environment before?

Yes, in India.. I gave tuition to the students... to help them in their studies, it was like evening classes... for 2 hrs

Like a homework club?

yes.. 

What do students in India enjoy studying?

Lots, but the reason for those classes was that they belonged to very poor families.. and  we provided them with help 

with their problems in studies.

I see, it sounds similar to the work our link project in Bangladesh is doing.

What other activities would you like to get involved in while you are in Cheltenham?

Nothing much yet... I'm searching a part time job too... to make myself busy.

Well I wish you good luck with that search, I hope you find some enjoyable and meaningful work!

Thank-you very much for volunteering with us, I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Yes... I love that place too! 

Thanks for chatting, see you in the shop soon!

Twinning Association Open Evening

2011-01-20T12:54:00.004Z

Cheltenham Twinning Association are having an Open Evening next Tuesday (25th January). The meeting will be held at the Municipal offices on the Promenade in the Montpellier rooms.

Morgan will be giving a talk about Global Footsteps! Twinning Officer Annette Wight sent through the following information. Hope to see you there:

Please come along to the Cheltenham Twinning Association Open Evening next Tuesday 25 January, from 6.45 for 7 pm start, until approx 8.30pm. There will be wine, soft drinks and nibbles and time to chat.
We will be telling you more about this year's big event - the 60th anniversary visit to Göttingen from 29 July to 5 August. Come and hear more about the trip and ask any questions you may have.
Global Footsteps' Director Morgan Phillips, will also be outlining the international development work that this local charity are involved in and some young people will give brief presentations on visits made last summer to Hungary for an international dance and culture festival for young people and to Göttingen for the International Peace camp. So please come along and give them your support and hear about their experiences.
The evening is open to all - not just Association members, so do bring family and friends along.
I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible next week and if you are able to send a quick email reply to indicate whether you are able to come along, that would help us with the number of glasses we shall need!!!
Best regards
Annette
PS : if you can't make the meeting and have registered your interest with me in the visit to Göttingen, information will still be sent to you within the next couple of weeks.

An interview with Steven Otieno - Political tension and HIV/AIDS support work in Kenya

2011-01-17T14:26:00.009Z

In the second of our interviews this week, here is Steven Otieno from Cadif Kenya. Steven represented Kisumu, Kenya at our latest international conference, Footstep 12, in Slovakia last year. Cadif operate in the slum region of Kisumu, right on the shore of Lake Victoria. Cadif improve the lives of many through their health and education programmes. We talked about the current political situation in Kenya, Cadif's work in 2011 and some potential new volunteering opportunities.

13:39
Hi Steven

Hi, how is it going?

Good thanks. I'm doing some interviews for our Global Footsteps blog page, would you mind answering a few questions?

No
just send me some
Great, so firstly, how is life in Kisumu today?

Kisumu is warm, there was some rain but generaly okay, there is absolute peace but political temperature is raising.

What's happening politically?

Kisumu is ODM zone and there are many ODM politician from Rift Valley that want to ditch the party. This is because they are being left to take personal responsibility for their involvement in the 2007 post election violence. So there are ethnical blames between Rift valley and Nyanza on Raila Odinga's position at the post election violence trial in the Hague.
Raila Odinga is the current Prime Minister correct?
What does ODM stand for?
yes
from ODM
ODM Stand for Orange Democratic Movement
What do you mean by 'ethnical blames'?

Political leaders from Rift valley who are named to have sponsored the 2007 post election violence, most of them are from ODM, so the people of Rift valley (Kalenjin) expected Odinga to defend them, reasoning that all that happened was for benefit of Raila Odinga. Luo's in Nyanza oppose this view point and are very strong on their stance. They believe that the political leaders have to take personal responsibility for their involvement. This would be damaging to the implicated politicians, so they are threatening to leave the ODM if Odinga does not support them. This is a hot debate and accusation ahead of 2012 General election
Kalenjin and Luo are both tribes in the region, is that correct? And Kisumu is home to mostly Luo?

Yes
Kalenjin are from Rift valey region in Kenya while Luos are from Nyanza Region
Are you worried that violence could once again erupt in Kisumu?

That is a slight fear but only if the constitution is not fully implemented. If it is not there will be worse violence in 2012 than 2007.

That would be terrible. So are people hopeful about the new constitution?

Yes, its taking root, Kenya anti-corruption is now little bit effective due to new constitutions, but there is still a lot of amendment needed for it to be effective.

Things are moving slowly in the right direction.

yes

What about CADIFKenya, what does the week ahead hold for you all?

At CADIF we have started the year well, we are now starting our school outreaches , this week we will have 3 outreaches every week, we are also having community mobilization and sensitization in 2 locations, 4 moonlight Voluntary counseling and testing at night targeting commercial sex workers and their clients
What exactly is sensitisation?

This is an organized forum for creating awareness on HIV/AIDS within slum areas
check on our videos on this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFE6u3jGMJ8&feature=share
I see, thanks, I will do that.
Is the HIV/AIDS situation getting better or worse at the moment?
The prevelance rate is going down among the youth but increasing among the couples and with that, we are lobbying for small grant to target couples for HIV education
To who will you apply for that grant?

Well I'm loking at the government through National Aid control council, and partners like Global Footsteps.

Unfortunately we cannot directly send money to fund projects like this, but we could try and send you a volunteer to help deliver the program and raise some funds for you too.
Thank you

I could also write you a recommendation letter.
would that help?
That will be helpful

I can do that for you no problem.

And the issues of having one of us join some of your volunteers for fundraising in UK later this year or next year, can it be productive?

This may well be feasible and useful yes. We will have to to discuss this further another time.

Its okay, so do you have some volunteer that are showing intrest to come?

We are going to do a big push for volunteers in the next few months, I really hope to get two people to Kisumu to work with Cadif and Kosimbo.
Thanks for the updates Steve, it is really great to hear what you have been up to.
Thank you, Volker was working on some reports, I will send them to you.

I'll look forward to them. Do you have any messages for our Global Footsteps members?

CADIF has been happy for the Global footsteps exposure and we will be sharing our project updates, opening up possibilities to partner. We are working on our new website, we will share with you our progress.

An interview with Sule Tomkinson - Sex Work and Feminism explored

2011-01-17T12:57:00.005Z

I've just been catching up with Sule Tomkinson. Sule represented Trabzon (Turkey) at our international conference, Footstep 11, in Jamaica. She is at the beginning of a very interesting sounding PhD.

12:28
Hi Sule, Morgan here from Global Footsteps.
Can I do a quick interview with you via Facebook for our blog?
sure

Great thanks.
I want, first to ask you how you are, where you are living now and what you are up to?
I am very good, living in Montreal, and doing a PhD in political science in Montreal University.
I am working on trafficked women in two provinces of Canada and the institutions that claim ownership on the bodies of these women.
That sounds like a difficult subject to study, it must effect you emotionally?

Probably it will, but I do not believe there is one single "truth" on human trafficking like the media presents to us, women and children sold for sex, living under slave like conditions...
I do not claim there are not trafficked people living under those conditions, BUT not everyone.
Some women use trafficking as a mobility strategy where legal immigration possibilities are limited or simply non-existant
just to be clear, you are saying that: 'you do not claim that there are NOT trafficked people'?

No definitely not
There definitely are trafficked people
who are forced to live and work under slave like conditions
but we simply do not know how many.
All the statistics and estimates of international institutions do not make sense, they are simply 'created' somehow, and we do not know how reliable they are.
Are you suggesting that some women come into Canada disguised as illegal sex workers to then later be able to seek asylum?

I am not saying disguised as this or that. However, sex industry is the one they can find jobs most easily and there is economic motivation there.
What I am saying is, all these women are not necessarily lured, uneducated and deceived women like we see continuoulsy in the media.
They are not victims, they have agency
OK, I understand, to say that all sex workers are doing it against their will is too simplistic, many are there for the money and are fully aware of what they are doing.
Yes.

And are you trying to gather evidence of this?

That is my ontological position right, I will see what evidence I get. I will also do research on police reports, shelters, rehabilitation centers, simply the institutions that are in contact with these women.
Can you just explain ontological for me?!

Sure, ontology is about social reality, how you perceive it. i.e. Radical feminists believe sex work is inherently exploitative and it is violence against women.
And I do not believe that.
Have you got into many debates with feminists over this?

There are two main approaches in the literature
and I am a feminist as well
there are many women in sex industry who perceive themselves as feminists
And yes, just saturday I went to see a movie by an abolitionist feminist director -abolitionists believe prostitution should be abolished and men who buy sex should be prosecuted- called 'The Biggest Lie".
She made the movie for youth to show the dangers of prostitution.
What did you think of the movie?

It was good, in terms of raising awareness for the young girls and the dangers they can experience, but again the statistics in the movie, ex-sex workers who were interviewed in the movie spoke with just one voice.
Even one social worker claimed 'feminists are against it'
do you my point? You cannot speak for everyone,
Feminism is a very complex subject, there is far more to it that meets the eye. I studied a little bit around eco-feminism a while ago, I would like to re-visit it. Would you say there are many sub categories to feminism?
Yes definitely. And all speak with a different voice.

Well, we'd better wrap up, maybe we can chat again in more detail about feminism another time as I know a lot of Global Footsteps members are interested in this subject.

Sure that will be good
Thanks Sule, I wish you well with your studies, I'm sure you will produce something very worthwhile. Do you have any messages for any friends you met via Global Footsteps?
Thanks a lot! I wish them all the best in whatever they are doing and keep up the good work.

OPEN LETTER: Friends of Kisumu Link - An appeal.

2010-11-11T14:54:00.003Z

11^th November 2010

Dear Friends of Kisumu,

In 1985 the much missed founder of The Rendezvous Society and Global Footsteps, Mr. Dennis Mitchell, initiated a link between Gloucestershire and the Kenyan community of Kisumu. This link was hugely successful in uplifting the lives of many Kisumians while also providing an opportunity for the people of Cheltenham to learn about life in one of the most interesting parts of Africa. Over the last 25 years Global Footsteps has sustained this link through various reciprocal visiting activities, but recently we have been working to breathe fresh life into our links there.

The Global Footsteps programme has set up links with two community capacity building projects with a view to sending volunteers over there on two to four week ‘Global Ventures’. In the centre of Kisumu we are linked to CADIF Kenya who work on everything from vocational training and IT literacy to urban agriculture, education and HIV awareness campaigns. In the rural district surrounding Kisumu we have linked up with Kosimbo Widows and Orphans group which was set up to improve primary health care, education and sanitation in a very remote village, Kirindo. Through Mikidadi Olela and Edwin Ochieng, our long time contacts there, we are also helping to develop ‘Kisumu Link’ which acts as a crucial co-ordinator for us in Kisumu. Without ‘Kisumu Link’ we would not have linked with Kosimbo and CADIF and we would not be able to find host families for our volunteers in the region. Kisumu Link is effectively our presence in Kisumu.

With my good friends Arosh Ali and Mary Paterson I have recently been involved in the setting up of a charitable trust here in Cheltenham called ‘Friends of Nowder’ it exists to raise funding for our linked project in Bangladesh. I would like to propose that those with an interest and a passion for helping the citizens of Kisumu come together to form a similar body ‘Friends of Kisumu Link’ to support Kisumu Link, Kosimbo, CADIF Kenya and potentially other suitable projects in the future.

I should be clear from the outset that while I am keen to help in establishing ‘Friends of Kisumu Link’ and can offer advice in how to do this, I would not personally have the time to contribute heavily to its activities. At the moment Friends of Nowder is quite enough for me on top of my other work! But, I am very happy to help in my capacity as co-ordinator of Global Footsteps and can certainly offer the use of our cafe in Portland Street as a hub for setting this up, but I would hope that a few committed people would be able to come forward to drive ‘Friends of Kisumu Link’ or something similar.

Please forward this letter to any interested parties. If you are interested in finding out more and potentially getting involved in any way, small or large, please get in touch with me.

Email: info@global-footsteps.org

I look forward to hearing from you,

Very best wishes,

Morgan Phillips (Co-ordinator, Global Footsteps)

P.S. The picture is of me with Mrs Margaret Kawala, founder of Kosimbo, it was taken in July 2009 at Kisumu railway station, just before departure. I promised then that I would gather help, please help me come good on that promise.

Local History in Pictures

2010-11-04T15:11:00.003Z

Last night, local amateur historian Ron Prewer dropped by to show us his collection of historical photo's of Cheltenham.

Ron is a real enthusiast and, over the years has built up a huge collection of photo's showing the different parts of Cheltenham through the ages. We had about 15 people in and they all asked questions, made comments and even chipped in interesting little facts about the houses, buildings and streets Ron showed us.

Ron's pictorial tour took us through St Pauls and then South to Leckhampton, but it feels like we've only just begun, Ron is keen to come back to show us other parts of Cheltenham, we've pencilled in February 2nd 2011 for the next show!

If you'd like to find out more about Cheltenham's history, or even get some tips from Ron about researching your local area or family tree, please him an email to: RonPrewer@hotmail.com

Feedback from Footstep 12 in Slovakia 6

2010-10-25T12:12:00.002+01:00

Mikidadi Olela, our man in Kisumu, has sent us his reflections on Footstep 12!

My trip to Slovakia was a learning experience and adventure. My first time to be in Europe and outside Africa. I enjoyed every single bit of it, my journey though long and exhausting, it was exciting all the way.

The programme and the way it was ran was superb, hosting, the conference, the excursions were all marvelous. The Slovaks were very friendly and nice people; I love them all and the volunteers too. I would like to express our (Kenyans) gratitude to all the "KERIC"members, the entire Global Footsteps family and all those who were involved...KUDOS....!!

Feedback from Footstep 12 in Slovakia 5

2010-10-21T15:57:00.002+01:00

Jana Eyssel our representative from Gottingen attended Footstep 10 in Cheltenham and has twice been on Global Ventures with us. Jana volunteered to help out at Footstep 12 and was fantastic in organising and facilitating before and during the conference. Here are her reflections.

The week I spent with the other participants of the Global Footstep 12 conference was a very enriching and encouraging one. I had the duty (and the pleasure!) to pick up the three participants coming from Kisumu, Kenya, at the Frankfurt airport and travelling with them to Cadca, Slovakia, where the conference was held. These two days served as a perfect introduction to the conference. I enjoyed talking to the Kenyans and to show them around – sometimes it was like seeing my country and Europe with different eyes.

Having arrived in Slovakia, we all had a very pleasant weekend with our host families, I found myself in a family introducing me to traditional Slovak sweets and liquors, and playing a lot of games. For the conference, the participants moved to a small town close to Cadca. Living and spending all the time together, we could get to know each other and I enjoyed having the possibility to talk to people from all over the world about important and serious things, but also to having fun with them. The projects’ presentations were very interesting and the people were linking their projects to each other. At the end of the week, many “small” links between two or three projects or people were established, but also the network as a whole had been strengthened. I hope we will stick to our plans and goals! I also enjoyed learning so much about different cultures. The task for everyone to prepare one typical meal was an ideal introduction to all those delicious national cuisines. Also, singing Kenyan songs at the fireplace and hearing about Desmond’s beehives was a great pleasure!

I hope to see you all again soon!!

Feedback from Footstep 12 in Slovakia 4

2010-10-21T15:36:00.004+01:00

Solene Mouton, a young French lady and volunteer with KERIC in Slovakia has written us some feedback from her participation at the Footstep 12 conference. Solene, devised several of the activities and we hope that one day she will establish an organisation in her home village in Brittany and bring it into the Global Footsteps community.

I participated in Footsteps12 in Slovakia - Cadca, because I was volunteer with Keric (European Voluntary Service), so had the opportunity to be connected to this community. At the beginning I didn't understand well the aims of the conference because for me Global Footseps was an organisation that I didn't know. After many exchange, I get the aims of this community. I could learnt a lot about projects that people are carrying out in different countries, in the world around us, the differents cultures, the differents issues that everybody is working on to try to do better the life in their local contaxt.. During the 10 days we shared a lot about our experiences, ideas, culture, point of view.. and this through games, discussion, presentation, and a great great atmosphere that everybody built! This conference was really successful, where we could mix fun and serious exchange, and meet beautiful people. Today, new organisations around the world are connected and start to work on common project: voluntary, international day.. and for this, the conference was a success. To be connected with this community it just give me more and more motivation to pursue common project and be curious about what's happening around us. Let's enjoy future projects together!

Feedback from Footstep 12 in Slovakia 3

2010-10-20T13:43:00.001+01:00

The next bit of feedback from Footstep 12 comes from Lenka. Lenka works for KERIC in Cadca and helped to organise and run the conference; her energy and enthusiasm provided so much momentum, she is a star!

I was involved in the conference Footstep 12 as a organiser from host organisation KERIC for first time this year 2010 and it was amazing experience full of positive and enthusiastic people ready for positive changes and open to new possibilities and ideas.

We were sharing experiences, different points of views of ecological issues, voluntary work –how to motivate youngsters, ways of work with children, youth and adults, different kind of outdoor activities (philosophy walk, moving forward, parachute games,…. ). We got new useful skills and knowledge. Different cultures and so similar ideas were leading to cooperation and new projects in local and also international level (especially. – the EU programme 'Youth in Action' - European Voluntary Service)

During conference were participants hosted in families from Čadca. It was big cultural experience for both sides and through international breakfasts and dinners we could taste a bit of different cultures which brought us a little bit closer.

I can only say, I am looking forward to other projects, activities, ideas, challenges, cooperation through Global Footsteps!

Feedback from Footstep 12 in Slovakia 2

2010-10-20T13:27:00.002+01:00

More feedback from Footstep 12, this time from Nuran of Trabzon, Turkey

I would like to talk about an activity called The Ecological Walk which we did while in Cadca. There were three ways to go to meeting point: Easy, which I participated in; Medium and difficult! While walking we had to talk about some items about our countries situation (transport, accomodation, rubbish and litter, food, energy sources, natural resources, environmental projection. We talked, talked and talked with Margaret :)) and I learned a lots of things about Kenya. I knew before that Kenya is poor country but I cant imagine so much like that. Along the way was ok for me (even if I dont feel young :)) but Margaret couldnt manage it too easily. I think when that kind of activities are planned more thought for older people is needed. And I would like to say that before meeting you send to us those topics which we will talk about. Because we have to know some topics deeply such as rubbish and litter politics I think.

I would like to say that it was so great meeting for me. As Arosh (from Bangladesh) said, I didn't meet that kind of lovely people in Europe before. I should change my idea about european people :))
All of them are not selfish and cold :))

And Morgan, I would like to say to you that when you were speaking I felt that I was listening BBC News!
Best wishes,

Nuran

Feedback from Footstep 12 in Slovakia

2010-10-20T13:18:00.004+01:00

We're just about to post some feedback from those who attended our ground-breaking Footstep 12 conference in Slovakia back in August. First up is Zbyszek from Tilia Forest School in Torun!

For the first time I participated in the conference Global Footsteps. It was a very nice time but also instructive. Cool, because I established many new friendships from around the world, because I know the cool and nice people, because I could see that everywhere, regardless of skin color, race (etc) are good people, that the goodness of people and openness is not dependent on racial and cultural differences.

I might know the reality prevailing in specific countries and problems of people living there. I have read it with the specific work of NGOs and associations. I was able to establish first contacts with representatives of the organization and take the first steps of cooperation between Tilia and NOGs others. It is important also that I could find out for yourself that you can find common ground with people from other countries, continents.

The organization of the conference was done perfectly. The form of each conference, forced to open to conversation, to show himself. It is very important.

Personally, I regret that I could not stay until the end of the conference.

Yours
Zbigniew Szczesniak

Toruń Ecological Association "Tilia"
Torun, 02.09.2010r.

The True Size of Africa

2010-10-15T09:07:00.003+01:00

Sometimes we forget quite how big the continent of Africa. This really great image was made by Kai Krause.

Day 3: Vycholovka and home to Stara for Turkey and Bangladesh

2010-08-19T21:38:00.002+01:00

Janet Whyte representing Moneaugue College St. Ann, Jamaica writes about our 3rd day here on the conference.

On the 18 of August 2010, the day begin by embrailing ourselves in the delicious display of Polish breakfast. Everyone went to watch the magnificent display of the clock in the town centre of Stara Bystrica. Then board the bus for Vychylovka. Where the Footstep 12 contigent went to visit Ksucke Muzuem in Vychylovka.
At the Muzeum we were on time for the train tour which takes us several metres of elevation by pushing and pulling (zig zag)by switching lines, going up descending. Where we were exposed to how people lived in the past,there culture and lifestyle. However it was amazing to see the typical system of working the train in the past, to carry wood from the forrest. The wood was used to make house, furniture and also help in the infrastructure of the country for a living.
In the eveing the Keyans were cooking Omenyah,rice, beef, potatoes and ginger tea. Afterwhich the Keyans showcase some leso(cloth wrap), nacklace beads,artwork pictures (picture. Which was designed by the youths of the community,which exposed there skills and creativity, who are now in need of a job. At seven pm Emrah presented on the different aspect of Turkey within there culture, how it is used to uplift the people in the country. Through various organization like the youth organization, which is a non government organization operated by him and other members.
Arosh.Ali who represent Bangladash, present about proverty within his community among young people. Wherein the upperclass people didnt pay much attention towards the lower class people, who couldnt afford to make a living on there own. And so he stated that its a very urgent situation where help is needed. Also, before everyone went to bed, we were all entertained by a movie called, Garbage Warrior. Where people in New Mexico used empty cans and old tyres with soil to build houses,equiptment and other materials to reduce the hike of one`s expense.

Footsteps 12: Day 2!

2010-08-18T19:03:00.002+01:00

Day 2 at Footstep 12 was our first in the village of Stara Bystricia, 20 km from Cadca. Jana Eyssel reports on the goings on!

The second day of the Foostep 12 conference began early at 8 o'clock in the morning with a Slovak breakfast served by the KERIC volunteers. We had sweet bread and Zavin s makovou naplnou, sweet bread with poppies, together with jam. For our first workshop we had a walk through the hilly area around our acommodation – but this wasn't to be a normal walk, it was a Philosophy walk. The group got in pairs, discussing different questions. The questions tackled the issues of sustainability, consumerism, over-population, happiness and travel experiences. After having come back to our accomodation, we discussed the questions together: very different views and experiences came together.

The Philosophy Walk was followed by the Kenyan project presentations. Introducing the „Kisumu Links and Sister Cities“ project Mikidadi gave a short introduction of the roots of the link between Kisumu and Cheltenham, reemphasizing Dennis' role. Margaret was next, presenting Kosimbo, a charity founded by her supporting widows and orphans. Third, Steven spoke about CADIF Kenya, a youth based organisation, coping with a wide range of different problems people face in Kisumu (e.g. HIV/AIDS, climate change, children becoming orphans).

After a tasty Slovak lunch we went on with the project presentations: Monika presented Tilia, an ecological association based in Torun, Poland. Among others, they run a forest school providing ecological education.

We hoped Ramnicu Valcea, Romania, would be represented at the conference. I travelled to Romania in March this year on a Global Venture meeting Irina who took me to several projects willing join the GF network. Despite their enthusiasm, their resources are so stretched currently that they could not spare the time to join us here. Teo, a student at the University of Gloucestershire, is here at the conference also representing her home country Romania. Together, we presented the current voluntary and social work situation in Ramnicu Valcea and Romania more broadly.

I also presented my home town Göttingen, which used to be one of the strongest link in the GF networks. However, this connection lapsed in the last years and needs to be reestablished. As I don't live there anymore, we do not only need to identify projects interested in linking with GF, but we also need a contact person in Göttingen.

Being the last group presenting today, Desmond, Janet and Michael from Saint Ann, Jamaica, told us about their college, Moneague College having implemented a very sustainable way of waste recyclying. All the presentations gave an insight into the backgrounds out of which the projects have developed in their communities and also highlightened difficulties they are coping with. However, the representatives already started to connect with each other, discussing possible solutions. If we move on like this for the rest of the week the conference's goal might be in sight!

Right now, we are having a break waiting for the first national dinner: It's the Jamaicans' turn. It already smells very nice!

Hello from Slovakia

2010-08-18T18:37:00.003+01:00

Teo Craivan, who is here representing Cheltenham, UK and Romania simultaneously, was the first to pick up the pen to write us a blog entry.

Hello from Slovakia!!! The first conference day started a little melancholic – everybody had to leave the host families we got so attached to, but promised to return another time. Then we all met at KERIC headquarters and we had the official opening. After this we went to the K Museum, where we’ve met the manager of the museum and the manager of the culture house that welcomed us to Cadca and the surroundings. The museum was amazing, participants having the possibility to play the Slovakian ‘building’ game and they were all very excited of what they’ve made. After the visit at the museum we went back to KERIC where we had to find the presents they prepared for us in different parts of the building. After discovering some interesting facts about our host we went to eat. (The food here is really nice) Then Morgan had an introduction of the week. I have to tell you that this conference is dedicated to the person that made all this possible, Dennis Mitchell. The one that had the idea and the courage to not just want a better world but make footsteps in order to achieve his goals. We thank you Dennis and we promise to continue making those footsteps you taught us. Later this day we went to the Culture house for a special program – Slovak music and dance – you must have a lot of energy in order to try the traditional dance. In the evening we boarded on the bus to Stara Bistrica, a small village near CADCA. We are living in wooden cottages and it’s the best thing ever – we are four people from four different countries under one roof. Everybody should try it at least once!!! Jana’s turn to write tomorrow, until then Dobry vecer!!!

On the eve of Footstep 12

2010-08-14T14:17:00.003+01:00

Footstep 12 is soon to begin and the participants have started to arrive here in Cadca, Slovakia.

Participants from Jamaica, Kenya, Germany and the UK have already arrived ahead of the conference, most are staying with host families in and around the city, but we all congregated in the town square last night to take in the All Slovakia Handball Championships.

Over the next week or so, we will be reporting on events here at the conference as we attempt to link together community capacity building projects from across the whole world to form a Global Footsteps network fit for volunteer exchange.

Global Venture to Bangladesh

2010-07-05T17:33:00.003+01:00

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

2010-07-02T13:09:00.003+01:00

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!

Can you host students from China this summer?

2010-05-28T09:08:00.001+01:00

I'd like to draw your attention to a request in the Cheltenham Weihai Link newsletter. I hope you can help.

Students from Weihai

In July two groups of young people from Weihai will be coming to Cheltenham to study on the summer English Language courses at Gloucestershire college. The College are short of families to host in the Cheltenham area and ask that if anyone would be interested in having some Weihai students please contact Wendy Clark at GlosColl on 01242 532007 or Annette Wight, 01242 264311 (Annette.Wight@cheltenham.gov.uk) for a form. The first group will be here from 11 July for 3 weeks and the second group from 19 July for 2 weeks.

If you can offer any accomodation that would be great. We are keen to build our links with Weihai over the next few years, hopefully if we can host one or two students it will help us to build this relationship.

Alison and Glenn meet up with like minded organisations in Torun

2010-05-27T15:16:00.005+01:00

As part of a holiday in Poland, Morgan (Woodland) and I met up with Glenn “Our man in Torun” and over a 3 day period (9-11 May) met up with representatives from 4 different organisations with a view to them participating in the Cadca conference, and identified a possible 5^th organisation. A productive time.

Our first call was to the forest school in the Barbarka Forest near Torun, an organisation previously identified and visited by Howard. www.szkola-lesna.torun.pl/index.php?id=102 At an extremely productive meeting we met Monika Krause, who works there, and Zbignew from the environmental NGO Tilia, who help to fund the project. www.tilia.org.pl They were extremely interested in attending the conference, and have subsequently booked, without requesting any subsidy. They run an environmental centre deep in the Barbarka forest (12km north of Torun). They educate school children about nature and have a really good set up (funded by EU support from Iceland, Norway, etc). During the week they educate school children and then at weekends members of the public and tourists swarm to the place for pleasure (there are many trails, a lake, mini golf, tree assault course, etc). So although there is tourism, with its impact on the environment they are primarily an educational and environmental organisation, and share our ethos on sustainability.

They have a hostel and hotel which would actually be a perfect location for a future Global Footsteps conference with a large room catering up to 150 people. They are looking for similar minded NGOs to link up with...and so they would be very beneficial to join the GF network.

As we returned to Torun, we came across a poster advertising a picnic and barbeque the previous day in aid of Fair Trade day. Some detective work on the computer on our return to the hostel revealed a website which seemed to have information about various environmental activities throughout Torun www.ekologiczny.torun.pl It also included a map and addresses of other environmental NGOs, so we got emailing, and managed to set up two more meetings at short notice.

Rowerowy Torun is a cycling campaigning and capacity building group www.rowerowytorun.com.pl
We met Joanna (nickname Asia) and Pawel in their run-down offices, and gave them the presentation and explained about Global Footsteps.

Joanna explained that they are quite a new organisation, about 4 years old. They are working on the council to improve the cycling infrastructure in Torun, and they want to improve the image of cycling as a means of transport, once the infrastructure is improved. She said In Poland it is only quite recently that cars have become affordable for many people - and everybody wants one. Although they are quite well known in the city - they have a regular critical mass cycle ride - she feels that people don't understand why there is a need for an organisation for assisting cycling. They are a very grassroots organisation - I think they only have volunteers, although they had some funding for a specific project to advise the council on cycle lanes etc. They have just got a rickshaw bike which they use to generate electricity for their sound system on the critical mass. We told them about Dennis’s adventure cycling from Torun to Cheltenham on a similar machine. Like Barbarka, they understand the sustainability agenda. They are circulating details about the conference to their members, and are keen to be represented, but would certainly need some funding if they were to come. I would certainly recommend that they would be good candidates. Joanna said how hard work it was, and that working so locally on such a specific issue, it was hard to see how they fitted in with the big picture, but of course she agreed with think global, act local etc. So encouragement through links with what else is going on in the world would be great.

The following morning we had a very interesting meeting in a lovely cafe (sampling the cheesecake and apple cake) with Basia Witek from Pracownia Zrównoważonego Rozwoju, a sustainable development organisation based in Torun. www.pzr.org.pl Again they are quite a new NGO - about 4 years. Basia is a fairly new volunteer, in her 20s, who got involved in helping to apply for funding and do community consultations. Krzysztof Slebioda the director, wanted to join us, but his wife is pregnant and they had a medical appointment. So the people involved seem to be young. The main event they organise is laying turf on the main town square, for a day in June - with stalls selling eco-goods, local food, etc etc. encouraging a family day out with an important message. They are very much into the Global Footsteps message about making connections and community building, as well as sustainability.
As she is a fairly new volunteer, Basia couldn't commit the organisation to anything, but they have weekly meetings on a Monday, and she will report about our meeting, and possibly arrange for Glenn to visit at a later date, or come back to us with more questions.

Our meeting with Bartosz from AIESEC was also very promising. www.torun.aiesec.pl He is interested in sending a representative to the conference, and I think they will be useful, as they are good networkers, like us. For example he told us that they arrange for international students to run workshops in local schools about the country that they come from. Also they take part in summer camps for local school children, and they have organised skills workshops for local unemployed people. They are interested in the international links we have made, and also in the local links in Torun - they don't seem to know about PZR at the moment. I think it would be useful for them to attend as networkers, but also as an organisation who can give a presentation on what they do. I encouraged them to send a representative, and he said he would report back to their committee and be in touch. He indicated that they would need financial help.

Finally, Monika from Barbarka put us in touch with Zbigniew Szalbot, who organised the Fair Trade picnic. We didn’t have time to meet him, but he responded to my email with interest, saying they will “soon be creating an organization (a co-op) that will have as its goal taking on board unemployed people and offering them work.” He said they could not afford the fee, but I encouraged him to arrange a meeting with Glenn to take discussions further.

It has been great to get a brief sense of what is going on environmentally at a grass roots level in another country. I was inspired to meet these people, and hope we develop lasting links with their organisations.

Sophie in Annecy

2010-05-05T10:17:00.003+01:00

Sophie Franklin took time out from her Easter break with her family in France to visit Cheltenham's twin town of Annecy for us. Here is her report:

In view of the difficulty in getting to correspond with our Annecy counterpart at the Borough offices, Morgan asked me to go and see what I could find out on the ground, which I did.

I had found out that there is an officer solely working on the environment for the town of Annecy, so I knocked on the door of the municipal Offices and asked to speak to him. Unfortunately, he was away on a course, but the receptionist was very friendly and helpful and I promised I would contact him by email on my return.

In the morning, I also tried to speak to someone at FRAPNA, but they are a Federation of local associations which deal with all sorts of local environmental problems, but really nothing that matches up with Cheltenham.

So I then went to Prioriterre, with whom I had established contact before going and who were really hospitable and helpful. Prioriterre is an Annecy organisation trying to empower people to protect the environment in whichever way they want, green buildings principally and renewable energy, through consultations, talks to schools and colleges, etc.

Prioriterre’s new building is carbon neutral, even better, it produces more energy than it needs. Even the armchair in the reception area are made of cardboard... Very comfortable too, but the staff don’t think they will last very long, not the perfect sitting room armchair as it might age rather quickly!

I explained what we did and that we wanted to establish links with like-minded organisations, especially in order to organise exchanges between young people. They said they would certainly find youngsters interested in going abroad to one of our partner organisations, like Kisumu, and also possibly to go to our next Youth conference in Slovakia.

I met Anne Hughet, who does not speak much English but some of her colleagues do, so future contacts should be easy.

Their web address is: http://www.prioriterre.org with a couple of pages in English.
Anne also gave me the address of another organisation “La Terre en Heritage”, specialising in sustainable consumption. I really look forward to finding out more at a later date.

Jana visits Ramnicu Valcae for Global Footsteps! Part 4!

2010-04-28T17:11:00.004+01:00

Fourth day, 17th March 2010

Irina and I went to see another project, which had been implemented in the community a short time ago. With the help of the Göttingen waste management, a system of waste separation had been installed and a new waste land was being built. As the other projects we saw, this too is EU-funded.

Back in Irina’s office, we did not stay for a long time but left for La Journée de la Francophonie, the French days in Valcea. Schools were presenting short plays by Molière and Romanian playwrites in the library and this was a nice opportunity to join some local cultural events without struggeling with the language barrier – at least almost, as the Romanian plays were in Romanian. We had lots of fun watching and couldn’t take our eyes off the smallest children running around in their traditional costumes.

Later, we went to the market place again to get some food for my journey from Valcea to Sibiu, which was due the next morning. In the evening, I went out alone and strolled through Valcea’s city centre, taking pictures and being happy with the experience!

Jana visits Ramnicu Valcae for Global Footsteps! Part 3!

2010-04-28T17:07:00.003+01:00

Third day, 16th March 2010

Irina came to my place to pick me up at noon and we drove to her office together where I had some time to prepare myself for holding the presentation about Global Footsteps and the conference in August. At 2pm Irina, some of her colleagues and I went to a conference room in the municipality building for installing the beamer and the laptop. The head of the Social Department, Simina, Carmen and other employees joined us. When I started giving the talk, Irina translated from English into Romanian. After I had finished the women had a quite long discussion about the subject – everyone was impressed and thought of it as a great idea, but, as I understood, there were also doubts about Romania’s role in this network. How helpful could be their community for the network, as they have so many difficulties to cope with themselves? And could they profit from their engagement in conference and the future cooperations? Although I only understood a bit of what they were saying and Irina could not translate everything for me, it became clear to me that the conference and the linking between the communities and projects means something different depending what the basis of the respective project is. For the project in Valcea, becoming active in the GF network and investing time and work into it, seems to mean investing much more than a project from e.g. Germany would, because they have such a great lack of funds and employees. Being part of the network can be a great chance for them, but becoming active only seems to make, if they can really profit from this.

Having come to an end, everybody thanked Irina and me for the presentation and I felt quite relieved that it had gone well.

After a short break and some cookies, Irina, Simina, Carmen and I drove to the outskirts of Valcea to visit the MARA centre for autistic children, another project realized by the Social Department. The centre offers therapy for children and advice for their parents. The children live with their families but come to the centre for their therapy every day. The MARA also is EU-funded and the only centre dealing with autism in the area of Ramnicu Valcea. Studying psychology, this visit was very intersting for me as I already had courses about autism but never had met autistic people before. A worker from the centre gave us a tour through different therapy rooms, presenting different groups of children to us, who ranged between 2 or 3 years up to about 11 years. The groups also differed in the children’s type of autism, and so did the therapy. Some therapists were working on the children’s concentration through drawing or making simple crafts, others focussed on language, as some autists hadrly ever speak. We also saw a gymnastics room where the children can play and move to music during their therapy. There we encountered a little boy having the svant-syndrom. According to our guide, he was very gifted doing all sorts of calculations. At the end of the tour we all were sad for leaving.

Jana visits Ramnicu Valcae for Global Footsteps! Part 2!

2010-04-28T16:55:00.004+01:00

Second day, 15th March 2010
Irina picked me up in the morning and we went to her office in the municipality building. We had a short meeting with the deputy mayor to whom we presented Global Footsteps, the conference and the purpose of my stay in Valcea.
purpose of my stay in Valcea.

Most of the projects that exist are being implemented by the city council. The reason for this is, as I understood it, that it is very hard to get financial support for projects, as the country does not have much money. Therefore, many projects are funded by the European Union, because they can not get money from the state or the community. Getting these funds and running projects seems to be easier for a city coucil than for a private person.

Irina had chosen some projects, which are being run by the Social Department. So, after we met with the deputy mayor, we went to a meeting with the head of this department. The head seemed very interested in the charity, the conference and her department having the chance to participate in this network. She even called for an employee, a young woman called Simina, who spoke English very well and showed a great interest in representing the Social Department at Footstep 12.

Together with Simina, Irina and I went visiting a project realised by the Social Department. The IOANA centre gives support to homeless people and tries to make a normal life possible for them. The centre can host 21 persons, who share seven bedrooms à three beds. Every day, one meal is served. The project in EU-funded and has been opened 1,5 years ago – since then, 100 people have been enlisting the centre’s assistence and 62 have lived in the centre’s rooms. The stays are ment to be temporary, but there is no fixed time limit – the beneficials can stay until they have the possiblity to move to another place. People can also get medical, social and psychological help. A priest is coming to the centre several times a week and meets with the people. He also offers small loans if necessary and has been a great supporter of the centre since its foundation by donating books and other useful things. Unfortunately I could not meet him – this would have been very interesting. The centre tries to reintegrate the homeless people into the job market as well by offering help with job applications. At the centre we met the director of IOANA, who showed us around. She told us, that the centre had difficulties regaring financing and staff: As the payments for employees are very low, it is almost impossible to find specialists willing to work for them. In this moment, there is no psychologist and no nurse avaliable. She also showed a great interest in the conference and especialily in the type of work other centres in other linked communities are doing and how they are dealing with difficulties. We also met two people living in the centre and in the end were shown some pictures of homeless people taken in the moment of their arrival at the centre and after some time later – which made a great difference. As I understood, this centre is very important for the community as many people are poor and a great amount of them are living on the street. This is the only project in the area of Valcea to deal with homeless people’s problems.

After the visit to the IOANA centre for homeless people, we went to see an NGO, which does mainly environmental and youth projects. A friend of Irina’s is working for them. One of their last activities was a litter pick around Valcea, because litter is a very serious problem in Romania. Now they are trying to protect an old oak, which has historic importance for the community. Another future project could a small farm for endangered species in Romania. Apparently they have many good ideas, but a great lack of funds, which is a serious limit to their possibilities. The director told us that he would like to send a younger member of the NGO, being more receptive and open for those experiences than older people. He promised me to send a short overview of their projects and goals to me via email. Irina also told him about the charity shop in Cheltenham and he had the idea to open a similar shop in Ramnicu as well, selling products from the communities connected through GF. He would send the money back to Cheltenham. He also thought of sending some craft products from Romania to the FootSteps shop.

To end the day, Irina took me to a very very nice market, I could have taken about 100 pictures of all the farmer women selling there fruits and vegetables. Then I was brought back to my room and had a rest. In the evening, Irina came back to take me with her to her home for dinner.

Jana Eyssel visits Ramnicu Valcae for Global Footsteps!

2010-04-28T16:37:00.005+01:00

Jana Eyssel from Gottingen, a long time member of Global Footsteps and part of the Footstep 12 conference management team paid a visit to our Romanian link, here is the first of four reports on her Global Venture.

Morgan Phillips had asked me to help with organising the next Global Footsteps conference in Cadca, Slovakia, in August 2010. My job was to visit communties, which are part of the Global Footsteps network, to identify community capacity building projects and to invite project representatives to the forthcoming Footstep 12 conference. Therefore, I prepared myself to travel to Ramnicu Valcea, representing Romania in the Global Footsteps network. Irina Sandulescu, whom I knew from the Footstep 10 in 2005, was my contact person in Valcea and organised my stay on ground. She is working for the municipality and thus has a good knowledge of projects in her town. Before my departure, she presented me a list of projects, among which we hoped to find one or two, that could be part of the conference and the future network.

First day in Romania, 14th March 2010
After a very long ride on the coach from Leipzig to Romania, which took about 26 hours and served as a nice introduction to the country of my destination, since I was the only German on the trip and everybody spoke Romanian, I finally got off the coach in Sibiu. Irina's husband was in town and picked me up. Since we had to wait for Irina’s brother who would arrive a few hours later from Italy by coach, we went for a drink to the historic centre of the town.

Sibiu is situated in Transylvania and for a long time has been the centre of the Saxons living in Transylvania, or Siebenbürgen, as they call it. This German heritage is still apparent, for instance in the architecture. Some streets reminded me of old German villages, which seemed very paradox to me, as I was quite far away from home and was being prepared to discover a country and a culture very different from mine.

The town also hosts a great deal of sights and has an important cultural heritage. In 2007 it has been the European Capital of Culture and therefore the picturesque historic centre is very well renovated. To profit from our time in this nice place, we visited the Brukenthal Museum, which exhibits a large collection of paintings and beautiful furniture from the 18th century.

In the afternoon, having picked up Irina’s brother, we left Sibiu for Ramnicu Valcea. Irina had prepared dinner for us and later brought me to the room where I could stay during my days in Valcea.

Election Fever: HUSTINGS

2010-04-22T18:25:00.003+01:00

With Election Fever gripping the country I thought I'd turn this email into a blog post (I got permission)! It is from an intern at Oxfam and is all about the upcoming HUSTINGS in Cheltenham next week. Try and get along if you are about!

Hi,

May I introduce myself? I am Alison Shaw, currently working as an intern assistant political campaigner in the Oxfam South West Campaigns office. We are active on a range of campaigning issues seeking to work with many individuals, organisations, local communities and coalitions to promote our concerns to politicians, the media, activists and young people.

We form part of many coalitions, one of which is Ask the Climate Question. This is an initiative to make climate change a key issue for the 2010 General Election. It is organised by Oxfam, WWF, RSPB, Christian Aid, Tearfund, Greenpeace, CAFOD, Stop Climate Chaos & the Green Alliance. The campaign is focussed on key marginal constituencies, of which Cheltenham is one.

With the General Election fast approaching there are lots of events, debates and discussions happening across the country. You are invited to join us to Ask the Climate Question.

Your local hustings is on Tuesday 27^th April in Cheltenham

Time: doors open 7.00pm for 7.30pm start, 9.30pm finish
Location: The Sanctuary, St. Andrew’s United Reformed Church, Montpellier Street, Montpellier, Cheltenham GL50 1SP
Question time panel:
James Green – Labour Party
Martin Horwood – Liberal Democrat Party
Mark Coote – Conservative Party
Peter Bowman – UKIP Party

Come along to listen or ask your Prospective Parliamentary Candidates questions on climate issues.

To submit your questions email Roger James at rjames@oxfam.org.uk

News from Kosimbo

2010-04-14T13:26:00.006+01:00

We have just received some positive news from one of our linked projects 'Kosimbo' in our linked community of Kisumu in Kenya.

Margaret Kawala founder of Kosimbo will be representing Kisumu at the forthcoming Footstep 12 conference in Cadca Slovakia, in an email to us she tells us:

'Kosimbo projects are changing the faces and the mindset of our community. They know that a woman can do wonders when given a chance.'

The Kosimbo Women's and Orphans project was set up in the rural area of Kirindo on the shores of Lake Victoria. Its major aim is to provide basic primary healthcare for people in this marginalised community. This healthcare is currently given a few times a week from a temporary structure. Promised funds to allow the construction of a more permanent community dispensary and some permanent staff have yet to materialise from the Local Government pot. Kosimbo, is however making significant progress in other areas and Margaret remains positive:

Other doors are opening and people are getting treated in our temporary structure. We initiated an adult education class and it was very pleasant to see old and young women involved in different sporting activities during our district sports day held on 8th april.

We are partnering with the national library and at the end of this month we shall be given two hundred books to keep and we'll manage them so that people can get fair access to the books.This is a great achievement as more people and students will get a chance to read.

As more people understand that our work is actually benefiting a lot of people, they are beginning to offer their services, I believe that the library will really be of benefit to our people.

I'm really praying for more networks so that Kirindo moves from being a fishing village with girls getting married at 14 years and boys also going fishing at the same age to a community where our next doctors will come from.

I'm also happy to report that Plan Kenya wants to work with the youth and our youth department is soon to be registered.

Global Footsteps offers opportunities for individuals to travel to projects situated across our network of linked communities. Volunteers who choose to travel on Global Ventures have a unique experience, learn about the community they visit at a grass roots level, develop their professional skills and make a significant difference to the project they work with. There are many opportunities at Kosimbo from health and education through to construction and social work. In her latest email Margaret has expressed a particular interest in finding a volunteer child counsellor. If you think you could spare two weeks, two months or more to help make a difference in this beautiful but marginalised part of the world please get in touch with Global Footsteps co-ordinator Morgan Phillips via info@global-footsteps.org

[This of Global Footsteps member Aby Morley interviewing Margaret Kawala of Kosimbo was taken in summer 2009 during a Global Venture to Kenya, which you can read more about on earlier posts to this blog. If you would like to hear the interview in full please follow this link: Kosimbo Interview 2009]

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

2010-02-19T13:59:00.005Z

Dennis wasn't able to make it to our last 'book club' meeting, so he sent us his own reflections on the book, it is a fantastic review!

(A ‘Book Club’ reaction to Mitch Albom’s novel)

This extraordinary ‘adult Fairy Tale’* is remarkably stimulating in its treatment of a taboo subject – death. So readable and unconventional a biography – chronologically backwards and forwards at the same time – portrays with great honesty the life of Eddie, a fairground maintenance man, through the mundane and momentous events shaping his life.

It is a story of considerable novelty; a novel that dwells on the absolute virtues in a way that stirs the reader’s own perceptions of life, death and the after-life.

Inevitably, one’s own values and beliefs are challenged. To my mind heaven is in the realm of the imagination, (where Albom excels). Hell is in the realm of truth. It’s where all us are; trying to find our bearings. Eddie winds up in purgatory. It’s unfinished business since he’s inspired by the five most significant influences of his existence, but he ages again in the process. Does he in turn become a soothsayer? Or does he transmute yet again? Maybe that’s to be Albom’s sequel.

To my mind heaven as an after-life is a pipedream – a construct of our mystical mindset. The birds and the bees have no such inkling. Or do they? How would I know? I actually prefer the Hindu concept of returning as some other species, rather than the fantasy of dwelling with angels or their infernal counterparts.

In my life there have been major turning points and role models that I revere. Like Eddie, we are shaped by circumstance and the limits of our nurturer’s horizons. We are indoctrinated for our own good and that of society, but the handed-down mythology is for each new generation to confront. Our ultimate wisdom derives from one’s personal experience, learning through experimentation.

It is tempting to guess which personal forbears or compatriots, be they family or friend, familiar or foreign, would be among my five. Why only five? I’d appreciate the reflections of so many influences. Would Mac claimed that I killed him? He was run over when he should have been on the lead. And what would Bobby say to me? “Give us a kiss!”? As for our canary whose name I’ve already forgotten, would she still sing sweet arpeggios, having escaped the cage?

Heaven is a state of mind; the emotional pinnacle to which we are transported by some miraculous fusion ot all the senses in a perfect accord with all around. It is inspired by beauty, be it art, music, discovery, or a revelation that projects us beyond ourselves. Life after physical death is incredible, except insofar as the material of our physical being persists and the fact of our being endures within the consciousness of humanity. The Christian burial service declares ‘from dust to dust’ but life has two metamorphoses; from sperm to species and from species to spirit (and compost). I shall be drowned or buried, but never divined.

I use ‘adult’ in its original, innocent sense.

Mitchell Bomb (18/2/10)

Friends of Nowder

2010-01-26T09:24:00.004Z

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

2010-01-20T11:54:00.005Z

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

2010-01-18T16:22:00.003Z

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

Santa runs for Global Footsteps

2009-12-11T14:20:00.004Z

Howard Marshall pictured here, dressed as Santa, with Ania Standish, ran a half marathon in our linked community of Torun. Glenn Standish (our man in Torun) sent this short report:

Global Footsteps member Howard Marshall successfully took part in Torun's annual Santa Claus half-marathon (today is St Nicholas Day). Howard did very well at completed the 21km route in 2hrs 33 mins (a personal best for him...which is quite a feat considering he was wearing a full Santa outfit complete with white painted-on beard!).

Howard was running in aid of Global Footsteps. Thanks to all those who have sponsored him. And for those who haven't there is still time to sponsor!

A short film has been made of his run...and once we edit the raw material...Howard will no doubt show it to you all one evening. You can contact Howard to say well done at 07slr@tiscali.co.uk.

Well done Howard!!

Kosimbo Women's Clinic

2009-11-26T15:41:00.003Z

In June and July a team from Global Footsteps visited a volunteer run health clinic in a rural part of the Kisumu region of Western Kenya. The clinic was set up by a widow, Margaret Kawala, who wanted to make access to basic medical care easier for widows and orphans in her remote home village. Kosimbo volunteers managed to build a very basic medical centre, dig a borehole to gain access to fresh water, while also contributing to the building and running of the local school. When our team visited the project seemed to be operating well. But the need for more work and resources was clear. The health clinic needs to be open more often, the school needs books, pencils, uniforms, teachers and computers and more boreholes are needed so that people don't have to walk miles to fetch the dirty water of Lake Victoria.

Since July conditions have become more difficult for Kosimbo and life has become harder for the people of the village as a result. Crucial funds from the Kisumu Rural Community Development Fund have been diverted to other projects. Because of this and some other more troubling, deeper, cultural reasons Mrs Kawala has found it increasingly difficult to keep the project alive. She recently sent me the following email:

morgan,

how are you. i have not been myself for the last four months and was almost giving up on kosimbo widows group.
it has taken me a while to realise that this project was started with a purpose of helping the widows and our orphans.
It also took me time to realise that very few people appreciate a person interested in development and especially if the person is a woman and a widow . But this has given me the courage to be a stronger person and work hard for kosimbo to be able to improve the lives of the widows, ophans and needy in our community.
since i have not communicated for sometime, im not sure of the plans you have for kosimbo. i will give you an update after your reply.

thank you

margaret

On December 12th Global Footsteps is screening a documentary made during the June/July Global Venture. The Kosimbo project is featured and we will be giving a fuller update on the latest developments. You can get a sneak preview on youtube

Kosimbo is crying out for help and support, but more than anything it needs recognition. Kosimbo is in many ways a pioneering project and of huge value not only to those directly benefiting from its services, but also as an example for other villages to follow. Please send messages of support to Margeret and her team via: kosimbo@yahoo.com

Global Footsteps is an inter-cultural linking and sustainability charity. We very much encourage anyone who would like to travel to Kisumu to volunteer with the Kosimbo project. Whatever your skill set there will be huge amounts of things you can contribute.

Please email us on globalfootstep@googlemail.com for more details. Projects like Kosimbo need support from partners in the richer parts of the world, please offer what you can even if it is only kind words.

1st (proper) Global Footsteps Book Club meeting - 22nd October 2009

2009-11-04T20:35:00.002Z

Justine chaired our first (proper) book club meeting, below she describes

what happened!

"....sexually explicit language and imagery, deep dark thoughts,

suicide, grief, mental illness, political angst.... just some of the

things discussed during GF's first book group meeting - not in a

getting to know you session with it's new members you'll be happy to

hear but in relation to the first book read by the group and up for

discussion.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami is a deliciously discussable book as

we found out! Murakami is a Japanese author who has written many other

books that have quite a dream like quality to them. NW is essentially

about mental illness, the Beatles and is set in 1960's Tokyo covering

the highs of lows of student life For a full review please see

http://www.murakami.ch/about_hm/bookreviews/bookreview_norwegian_wood.

html There were mixed views in the group but it had seemed to have

successfully sucked all of us in as there were some quite strong

opinions expressed as we shared our thoughts, and the evening turned

into a most enjoyable one with some new friends made..

Here are some quotes from the book, which are typical of Murakami's

poetic prose:-

"You were so nice to me when I was having my problems, but now that

you're having yours, it seems there's not a thing I can do for you.

You're all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try

knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go

right back inside."

"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can

only think what everyone else is thinking."

"There is absolutely nothing to be gained from sleeping with one

strange woman after another. It just tires you out and makes you

disgusted with yourself."

"Only the dead stay seventeen forever."

"Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action."

"A gentleman is someone who does not what he wants to do but what he

should do."

"Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that as

the premise for everything else though. I'm going to give it hundred

percent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what I

don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and it things go bad,

I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an

unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit

your abilities to the limit."

"Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that."

"Letters are just pieces of paper. ... Burn them, and what stays in

your heart will stay, keep them, and what vanishes will vanish."

They are also making it into a film for autumn 2010 http://www.

slashfilm.com/2009/05/14/rinko-kikuchi-starring-in-film-adaptation-of-

haruki-murakamis-norwegian-wood/ and if you want to know more about the

author look at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/murakami/site.php?

id=

Looking forward to the next meeting on 3rd Dec where we will be

reading the Great Gatsby. See you there!

'Feel' by Joshua Sanger

2009-11-03T18:26:00.000Z

'Feel'

The rush kicks in.

Sound of step.

Leaves fall passed my eyes flowing rythem and wonder.

Measure life not by experience. Not by achievement. Certainly not by status.

By love.

Can you say you love?

Kissed by the most raw of moments.

I love.

From the front line of Climate Change

2009-11-03T16:38:00.003Z

In July Global Footsteps visited Kariandusi Primary School in Kenya. Karianduri is a school on the margins, located in the Rift Valley it suffers severely from drought which brings many other problems. I received a message from their headteacher, Aman Echakari together with some recent newspaper clippings. Very sobering stuff:

It has been many months of ravaging and devastating drought with dry bones and skulls attesting to the magnitude and severity of the drought, scores of people have been left hopeless, desperate and in a state of despondency ! Areas once inhabited have since been forsaken, deserted and left desolate! The bare grounds that once flourished with bounteous life and splendour has quickly turned into ominous plains of death.

Climate change is set to significantly and permanently change and alter the course of life for many parts of the world! Consequently many people will be forced out of their original homelands due to extreme weather conditions characterized by prolonged drought, famine, erratic rains, flooding, and rising water levels in the sea due to global warming.

As the stiff competition for the scarce and wildlife are set for a bloody confrontation and encounters! Cross-border conflicts are gaining momentum each day. Communities especially the pastoralist are up in arms against each other to protect and to exercise absolute control over water holes and grazing grounds. This like any other conflict has and will continue claiming lives and causing massive destruction of property thus subjecting and confining many in abject poverty. We are at the edge of being edged out by the rapidly expanding deserts and at the high risk of being swept into the ocean by the violent and turbulent floods.

We must act with urgency and move with speed to free our planet from the devastating effects of climate change. Our leaders must come down from their ivory tower of parochial politics and get intouch with the harsh reality facing those who have been devasted by the effects of climate change. They must listen to the cry of wailing women whose children have been swept away by floods! They must be moved by pictures of malnourished and starving children in Turkana Kenya. They must be TOUCHED by images of dead human bodies who had to die in conflict over scarce resources! They must be moved by pictures of women in Africa who have to walk for kilometers in search for water. Who have to risk their lives just for water!

As a school, we’ve started campaigns to sensitize the community on mitigation, measures to combat climate change. We are using public for a to create awareness. We’ve started a fish pond to teach local alternative source of income. We,re harvesting rain water and using it in tree planting. We are starting a tree nursery that will enable the community access seedlings at affordable price.

Thanks: WE MUST NEVER GIVE UP.

If you want to get some money to Aman's school please contact globalfootstep@googlemail.com and we will ensure it gets there.

1.42am 26th October 2009 'Dominic and Amel'

2009-10-27T13:14:00.002Z

I asked Josh Sanger to write something for our blog. He looked out the window and came up with this 'image'...

Timeless they sit.

The treacle tinted candlelight weeps sensation and moment.

Entwined together like antique beads in a bracelet.

An untold tale that needs no motive or narrative.

Collective?

This is the two.

The duo of notes twisted together to create Lou Reeds symphony.

Dedication.

Simple silence.

This is the place they belong. Still.

Amongst the chaos and mess of 'we'.

True beauty.

Retrofit Game

2009-10-22T12:13:00.005+01:00

The Empire State Building is getting a Green Retrofit at the moment. Our 'FootSteps building is also undergoing some sustainability inspired changes. Have a go at the Empire State Building Retrofit game! Click HERE to start!

Hint: Try dragging something you look through first!

'Friends of Nowder' meeting @ FootSteps

2009-10-09T17:18:00.003+01:00

We held a really excellent meeting here at FootSteps last night, to discuss the formation of a new charitable trust ‘Friends of Nowder’ which will operate in the UK to raise money for The HRA Foundation, a community capacity building project in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh. The HRA foundation was set up by Bangladeshi born Cheltenham resident Arosh Ali, a member of Global Footsteps; we have been working closely with him to develop the foundation.

As word has spread about the HRA several individuals have expressed an interest in finding out more. With this in mind Arosh Ali and Global Footsteps invited them all to FootSteps to enjoy some homemade ‘Curry with Love’ The meeting was intentionally informal with the aims of getting everyone acquainted with each other, The HRA and the proposed new charitable trust. Our guests shared experiences of Bangladesh and offered a lot of useful advice on positive ways forward for the HRA and ‘Friends of Nowder’. Cheltenham MP, Martin Horwood, a long time supporter of the project dropped in to confirm his backing of the project, it is hoped that he will agree to become the Patron of ‘Friends of Nowder’. Jerry and Sue Barr of Transition Cleeve who have both visited Bangladesh were very enthused by the project as were Professor Stephen Martin and his wife Maureen. Stephen and Maureen offered a lot of excellent advice and suggestions both in terms of what the project could achieve in Bangladesh and what needs to be done here in the UK to raise funding and profile. The meeting was also attended by Leo Guttridge, Mary Paterson, Dennis Mitchell, Nicola Oliver and Morgan Phillips from Global Footsteps who are all keen to be involved in the project.

The nucleus of a strong and experienced team seems to be evolving, arrangements are being made for a second meeting, this time in Broadway with James Powell when we hope to make further progress on the establishment of Friends of Nowder.

You can read more about The HRA FOUNDATION on our website

The Autumn Programme is nearly over!

2009-10-09T15:00:00.004+01:00

Our Autumn Programme here at 'FootSteps' is drawing to a close, it has been really successful, thanks to everyone who came along to our events! For the sake of posterity and so that we can all still access specific webpages below is the Autumn Programme that was. But, do not fear for when the Autumn ends winter begins and we have lots of things going on to get you through the colder months, please keep and eye on our events page:

Autumn Programme

Friday 28th August, 2009. 12.00pm - 11.59pm: Fundraising Event: Tour de Inner Ring Road @ 'Footsteps' and Cheltenham Inner Ring Road

Thursday 10th September 2009. 6.30pm - 8.00pm: Global Footsteps Gardening Community: Inaugural Meeting @ 'Footsteps', 16 Portland St, GL52 2PB

Thursday 17th September, 2009. 6.30pm - 8.00pm: Global Footsteps book club: Inaugural Meeting @ 'Footsteps', 16 Portland St, GL52 2PB

Friday 18th September, 2009. 4pm onwards: The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy Launch event (Invite only) @'Footsteps', 16 Portland St, GL52 2PB

Sunday 20th September, 2009. 7.30pm : Hiroshima!!! - Remembered; Revisited; Regretted? @ Friends Meeting House, Warwick Place, Cheltenham

Saturday 26th September, 2009. 4pm onwards: Positively 16 Portland Street: Totally unplugged music @ 'Footsteps', 16 Portland St, GL52 2PB

Thursday 8th October, 2009. 6.30pm onwards: Freinds of Nowder @ 'Footsteps', 16 Portland St, GL52 2PB

Thursday 15th October, 2009. 6.30pm onwards: Stitch and Bitch Club @ 'Footsteps', 16 Portland St, GL52 2PB

Thursday 22nd October, 2009. 6.30pm - 8.00pm: Global Footsteps book club @ 'Footsteps', 16 Portland St, GL52 2PB

The Eternal Ethic

2009-09-28T21:44:00.003+01:00

Below is an essay written by Global Footsteps founder Dennis Mitchell, it is titled 'The Eternal Ethic'

Life in 3D

Introduction

The ultimate privilege of existence is to be alive and conscious. Leading a full life as a human being requires the fusion of three imperatives:-

- to blossom personally,

- to live in harmony with others,

- to exercise prudent stewardship of the Earth for posterity.

The personal blossoming is a natural impulse and needs little introduction. The ‘living in harmony with others’ is rather more contentious including, as it does, competitors from both human and non-human life-forms. But it is the third imperative which is least considered since its only advocate is spiritual, informed via the human conscience.

The following reflection concentrates on this aspect, particularly in the light of the current crises engaging global attention.

“The eternal ethic”

The Earth’s Wealth

The virtue of the concept of money is that it facilitates the quantification of so-called goods in such a way that one can rate them to a greater or to a lesser extent in the regard that humanity gives to them. By harnessing the concept of proportionality, human beings can exchange alternative goods to their mutual satisfaction.

The actual valuations may vary considerably with time and depend on the circumstances and the attitudes of those conducting an everyday monetary exchange; i.e. the valuations are arbitrary – they have no foundaton in natural reality.

There was a time when money was related to a particular commodity – GOLD.

This gave a semblance of real worth but this, again, was an arbitrary convention adopted by humanity; meaningless to non-human life-forms.

In the current climate, both literally and metaphorically, carbon emission rating has the virtue of being a meaningul, quantifiable parameter in the wellbeing of all life forms on Earth. Trading in carbon emissions could prove a far better foundation for human transactions, especially if it is on an equitable per capita basis that could also encompass and allow for the sustainable requirements of an evolving natural world.

A start has been made on the transition from the current monetary fiction to one based on carbon emissions. It is complex in implementation and it may be that shortcomings appear which make it less than ideal. For instance, if fossil fuels continue to be used for energy generation, justified by the successful adoption of carbon capture and storage, the extent to which humanity consumes them may continue unabated or even accelerate, assuming the Earth’s temperature envelope can be stabilisied near current levels.

It is arguable that ancient fossil fuels may be exhausted in the matter of a few millennia and that this would be inequitable in regard to future generations of all life forms. The rationale here is that during a particular phase of Earth’s existence the Sun’s energy was converted to fossil fuels. In effect these became tantamount to an immense deposit in the Natural Bank. It is reckoned by leading scientists that some of this investment, the oil, will be exhausted within a few generations of humanity’s current lifestyles. Gas and coal are also finite and vulnerable within a millennia or so.

The total borrowing for current expenditure via these ancient deposits is said to be three times as much as the current revenue received from the Sun’s rays, and the borrowing rate is increasing.

Perhaps the foundation for the natural currency could indeed be the Sun’s energy, which provides a relatively stable annual revenue. That suggests that the imperative for humanity is to live and evolve within this limit shared fairly and taking account of non-humanity. The transition to such a system may be just as complex as would a transition to carbon emission quotas. Scientists may at least be able to come up with a figure for how much energy remains embedded in fossil fuels and how much annual revenue arrives via the sun.

The Human Component

Such commodities as energy are not the whole of the Earth’s wealth, simply one dimension of it. In evolutionary terms the Earth is worth far more than Mercury, Venus, (or Mars, etc..) on which the Sun’s rays also fall. There is value in the form of DNA and the whole inventory of genomes. Is this quantifiable? Should the life-forms living today be accorded worth in relation to the complexity and sophistication of their genetic make-up with humanity coming out on top? Should our payment for consumption be based on our intake of DNA? Questions for our distant successors, if any. Then there’s the whole enigma of rating humanity’s “intellectual property”.

(This particular rant is free, by the way).

It could be argued that perpetuating the evolutionary process is the greatest imperative of existence and the exhaustion of lifeless fossil fuels is simply a necessary phase; that the real story in life is survival of the fittest; that humanity has proved to be the most enterprising to date so its genome trumps all others. It deserves the rewards. Why share any wealth with inferior species? As to its intellectual property, maybe the invention of the concept of money has been its greatest achievment to date.

So, back to ‘Square One’, except to say that humanity is nothing if separated from its bio-diverse environment. Otherwise try living alone on the Moon, or Mars, without Earth’s sustenance.

So, though there may be inequality among species, humanity is dependent on other life-forms with which it is integrated. It cannot reasonably own them. Its attitude has to be one of prudent stewardship, conducted mindful of the ‘precautionary principle’.

Even a capitalist would have to adopt such an ethos. A socialist might well allow non-human life-forms a fair share of sunshine on its co-operative farms and national parks. A prudent ecologist would leave huge areas of the Earth as inaccessible to humanity and impervious to human influence.

Eternal Values

At some point in time the Sun will run out of energy. It will expand and consume the whole of the planetary system within its envelope, becoming a ‘red giant’. No doubt life on Earth will have expired long before that. It is comforting to suppose that an intervention by some supernatural being will have anticipated this risk and made provision. This cannot be depended on. It is ‘wishful thinking’ - a matter for prayer.

Other ‘outer space’ interventions, eg huge meteorite collisions with Earth, may well have ended life as we see it long before. Thus humanity’s existence, as we know it, is not eternal. It may well end before that of other Earthly life-forms.

There is an integrity to creation such that life forms are interconnected and interdependent, but no single life-form, so far as we know, is crucial to life. Certainly life on Earth could continue without humanity’s existence.

Whether humanity should ever care about life on Earth after its own extinction is a nice point. My view is that it should, if only so that there remains the possibility of new life forms emerging which, likewise, go on to develop consciousness, curiosity and imagination. They may then discover the large archive of knowledge effectively bequeathed by humanity. In that case, if life amounts to anything more than ‘the here and the now’, human life will not have been without eternal significance.

That way of looking at life and its evolution is altruistic. Suppose we take a more human self-interest approach whilst recognising that life on Earth is still evolving.

Since procreation, mutation, propagation and interdependency appear to be intrinsic to life on Earth, which is an evolving process, then humanity has a natural interest in caring for the well-being of all life on Earth of which it is an integral part. This is tantamount to an over-riding obligation of stewardship.

This attitude is reinforced in humanity, in contrast to other life forms, for several reasons:-

a) it has a rapidly expanding consciousness of self and of its relationship to the rest of existence;

b) it has the capacity to make the Earth virtually uninhabitable for life as we know it, were it so minded. In fact it is arguable that it is already doing this, inadvertently, via climate change and extinctions of other life-forms (possibly via unwitting genetic engineering too)

c) its own raison-d’etre relies on its natural urge to perpetuate its own species

d) it has a growing understanding of some of the threats to life on Earth, both within Earth, within the solar system and from so-called ‘outer space’.

e) it has curiosity, imagination and inventiveness to the point at which it can attempt to counter potential threats to the Earth, or at least to defer them, e.g. by deflecting an incoming meteorite that is heading along a collision course with Earth (or the Moon whose gravity pull can affect the Earth’s behaviour)

f) its archive of accumulated understanding of existence needs to be preserved and available to future generations for at least as long as there are conscious, sentient species surviving on Earth. Otherwise what is the point in eternal terms of human curiosity and discovery?

g) Finally, there’s the other humanitarian, conscientious principle of ‘those who make the mess should clear it up’.

So human self-interest demands continual stewardship. The integrity of creation, manifest in life on Earth, demands that such stewardship extends across all life forms. The extent to which humanity should be engaging in genetic engineering is more debatable. In this respect the operative obligation is one of absolute prudence – applying the precautionary principle in circumstances such that there can be no possibility of unforseen outcomes.

So, humanity’s role is to continue to blossom culturally, in line with the greatest ethical obligation conceivable being eternal stewardship. I term this “pefoloe” being the “Perpetuation of Evolutionary Flourishing of Life on Earth”.

AMEN!

Ethilogue

The most apparent immediate threat to Earth is that of Climate Change (according to most informed scientific opinion). The damage that could be wrought by an all-out nuclear war is also of major concern. The gradual extinction of other life forms and, potentially, the inadvertent negative consequences of genetic engineering may also raise alarms, as would the continued exponential growth in the population of humanity, especially if the existing mindset of ever-increasing material growth globally persists.

Let us assume that humanity does embrace the ethic of eternal stewardship and does not precipitate is own premature extinction through perverse behaviour. It would still be faced with outer space threats to life on Earth. How could such be delayed, if not avoided? It seems that we may arrive at yet another about turn – a moral justification for the use of nuclear-armed rockets to deflect an incoming meteorite. Maybe?. Currently, that’s fanciful. Future star-gazers may prophesy but scientists would need credible evidence before reaching for the nuclear button.

May humanity cross that bridge when it comes to it. By then we will all be ‘global citizens’. National military arsenals will be an aberration from the distant past.

It all begins with Step One whereby all nations emulate Japan. Having suffered the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan opted via Article 9 of its constitution never to fight a war again. So far, it hasn’t.

Dennis Mitchell (Sep 2009)

Gardeners Community

2009-09-10T21:05:00.002+01:00

We've just had the first Global Footsteps Gardener's community meeting and it was a really great success, so many ideas and so much enthusiasm for this!

As so much was discussed I think it’s best to keep to the main points and provide some (hopefully useful) links!

Arran and Tina came from the University and told us all about the Edible Garden project they set up on the FCH campus. You can find out all about it on this PDF file (it takes a while to load, but its worth it!) They told us that they need plenty of volunteers to help them keep the Garden going. In fact this Saturday (the 12th) they are building a compost area. Mary, who lives in a flat and came along tonight looking for some sort of community garden to be involved with will be going along to help out. Anyone else who wants to come along will be very welcome, please email Arran for more details: astibbe@glos.ac.uk

Melanie Hamm, who co-runs the group, told us all about her Garden (see photo) and shared her traumatic experience of trying to deal with Slugs. She has tried Beer traps, but found it very difficult, she has been wanting to avoid using slug pellets, but is having trouble finding a better alternative to staging a round the clock monitoring and removal by hand! Arran admitted that they had turned to organic slug pellets, which are really not too bad on the environment (well apart from the slugs) and have no negative impacts on the food chain above them.

A useful book Plants for a Future was mentioned. Another useful looking book on this subject is Plants for the Future

Dennis had some questions about Pond digging. According to Arran it is a good idea to have at least one part of the pond over a metre deep, so that frogspawn can be free from frost in the winter. Dennis had trouble with losing water from the pond as he had been unsure how to line in properly. He has resolved to have another go and the Gardeners group were quick to volunteer some help to 'Dig for Dennis and Beryl's Pond', we'll be setting a date for one weekend soon anyone who wants to help out please get in touch!

At the edible garden they used Geotextile and Butyl rubber to line their pond, apparently it is important to have an overlap of 2 metres for the lining!

Some ideas for the future:
1. Invite Mike Bush to talk about Permaculture

2. Invite Rowan Middleton to talk about Biodynamic principles

3. Pay a visit to an allotment in Cheltenham to understand better how they work and to dispel some of the myths surrounding things like waiting lists!

4. Visit some local 'open gardens'

5. Work out a way to exchange vegetables and plants through the Global Footsteps group.

We'll soon be posting details of the next Gardeners event, please keep an eye on the website for more details or email us on globalfootstep@googlemail.com

Email from Karianduri School

2009-08-05T11:46:00.005+01:00

While on our Global Venture to Kenya we visited Karianduri School in the Rift Valley. It was a special place to be and is one of the enduring memories of the venture. I have just received a very nice email from Karianduri headteacher, Anam Echakari, which I thought I'd share with you:

Dear Morgan,

Thanks a lot for finding time to be with us. It was such a great pleasure and privilege to have you in our school. And for the brief moment you interacted with us you lit our hearts with hope and confidence.

When we look at the world around, our hearts writhe and groan in pain. The devastating effects of global warming and the impacts of climate change have wrecked and altered the course of lives for scores.

Food security, water security, vanishing habitats, rapid spread of diseases, escalating carbon emissions and shrinking water levels is an is an eminent sign that our planet is under siege.

From a tiny remote village remote in Africa to the modern and sophisticated city in Europe, we are all under threat of extinction ! And unless, there is a concerted effort by all and Sundry to reverse this phenomena, we and those who will come after, may not have a place to inhabit.

Thanks a lot for what global footsteps is tenaciously doing to alleviate these global challenges by sharing knowledge and information and offering practical solutions to some of these endemic problems, I am confident that communities will essentially be transformed the ruined live & livelihoods be restored. This may involve huge sums of money, but what will finally be achieved is priceless.

We are joining your caravan as we go round the world campaining by playing an active in tree planting initiatives, carrying out environmental education communities respond with tenacity.

We have already started a tree nursery that we expect to generate 10,000 seedlings annually. We are also in the process of recycling waste paper as a mitigation measure against waste.

Thanks a lot for your kind donation of Kshs. 2,000. This will go towards purchasing tree seedlings . This of course will be a footstep that you will be able to trace even after a very long time.

I wish you all the best in your endeavours!

Thanks a lot.

Anam Echakari

Donating £20 to a school to help them plant some trees does feel a little bit like, as Sean Locke puts it, turning up to an earthquake with a dustpan and brush, but it all helps and if we all give it a bit it adds up! If you want to get some money to Aman's school please contact globalfootstep@googlemail.com and we will ensure it gets there.

Rites of Passage

2009-08-05T09:50:00.002+01:00

Here is another post from Howard following the latest Global Venture:

Death is reflected in different ways depending on the cultural & religious practices unique to that community.

In Kenya funerals of the Christian religions take place on Saturdays.

Priests both Roman Catholic & Anglican travel the length of the country to bury their dead in the place of birth or their home town on a Saturday.

When interviewing priests of both the Catholic & Anglican faiths the concept of cremation & burial in municipal cemeteries is usually unheard of. They couldn’t understand why funerals in Europe take place on weekdays. To them Saturdays is the most convenient day as people are less likely to be working on a Saturday. They were also very disapproving of cremation that is standard practice in most parts of Europe.

Apart from the Sikh & Hindu community cremation is unique to them and not normally practised by other religions including Christianity.
The Kenyan people have a very matter of fact approach to death & there way of dealing with it is very different to that of European traditions.

The death of a loved one is very much a fragmented (DIY) Do it yourself arrangement. Unlike in the United Kingdom where a funeral director takes care of all the arrangements.

On weekdays in the local market you will see carpenters making coffins along the roadside. A practice unheard of in many parts of the western world.

On Fridays the municipal mortuaries are open to the public to collect their loved ones. However there is a restriction. If the family don’t have the money to pay the mortuary fees they are charged rent for each successive day the deceased remains in the mortuary. This often means they cannot be buried the following Saturday as planned.

Having overcome the obstacle of mortuary fees and your loved one being released from municipal refrigeration the process is still very complicated.

Whilst in Kisumu I witnessed many systems of primitive carriage for the conveyance of a coffin. Two of these included balancing a coffin on the crossbar of a bicycle or using a beer crate trolley. One of the priests I spoke to said it was not unusual to put the deceased on the roof rack of a car. For those that can afford it a hearse may be hired. An African hearse is not the same as we are accustomed to in Europe. Very practical they will use a Ford transit van. The seats are removed on one side to accommodate the coffin with the family sitting in what remaining seating space is available alongside.

Death is always a very emotional time for those intimately involved. It is very important that this taken into consideration by those directly & indirectly taking part. My experience in Kisumu was that the selling of a coffin was no different to the person on the next market stall who may be selling fruit & vegetables.

However in a country that is very poor materially they remain very strong in their Christian Faith. The African people approach death in a way that most Europeans couldn’t cope with. This is to their credit and shows how much we take for granted in the Western World.

Despite them being poor we have a lot to learn from them in a very materialistic world. What is important is that they never give up on their faith. They are very strong people both physically & spiritually.

Howard Marshall. Kisumu, Kenya. June/July 2009.

Visit To St. Lukes Parish

2009-07-14T19:58:00.003+01:00

This blog is a little late, but better late than never! Its entirely my fault that it is late, but it is well worth a read....

Tuesday 07th July 2009

Visit To St. Lukes Parish, ACK, Manyatta, Kisumu, Kenya.

This morning I visited St. Lukes Church, Manyatta, where I was shown around the Parish & his Archdeaconary by the Pastor Canon Shadrick Jackim Owour.This was quite an eye opening experience as the Parish is in quite an impoverished slum area of Kisumu. Canon Owour s Parish was close to the epicentre of post election uprising of 2007. Only 100 yards from his church are the destroyed ruins of homes occupied by members of the Kikuyu Tribe.Despite the trouble church services still took place during that time of unrest. Many people could not get to church due to road blocks. At the same time time the Vicar could not always get out of the Vicarage to visit his parishoners for the same reason. When I interviewed Canon Owour later that morning it was quite horrifying what he saw and many experienced during that time of unrest. He and his wife kindly put people up in the vicarage who had lost their homes for their own safety as well as providing them with a place of shelter.

Outreach Projects.

Many of the roads around Kisumu are dirt tracks so Canon Owour showed me around the Parish in his much needed 4X4 vehicle. A lot of the communitities are not in the most accessible places and cannot afford transport to the main church at St. Lukes. As a result they have a number of Mission Areas where they are building churches accessible to the local community they intend to serve. I was shown 2 of these projects.

Herald Church.

This church when completed is in a rural area on the outskirts of Kisumu, close to where the post election violence took place. It is uncertain when the project will be completed due to funding. The churchs current structure consists of wooden uprights that supports a corrugated metal roof.

Riat. ACK Church.

This church is situated on higher ground with a scenic view of Lake Victoria in the distance. We were met by the Church Warden who lives nearby. He showed us the ambitious architects plans for a new church building on this site. Due to many factors including funding this project will be ongoing and will probably not come to fruition in many of our lifetimes. It appears to be a long term project. The existing church is a mud hut with a corrugated metal roof, which although functional is not ideal in the long term.I get the impression that people like churches, particularly in many of these rural areas as they bring small communities together. It doesnt matter what their religious beliefs are they often look upon the church as a source of help and support as well as being the focal point of that small community.

Howard Marshall.

The Rotary Relief Fund Kisumu

2009-07-08T11:57:00.006+01:00

Yesterday afternoon, Alice, Aby and I met up with some people from the Rotary Club in Kisumu...

Tuesday 7th July

It was another busy day today, we met in town before heading over to see an old friend of our very own Dennis Mitchell, Sat Jobanputra at his beautiful home in Kisumu town centre. He moved into this house when it was built in 1937. He told me how the city had changed dramatically in the proceeding years. Kisumu sprang into existence in 1901 when the British completed the Mombassa – Nairobi – Kisumu railway, built to link the Indian Ocean to Africa’s biggest water body, Lake Victoria. The Lake is the origin of the great River Nile and Kisumu is on its coast. Mr. Jobanputra was born here and told me that during his lifetime the population has risen tenfold from 50,000 to 500,000. He has watched it spread outwards as more and more people arrive here from the surrounding rural areas in search of work. What they find is a difficult life, over 50% of the people live in slums or shanty towns, some of the poorest in Africa. Although the city centre, at the moment, is coping with the volume of vehicles here, it is surely only a matter of time before it becomes as gridlocked as Nairobi (or London!)

Mr. Jobanputra, now retired, used to be an active member of the Rotary Club in Kisumu. We wanted to know what the Rotary Club had done here in response to the Post Election Violence in late 2007. He took us to meet an American couple Dan and Patty Schmelzer at their home in Kisumu town centre. Dan and Patty are heavily involved with the Rotary Club here and were instrumental in the Rotary relief project that was launched in the wake of the post election violence. The relief project is ongoing and utilises the US $20,000 fund they accumulated from around 20 different organisations, of which Global Footsteps was one. Dan reported to us what they have achieved. They spent the money in three key areas. 1. Emergency food relief, 2. Provision of medical services, 3. A peace initiative.

1. Food: Four local volunteers went into the slum areas to uncover individuals and families who were badly effected and were on the brink of starvation. They helped around 1,200 people to stave off hunger
2. Medicine: Two medical camps were set up in the rural areas to help people needing basic treatment for illnesses and injuries. On top of this they funded life saving operations for people who were very badly injured during the violence.
3. Peace: A headline grabbing and very effective initiative was set up by Rotary to promote peace in the city. They wanted to spread a message of peace and settled on an innovative way of doing it. Rather than spending money on billboards they decided to approach the local 'boda boda' bike taxis. A boda boda is a push bike with a seat on the back for a passenger who pays around 30 pence to travel a distance of around 2-3 kms in the city centre. Rotary decided that they would make t-shirts with the slogan 'Peace begins with me' and they distributed them gradually to 1000 boda boda cyclists who wore them as they travelled around town carrying passengers. This made the cyclists themselves committed to the peace movement and their enthusiasm rubbed off on the other residents of the city. Rotary gave the cyclists small financial incentives to keep wearing the t-shirts which facilitated the good will between them.

As an extension to the boda boda peace initiative Rotary helped the wives of the cyclists to set up businesses. They did this through a micro-finance initiative as a Small Micro Enterprise Programme (SMEP). This has been very successful and continues to grow as women take out and pay back loans of increasing size to grow their businesses from side of the road shacks to down town shops.

Rotary has spent $10,000 of the $20,000 originally donated, the focus has now shifted to sustainable long term development. Through the SMEP they are helping environmentally and socially sound businesses to start up and grow.

Dan has promised to send us an interim report, when he does I will ask permission from him to publish it on our main website.

Dan and Patty also run Capstone Ministries Child and Family Restoration Outreach in Kisumu, please visit their website: http://www.capstoneministries.org/

The Tungari Youth Project

2009-07-08T11:50:00.003+01:00

On Tuesday morning we visited a volunteer run mobile HIV testing service on the fringes of one of Kisumu's slum's.

Tuesday 7th July - Morning

On Tuesday morning we went off to meet my host, Shamsia Nuru, who volunteers for a HIV testing organisation. The Tungari Youth Project is a mobile HIV testing service. Each day 6 stations are set up on the fringes of Kisumu’s slum areas and people voluntarily arrive to be tested. Shamsia told us how it was often difficult to encourage people to come to be testing, a combination of fear, shame and lack of awareness means that the testers (there are around 5 at each station) usually fail to meet their target of 10 tests a day. Shamsia and her colleagues are all volunteers, they are trained on how to use basic testing kits and how to counsel those who test positive and give information to those who test negative on how to stay infection free. The results are almost instantaneous and those who test positive are referred to a doctor immediately so that they can begin treatment as soon as possible. The testing kits are very expensive, it costs over 1000 Kenyan Shillings (about £10) to test each person. The money is raised by a charity in Atlanta in the USA.

At present around 300 people are tested each day across the 6 stations, so far they have tested around 35% of the population, they aim to increase this to 80% by the end of 2010, they need more money. HIV is a huge problem here, it spreads rapidly because of prostitution, the tendency for men and women to have polygamous marriages, the lack of awareness about whether one is infected or not, the reluctance of men to use condoms and the generally low levels of personal hygiene. There is a campaign at the moment for males to be circumscribed as this reduces the chance that they can contract and pass on the infection, it is a difficult campaign because men do not like to do it. The traditional methods of circumcision sound brutal, they involve a machete, a big stone and a lot of blood. These methods are still in practice in some rural areas around Kisumu but men are now given the opportunity to have the operation using modern hygienic methods.

Last week Shamsia and her colleagues has been on a course to train them in how to go door to door in the slums to try to encourage people to take tests in the privacy of their own homes. I'm sure this will make a big difference to the amount of tests they can get done. It is sure, however, to be much harder work for the volunteers, but they seem to be a determined and committed team so I am hopeful they will succeed and make a big impact on the lives of the people of Kisumu.

Monday in Kisumu

2009-07-08T11:47:00.002+01:00

We spent the whole of Monday in Kisumu meeting various people, below is a report

Monday 6th July

The first appointment on Monday was a meeting with the Mayor of Kisumu at the town hall. Howard had collected letters from the Mayor of Cheltenham, Lord Surgener and Lord Nigel Jones and we passed them to the Mayor. He very graciously received them and presented us with a Kisumu plaque for us to pass onto his counterpart in Cheltenham. He was encouraged by the letters we had delivered and told us how happy he was to see people connecting at a grass roots level. He did, however, tell us that he was disappointed that Cheltenham seems to have fallen behind its other linked cities in Germany, Sweden and the USA. He hoped that the links between Kisumu and Cheltenham will be revitalised at a Civic level in the future and will write to the Mayor of Cheltenham to express this optimism.

After our meeting with the Mayor we headed in an old seven- seater Peugot matatu to Kisumu airport. We had an appointment with the Meteorological department. We were hoping to get some insider opinion on the impacts that climate change is having in this region. We spoke with the Deputy Provincial Director for Meteorology – Berike Arera. He was very cagey not allowing us to record the conversation, he explained that he was only willing (or allowed) to discuss the data collected in Kisumu. He could not talk about climate change or long term trends and even though we pushed him quite hard he would not speculate on what the weather might do in the next few years. They are not involved in prediction.

He did explain to us however the traditional pattern in the weather here. Kisumu is almost on the equator, but this does not mean the weather is the same all year round. The weather here is affected by weather patterns in other parts of the world as these effect the winds converging or not at the equator, winds that bring in moisture from the Indian Ocean. Kisumu usually has a Long Rains season during April, May and June during which it can expect to receive around 50-70mm / day of rainfall. It then has a Short rains season in October and November. The temperature drops a little during these periods, at all other times it is hot and dry. Arera told us that in recent years there has a dramatic reduction in rainfall during both of the rainy seasons, he said that last year was below average and this year was lower again. This is a big concern as this is not a part of the world that copes well with drought conditions. When there is little rainfall crops fail and people get hungry, it is as simple as that. All around Kisumu we have seen evidence of this, there are fields full of failed Maize crops and the news is full of stories about predicted shortfalls in other crops.

Our day on Monday ended with a dramatic thunderstorm which lasted for around 2 hours bringing much needed rain. The wise residents here collect rainfall from their roofs when it falls. They use this ‘grey’ water to flush toilets and water any plants they may have in their compounds. Aby’s host, Michael, uses this water for his paper making business. This was the first serious rainfall we have experienced since we have been in Kenya, it was certainly very refreshing.

Churches

2009-07-06T14:42:00.002+01:00

Yesterday Howard and I experienced Christian Church services here in Kisumu. Howard attended St.Lukes (which is twinned with his own St. Lukes church back in Cheltenham) and I accompanied Edwin Ochieng (Chairman of Kisumu Links and sister cities) at St. Stephens Cathedral in Kisumu town centre. Both churches were very well attended, there were around 400 people at St Stephens, several sat or stood outside listening to the service via loud speaker!The services here are much longer than back home, both of them lasting over 3 hours! As guests of the church we were both invited to say a few words to the congregation. I was only made aware of this the night before (just before going out for a few social drinks) but I had a feeling it might happen so had been giving it some thought. I have been reading Barack Obama's first book: 'Dreams from my father' (his father is from this region of Kenya) and there is a part in it (pages 292-293) which I thought would be worth drawing on. I thought I'd type up what I said here as it definitely captures how I feel about Kisumu and Kenya.

Hope

I want to talk about an inspiring man and a passage from his inspiring book: "Dreams from my father" by Barack Obama. In this passage he talks about hope. He is reflecting on a sermon he heard when he was working as a community organiser in one of Chicago's most deprived neighbourhoods. He writes this:

The title of Reverend Wright's sermon that morning was "The Audacity of Hope." He began with a passage from the book of Samuel - the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting titled 'Hope'.

"The painting depicts a harpist," Reverend Wright explained, "a woman who at first glanceappears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.

Obama continues to quote the Reverend as he relates the story to the troubled Chicago neighbourhood Port-Au-Prince:

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-Au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere... That's the world! On which hope sits!"

What Obama is saying is that despite the problems we might face: hunger, deprivation, depression, pain, poverty, hardship and the greed of others; despite all these things we can always hope. The Reverend Wright ended by talking again about the painting:

"And yet consider once again the painting before us. Hope! Like Hannah, that harpist is looking upwards, a few faint notes floating upwards towards the heavens. She dares to hope... She has the audacity... to make music... and praise God... on the one string... she has left!"

Kenya is so very different to the UK. Kisumu is so very different to Cheltenham. Kenyans need to find that audacity Obama is talking about, the audacity of hope. They need to stand above all of the difficulties they face, big and small and hope and believe that they can overcome them. I've been here for two weeks and seen many, ma ny problems, from accidents that happen to cyclists because they have no reflective clothing, lights or helmets to major problems caused by the changing climate and global warming. If I was a leader, at any level, here in Kenya I think I would be overwhelmed by this and not know which problems to address first.

What I do know is that I, like President Obama, would be optimistic, I would hope. There are enough people in this wonderful country who are committed to postive change, enough people who look outward rather than in, enough people to have the audacity to hope.

I am only the leader of a small charity, Global Footsteps. We are based in Cheltenham in the UK, but we have members all across the world, some of them are here today. We exist to link communities and people together to promote intercultural understanding and environmental education. We do this through holding international youth conferences every other year and by linking schools, charities, community organisations and churches. I hope that we can link this church with one of a similar size in Cheltenham. And I hope that by doing this both Churches will benefit as they learn from and help each other.