OPEN LETTER: Friends of Kisumu Link - An appeal.

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.

Global Venture to Bangladesh

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

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

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

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

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

Friends of Nowder

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

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

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

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

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

by Morgan Phillips, Global Footsteps Co-ordinator

'Friends of Nowder' meeting @ FootSteps

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