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.’

Can you host students from China this summer?

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

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

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!

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 2!

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.

News from Kosimbo

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]

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

Email from Karianduri School

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.

Environmental Education, Elsamere style!

Our last full day at Elsamere. Today St. Clare’s Secondary Girls School visited Elsamere. 55 girls in total arrived in two shifts (their 2 minibus did shuttle runs). It was great to watch Cliff Barkatch, our host, in action. Following on from a screening of ‘Born Free’ Cliff told the story of Joy Adamson, she was an inspirational woman. After that it was up to me to give a lecture on ‘Environmental Education’. I’d spent the previous evening frantically hashing together something relevant to say. In the end I talked about the need for us to explore the drivers of our behaviours, explaining how in the UK, our consumer obsessed society is driving climate change because of the over emphasis we place on the sign value of commodities. Climate change is observably having an effect here, now. We are on the shore of Lake Naivasha and there is clear evidence that the water level is falling. This is due to the extraction of water for agriculture, particularly to feed the 40 or so flower farms that flank the lake. While it is true that the flower farms are removing water too quickly in a classic case of ‘the tragedy of the commons’, the lake is also not replenishing itself because the rain is not coming. It is very possible that the droughts suffered in this region over the last two years are the result of climate change. This climate change is the result of the activities of Western cultures.

After a break for lunch and a boat trip, the girls gathered again in the main hall to be taught by Cliff about Natural resources. There is clearly awareness among the pupils of St Clare’s about environmental issues. They have developed a campaign of giving out green ribbons (similar to the ones used to raise awareness of aids and breast cancer) to encourage people to think about conservation and adaption to the changing climate. There is a large emphasis here on tree planting, to commemorate the visit of St Clare’s Cliff instructed a few of the girls to plant a tree in the grounds of Elsamere.

During the evening I headed out on a short bike ride, a mile or so down to the gates of Oserian (one of the biggest flower farms) and back. On reaching the gates of Elsamere I met Howard and walked with him up to the nearby township, in search of beer. Townships such as this have sprung up, completely unplanned, all around Lake Naivasha. Everyone was very friendly, the children, parrott fashion, all asked ‘how are you?’ as we walked passed them, not all of them were smiling and you can see why. The paths were rutted, sewerage spilled out onto the street, there is no running water and will probably never be any electricity. As soon as we left the main road we were met by Salom who enquired what we were after. ‘Beer’. He led us up through the very tight knit community until we eventually reached a small bar. We bought 6 bottles of Tuska and thanked him for his help before he led us safely back down to the road. When he’d met us he’d left his bike leant up against a shop front, advising me to bring mine with me. On returning he pointed at his bike saying ‘nobody will take it, I am a big man round here!’

Flower Farms

Below Alice Matthews writes about a varied Friday on the shores of Lake Naivasha

Friday 26th June

Surrounding Lake Naivasha, and Elsamere, are flower farms and this morning we had the opportunity to visit one. As the lake is decreasing, from lack of rain, but is still needed by the local people for their crops, we were interested in how the flower farms were using the water effectively. It seems slightly unfair that the farmers have thriving crops of flowers when the locals do not have enough water to grow crops, or feed themselves.

The farm that we visited was a ‘breading’ farm, which means that it creates new types of rose and then gets royalties from people who plant crops of them. They change the colours and strength of scent of the roses by mixing existing types together. Each new batch of flowers is given a number, which the farm keeps, and a name, which can be used freely. We were told that they have a watering system that only gives the flowers a tiny amount of water, enough to survive on. Any extra water is collected back up, topped up with fertiliser, and fed back to the plants. It is an efficient but expensive system that was in use, and although other farms, and Lake Nivasha, would benefit from it, most cannot afford to install it all in one go. Unfortunately we were not shown where the waste water is put, outside some of the other flower farms are ditches of dirty water.

The working conditions in the farm seemed good, although we were only allowed to visit one of the many plant houses, and although it was hot the workers seemed relaxed and the place was very clean. It is likely that not all of the plant houses are as pleasant. Unfortunately the wealth from the flower market does not seem to be making its way to the locals, only the owners (there were two expensive cars in the drive). The closest village to the farm was made of corrugated iron ‘shacks’ and was highly underdeveloped. Apart from the farms creating jobs for local people, they appear to have little interest in the area, or the protecting of its resources.

On leaving the flower farm, Cliff was keen for us to see a local snake farm. The place was not quite as we had expected and consisted of a few huts on the side of the road, but at 100 shillings each we couldn’t complain! The owners had caught many species of snake from around Nivasha and Aby and I were allowed to hold a small one. They also got out a Python and were keen for us to touch it. The Kenyans seemed to be more scared than the English! On the drive back to Elsamere we saw many giraffes on the side on the road, some of them were incredibly close. There were also warthogs and zebra. We noticed that some farmers have started to dig irrigation ditches from the lake, which is disliked by the locals, and Morgan and Howard interview Cliff about the effects.

Karianduri Primary School

This afternoon we visited Karianduri Primary School that is situated on a slope overlooking Lake Elementatia in the Rift Valley. On the drive there we saw one of several hundred refugee camps set up by the Red Cross to house families forced from their homes during the post-election violence in December 2007. Anam Echakari, head teacher at Karianduri later told us that up to 30,000 people are still stuck in these camps, surviving off rations from the Red Cross. There are regular outbreaks of diseases such as Cholerea and conditions such a Pneumonia during rainy periods. Fortunately for the inhabitants of these camps the ‘long rains’ which usually fall in Kenya between Marc h and June have failed to arrive in the intensity that is usually expected. This, however, is unfortunate for the region as a whole as was exemplified by what we learned and saw at Karianduri.

Karianduri is a rural primary school, children walk up to 7km to attend, in total there are around 500 people in the school, crammed into classes which vary in size between 30 and 70 pupils, many sitting tightly together at small desks. Karianduri, is fortunate to be led by a forward thinking Head teacher. Anam Echakari is a tall young man in his thirties, he dresses very smartly and carries a great deal authority in his school and in a positive and caring way. Following training at Elsamere and his own awareness of the acute environmental problems of drought, desertification and deforestation that effect this region, Anam has made it his mission to promote environmental conservation, not only in the school but in the entire community. The failings of the long rains are of great concern here; dust is continuously thrown up from the land by vehicles, animals, humans and small gusts of wind. Anam told me how difficult it is for people to grow crops here and graze animals, hampered not only by the lack of water, but also by the more serious impacts of soil loss.

The environmental education delivered by Anam is very much in the category of mitigation. The children here need to learn how to cope with the impacts of climate change, it is directly effecting them today and will only worsen as the impacts of global warming continue to reek havoc on fragile impacts such as those found here in the rift valley.

Aman has begun a project of tree planting on the land belonging to the school, he plans to grow a ‘forest’ of around 20 yellow barked acacia trees for each class in the school. The Yellow barked Acacia is native to the region and will help bind the soil together on the slopes surrounding the school and slow down rainwater run-off. Aman continuously reinforces the need to do this amongst his pupils encouraging them to grow trees on the lands surrounding their home. Listening to the pupils, it seems that the message is sinking in. Cliff, our host at Elsamere, promises to bring the pupils from this school to Elsamere to further their environmental awareness, it can only be a good thing!

In the UK the impacts of climate change seem a long way off, either into the future or in some far off land. Standing in this school, seeing the efforts being made to preserve life here by a committed and passionate teaching staff, brings both emotions of hope and despair. As I walked away I was fighting back the tears as the realisation that the future of this dramatic and beautiful place is not really in the hands of those who inhabit it. Climate Change will force them away from here, taking with them the wildlife, the lakes, the traditions, the languages and eventually the memories. They will do their best to cope and survive here for as long as possible, as will the rest of Kenya, but the sadness, for me lay in the knowledge that their fate has been pre determined by centuries of Western industrialisation.