Exceptional Lives

One Wild Life- Coming in April

2009-03-28T15:03:00.004Z

One Wild Life, published by The Collins Press, will be on shelves in bookshops nationwide in early April.

I now blog at: www.claremulvany.com/blog

Some Updates

2008-11-04T16:06:00.002Z

It has been a while, and this blog has been very silent. But life, thankfully, has not been silent. I am delighted to announce a few developments.

Book:

A book of my travels entitled 'One Wild Life- A journey to discover people who change our world', is due to be published in April 2009. The book will include extracts from this blog, full colour photographs and interview transcriptions selected from my travels. The Collin's Press are the publishers and I am delighted to have this opportunity to work with them to promote the stories in these wonderful social entrepreneurs. The book will be available nationwide in Ireland, and for purchase on the web. More updates soon...

Travels back to Uganda:

In July of this year, I returned to Uganda for a month, to revisit some of the social entrepreneurs I previously met, and also to do some further photography work. A series of those articles and images were published on SpunOut.ie

(Thanks to the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund who supported this work)

Arising out of that trip, I had an opportunity also to spend time with Hospice Uganda- a palliative care organsiation whose work I first came across through my good friend, Dr. Ita Harnett. I spent two days with Hospice, photographing their work. The images, I am glad to report, are now being used to promote the great work of hospice, and an exhibition of images will be displayed at Hospice Africa Ireland’s launch in Dublin later this month.

(photos from my trip can be viewed on my flickr account here

New Social Entrepreneurs Awardees announced by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland:

The 2008 Annual Social Entrepreneur Ireland awards were announced last week in Dublin.
I continued my ‘WDYDWYD?’ series of portraits for SEI, which can be seen on the main page of their website and were displayed at the award ceremony.

Suas:
Suas continues to grow and expand. I was involved in designing an exhibition to celebrate the work of the 2008 Suas volunteers, which was held in Dublin’s Royal College of Physicians. Taking ‘Education’ and ‘Partnership’ as the central themes, the exhibition incorporated elements of jigsaws, magnetic letters, blackboards to convey a sense of creating new educational pictures for Suas’ partners overseas through the work of the volunteer programme.

Relaunch and revamp.
Spring clean is coming late this year. But this blog and topics are undergoing some transformation… watch this space for further updates.

Until soon,

Clare.

June 12th is World Day Against Child Labour

2008-06-11T17:01:00.001+01:00

Approximately 218 million children worldwide are involved in child labour. That is about 14% of 5 to 17 year olds globally, or roughly one in seven children. It is simply too many.

To raise awareness of the issue, and to promote schooling as the right alternative, Concern has launched www.tinypickers.com, the website of a fictional company which is being investigated due to their suspected use of child labour.

As Concern’s site explains:

‘Concern's Stop Child Labour campaign wants you to help give children back their childhood and give them the opportunity to go to school.

So next time you pick up a bar of chocolate, a pack of coffee, or a cotton t-shirt, ask your retailer if the product contains traces of child labour.

Because at the end of the day, any product made using child labour, no matter what it looks like or what price it is, will leave a bad taste in your mouth’

It is an innovative campaign, and certainly one very powerful message.

Free Film Screeings- Moving World

2008-06-03T13:00:00.002+01:00

(taken from the Irish Film and Television Network website (IFTN)- I saw two shorts last week from the initiative, which were really interesting... )

A series of free film screenings and workshops on the themes of migration and dislocation is taking place in Dublin as part of the Moving Worlds: Cinemas of Migration Film Season from 22nd May – 10th July 2008.

‘Moving Worlds’ is an initiative of FOMACS (Forum on Migration and Communications, DIT) in partnership with Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, the Instituto Cervantes, Goethe Institut and Austrian Embassy. The film season aims to highlight comparative stories of migration and transcultural film production.

Films set to screen include Robert Rae’s ‘Trouble Sleeping’, on 5th June, which tells the story of a group of refugees, one of whose survival depends on the revelation of a friend’s closely guarded secret. Director Robert Rae will be present at the screening along with Helen Trew, Community Producer, and Ghazi Hussein, scriptwriter, to introduce the film. Rae will conduct a workshop on collaborative filmmaking from on 6th June from 10 am – 12pm.

US directors Shari Robertson and Michael Carnerini’s ‘Well Founded Fear’, a documentary about the American political asylum system, will screen on the 12th June. The directors will host a workshop on the Epidavros Film Project and their forthcoming documentary series, ‘How Democracy Works Now’, on 13th June from 10am-12pm.

Other films to screen include Christian Wagner’s ‘Ghettokids’ (Germany), Nick Broomfield’s ‘Ghost’ (UK ) and Rabah Ameur-Zaime’s ‘Wesh Wesh, qu’est ce qui se passé?’ (France)

Film screenings and workshops will take place in the Goethe Institut, Merrion Square and Instituto Cervantes, Lincoln Place.

To reserve places film screenings or book places for the various workshops, contact series coordinator Dr. Rashmi Sawhney at the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice, Dublin Institute of Technology by e-mail rashmi.sawhney@dit.ie or telephone on 01-4023108.

For a full programme, dates and locations go to www.create-ireland.ie

Kila for Gatoto

2008-05-29T12:44:00.003+01:00

Ronan O Snodaigh of acclaimed Irish band Kila, will tonight play a fundraising gig in aid of Gatoto Community Primary School in Kenya at The Village, Wexford St, Dublin.

Tickets: 20 Euro
Doors open, 7.30pm

Gatoto is one of the partner schools of Suas.

http://www.thevillagevenue.com/

Cluster Bombs and the Portraits of Impact

2008-05-29T12:15:00.003+01:00

It almost seems wrong to call Alison Locks’ photographs ‘beautiful’, but that they are. Poised, elegant, and respectful, they allow light itself to take on character, somehow giving the subjects room to be present in the images. What is not beautiful however is the subject matter itself. ‘What Remains’ is an exhibition detailing the impact of cluster bombs on the lives of people in counties affected. Working alongside filmmaker Chris Anderson, Locke travelled to nine countries to document and allow the camera to bear witness to the impact of cluster bombs, as part of Landmine Action, a UK based NGO’s campaign to ban the use of cluster bombs.

Speaking in Dublin at a conference on Human Rights imagery yesterday, Locke spoke about allowing injured individuals, through photography and film to ‘act as witness to their experience’, giving them ‘time and space’ to reflect on and communicate their suffering.

What results is a deeply moving portrayal of individuals, whose injuries have uprooted their lives.

Yesterday, also came the historic announcement from Dublin, that an international ban on cluster bombs has been agreed. The ban includes the use, production, stockpiling and transport of cluster munitions. However, some of the leading users of the munitions, US, Israel, Russia and China have not signed the deal. Campaigners say that the ban will however, send out a clear message the bombs are unacceptable.

‘What Remains’ will be on display in the Gallery of Photography in Dublin’s Temple Bar until May 31.

http://www.galleryofphotography.ie/exhibitions/what_remains.html

More on the campaign to ban cluster bombs can be found on:

http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/

AND

http://www.landmineaction.org/

Africa Day, Sunday 25th May.

2008-05-22T17:03:00.003+01:00

Come join the celebrations of all things African in music, song, dance, sport and film.

Over the next few days all across the country parks and cinemas, theatre and football pitches will be with brought to life with the sights and sounds of Africa, as Ireland plays host to Africa Day celebrations.

Dublin Castle is centre stage on Sun 25th with music and guest appearances by leading Irish and African acts including: Mundy, Kila, Sinead O Connor, the Republic of Loose, The Discovery Gospel Choir, Stone & Jezreel.. and many more. If that gets too much you have a wander around the bazaar comprising of stands from Egypt to South Africa. And if that gets to much you can always head over to the IFI (Irish Film institute) for free screenings of African films. But before you go, be sure to pop over to the cultural corner in Dublin Castle’s coach house, where I will be taking portraits along with fellow photographer Al Higgins, for the 2008 1000 Family Album, hosted by Suas and Concern. The photos comprise part of a larger project initiated by photographer Uwe Ommer, who spent 4 years traveling the world to record images of 1000 families, celebrating the diversity of the faces and places he encountered along the way

And it is all free of charge.

For more information on Africa Day of see:
http://www.irishaid.gov.ie/africaday2008/default.htm

And for more information in the 1000 families exhibit see:
www.buildingunity.eu

(Africa Day is supported by Irish Aid)

Gatoto Community Primary School on RTE

2008-05-03T14:19:00.002+01:00

Gatoto Primary School, one of Suas’ partner schools in Nairobi, Kenya, will be featured on Far Away Up Close this coming Thursday (9th May), 10.45pm, RTE1, as part of a television series highlighting the role of Irish Aid overseas.

Betty Nyagoha, Gatoto’s head teacher, features prominently in the show. This is a rare chance to see this inspirational woman and school in action. Be sure to tune in!

Making it to the walls...

2008-04-28T10:54:00.002+01:00

One of my images (far right) hanging the recently opened Irish Aid volunteering and information centre on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

The centre is an information hub for those who want to find out more about the work of Irish Aid (the Irish government’s official Overseas Development Assistance programme) and volunteering locally or internationally.It also hosts school visits and runs workshops on international development issues. A temporary exhibition space houses photos and displays from the Irish NGO sector, and the main meeting room can be used by organisations in the sector for seminars and events.

The centre is only open a few months, so is still finding its feet, but has had good beginnings.

For more information or to book a school visit see:
http://www.irishaid.gov.ie/centre/

(Disclaimer with this posting: I happen also to work there two days a week as a facilitator).

Suas Extraordinary Lives Series: Annual Lecture

2008-04-28T10:25:00.003+01:00

The annual Suas Extraordinary Lives lecture will take place tomorrow evening (Tues 29th April), in Trinity College. Kick off 7.30pm
This year’s theme is ‘Leading Social Innovators’, and guest speaker includes none other than the fantastically inspiring Tara Cunningham, founder of Release Speech Therapy, who I interviewed way back at the beginning of my own journey for the book. Tara has since become the second SEI/ Ashoka fellow, and is now replicating the successful Release model to other locations around Ireland.

Other speakers will be:

John Healy, current Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Non Profit Management at Trinity, and former CEO and President of The Atlantic Philanthropies

Colm O'Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International – Irish Section, and founder and former director of One in Four

More information about the event can be found on www.suas.ie.
If you happen to be in Dublin and can pop in, it promises to be a wonderful evening. Hopefully see you there!

Skoll Forum Kick Off

2008-03-26T10:33:00.003Z

The annual Skoll Forum for Social Entrepreneurship kicks off today in Oxford, for three days of meetings and discussions on the growth of the social sector under the theme ‘Culture, Context and Social Change’. Over 700 delegates from all across the globe are expected. I was not able to make it to the event this year, but will be following some of the debate on line through socialedge.org it has shaped up to be an impressive line up and I am keen to see what comes out of the forum.

Sli Eile Conference- Charleville, Cork. 18th April

2008-03-19T11:18:00.001Z

With three out of four of all admissions to psychiatric units being re-admissions, Slí Eile was set up to explore ways of helping people caught up in this revolving door to recover within an accepting and supportive community setting.
On April 18th, Slí Eile- one of the organisations supported by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland- is hosting a conference to celebrate the establishment of its pilot project in Charleville, Co Cork. The aim of the Slí Eile approach to recovery through community living is to provide another way of supporting people to recover from their experience of mental distress.

Slí Eile believes the journey to recovery is:

A re-awakening of hope after despair

A movement to active participation in life from withdrawal and isolation

A shift to engagement and active coping rather than passive adjustment

Reclaiming a positive sense of self

A transformation from alienation to a sense of meaning and purpose

This approach to supported housing offers an environment of hope and empowerment, where meaningful activities support the process of recovery for its five tenants and creates an environment which instils the belief that change is possible.
The conference will include presentation by Slí Eile tenants & staff The Lived Experience, Martin Rogan HSE: Assistant National Director for Mental Health Services, service users, local practitioners and others with an interest in recovery. The programme allows ample time for a Question & Answer session in the morning and afternoon with Chairman for the day, Vincent Browne.
Admission is free, tea / coffee on arrival but please note lunch is at delegates’ own expense. Booking is advisable as numbers are limited.

Anyone wishing to attend can register by email slieileha@eircom.net or send a stamped addressed envelope to: - Slí Eile, Dromina, Charleville, Co Cork

Available for download

2008-03-19T11:05:00.003Z

My interview on Newstalk 106-108 with documentary maker Louise Williams can now be downloaded here :

http://83.138.170.50/podcasts/audio/Week11.mp3

(my interview is in the second half of the Show. You can also here fellow SEI awardee, Helene Hugel, talk about her own project, Freddie&Friends, a puppetting programme she runs for children in hospital.

Coming to a sofa near you.. or a wall, or a town square, or a TV, or a mobile phone...

2008-03-13T01:41:00.004Z

Imagine thousands of people coming together to share their own stories.

Imagine the world connecting in a global day of film.

Imagine watching the tears and laughter, hopes and dreams, of people all across the world.

Well, come May 10th this is about to happen.

Pangea Day, is the result of filmmaker Jehane Noujaim's 2007 TED Wish to Change the World. It will be a global day of international film- an effort to bridge cultural divides and increase our understanding of our global neighbours.

The films will be broadcast live on the internet and television. There will also be a series of main sites in cities across the continents- Cairo, Kigali, London, LA, Mumbai and Rio, along with a growing number of smaller events around the world.

I'll be hosting an event from a sofa in Dublin. You can do so too. To find out more visit the Pangea Day website.

Suas looking for volunteers for St. Patrick's Day

2008-03-13T01:30:00.004Z

Yes, it is that time of year again- time to paints the cities of Ireland green- with the annual Suas Facepainting extravaganza. Suas are on the hunt for more volunteers, to help beat last year's record of €32,000.
All money raised will go to Suas' partner projects in India and Kenya.

I met up with TV presenter Sile Seoige in Galway the other day where she lent a hand.

To sign up visit www.suas.ie

Tune in on Sunday 9th March- Newstalk’s Change Makers series.

2008-03-05T23:58:00.002Z

As part of the Change Makers series on Newstalk (106-108FM), documentary maker Louise Williams came along with me to St. Andrew’s College, where I gave a presentation on my travels to fourth year students. She interviewed myself and some of the students. The show will be broadcast at 1pm, Sunday 9th March and will also be available for download from the Newstalk website.

TED2008 is off to a galloping start.

2008-02-28T15:25:00.001Z

If every there is a gathering of exceptional lives, and minds, it is at the annual TED conference held in Monterey, California each year. TED2008 is set to be no different, with over 1000 leading thinkers and doers packing out the conference hall, to hear about current topics from global development to scientific breakthrough, architectural design, the latest in technology, anthropology, psychology, and educational thought… and so much more. Interspersed between the 20 minute sessions are musical and comic interjections, ensuring that both the soul and the mind are catered for. The audience brims with interesting and interested people: filmmakers, mathematicians, engineers, writers, poets, entrepreneurs, medics. It is deliberately a wide mix of disciplines; where ideas can mingle and bodies of knowledge shared. This year’s conference theme is “The Big Questions”. Who are we? What is our place in the universe? Is beauty truth? Will evil prevail? How do we create?

But TED is more than just a conference. It is a movement to inspire inspired thinking, and it is a body of people who are committed to change. Each year TED award the TEDPrize: $100,000 and a wish to change the world, no ambitions spared. It is a lofty aim, but with the community of people in the room, and now online, the Prize has proven that great things can happen. Three prizes were awarded last year. One of them, to the biologist O.E. Wilson has enabled him to start the Encyclopaedia of Life, an online resource to catalogue, aiming to name and describe all the species on the planet. Another prize given to filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, whose wish is about to come true on May 10th this year, when people all around the world will be linked in a global day of film called Pangea Day. This year the prize goes to writer and social activist Dave Eggers, the religious writer, Karen Armstrong, and mathematician Neil Turok. There wishes will be revealed this evening, to be streamed live online (5.15pm US/ Pacific Time).

While the conference fee is high, and waiting lists long, the Web has transformed access to TED. Throughout the year talks are posted online, open to all, on the main TED site Some talks have had over 1million views since posting, creating a remarkable sense of positive ideas spreading. Alongside that, the TED blog (www.blog.ted.com) will be feeding content and comments from the 2008 proceedings and flickr providing some images here.

You have guessed it, I’m a HUGE fan. One day I would love to get to the conference, but for the moment, broadband will suffice. Thanks TED.

Fairtrade Fortnight

2008-02-28T15:13:00.003Z

Fairtrade fortnight launched this week in Dublin, to promote ethical trading and fair trade. To coinside with the launch and exhibition of fairtrade products is hanging in the windows of the Irish Aid Volunteering and Information Centre on O’Connell Street.

Social Entrepreneurs on Newstalk

2008-02-19T23:21:00.002Z

Those turning in to Newstalk (106-108Fm) over the last few Sunday’s will now have been introduced to some of Ireland’s emerging social entrepreneurs. Documentary maker Louise Williams, has been taking us on a journey around the country, interviewing emerging ‘changemakers’, as part of her new series about social change in Ireland. From Claire Murieann Murphy’s storytelling antics in Galway, to Carol Doyle’s fairtrade fashions in Cork, Louise has been introducing us to just some of the interesting projects supported by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland this year.

The series will continue until March. Tune in every Sunday from 1-1.30pm on newstalk. A full line up of programmes can be seen here, and past programmes can be downloaded here.

A Reconsideration of Rats

2008-02-19T23:14:00.003Z

Rats and Clare don’t generally make a pretty combination, but this week I have been reconsidering my stance. In the space of a week, I have heard about an organisation in Mozambique, called APOPO, three times.

APOPO trains “Hero Rats’, African Giant Pouched Rats, to detect landmines. With an advanced sense of smell, but still light enough that they do not detonate the mines, the rats are able to cheaply, but effectively, clear large areas of land in Mozambique,- a country still riddled with the legacy of civil war. But there is more- the rats can also be used to sniff out disease and are being currently used to detect TB.

I got to see the rats in action when documentary maker Simon Reeve visited APOPO on his recent Tropic of Capricorn adventures, as broadcast on BBC.

Launch of Suas Alumni

2008-02-19T23:02:00.003Z

Greeted by the vibrant drumming of Happy City Samba Band, over 250 guests packed into Dublin’s City Hall last week for Suas’ Alumni inaugural event. ‘From Aspiration to Action’ was held to honour the achievements of Suas since its inception five years ago, and crucially, to engage more people in helping to make Suas’ vision a reality.

Speakers included Colman Farrel, Suas’ current CEO, and Mary Davis, CEO of Special Olympics Ireland, both of whom acknowledged the importance of young people in helping to create a more inclusive society.

An exhibition (put together by myself) accompanied the evening. To view images from the event click here. You can read Suas’ news item about the event here.

Next on the Suas Alumni calendar is the annual St. Patrick’s Facepainting fundraiser. The challenge has been set to beat last year’s €32,000 record. To find out more, and to get involved, check out www.suas.ie… the more the merrier!

Social Entrepreneurs Ireland- Applications Open for 2008 Awards

2008-02-12T20:07:00.000Z

Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, an organisation with supports the development of social entrepreneurship in Ireland, is now accepting applications for its 2008 awards.

In their own words;

‘Social Entrepreneurs Ireland’s mission is to spark social change by identifying, investing in, and supporting some of Ireland’s most exceptional emerging leaders and the organisations they launch…Social Entrepreneurs Ireland directly supports the early stage development of social entrepreneurs by providing a range of supports. These supports consist of financial investment in social entrepreneurs, technical training, peer networking, mentoring and links to other social entrepreneur networks’.

Check out www.socialentrepreneurs.ie for more information.

(In line with the 2008 award announcement, SEI have also re-launched their website, on which some my WDYDWYD? Images make a happy appearance- enjoy!)

Event Announcement: Social Enterprise in Cork- Seminar

2007-11-18T20:12:00.000Z

Monday 26th November, 9.30am- 4.30pm, Jury's Hotel, Great Western Road, Cork.
.............

The West Cork DESEO Partnership has organised a Seminar to illustrate the benefits and potential of the Social Economy sector for the Region.

The Seminar will bring together the principal initiatives to promote these initiatives locally, and gives their drivers a chance to explain their vision and aspirations, their achievements and the obstacles that they face.

In addition to Social Entrepreneurs from Cork and West Cork, the Seminar will include speakers from Cork City and County, the Islands Federation of Ireland, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, West Cork LEADER and Clann Credo, as well as delegates from Northern Ireland and from the European REVES Network.

The Seminar aims to be a watershed event for a more effective partnership between local authorities, social enterprises and communities, as well as an opportunity for prospective social entrepreneurs to find out about the potential of this activity in their region.

...

more information available on;
www.carberyhousing.eu

Social Entrepreneurs on South East Radio

2007-10-30T17:40:00.001Z

Just to let you know that I will be talking about Social Entrepreneurship on South East Radio (Ireland), 95.6- 96.4, this coming Saturday 3rd November. The show goes out after the morning ten o’ clock news.

http://www.southeastradio.ie/

Social Entrepreneur Ireland Awards…

2007-10-08T21:14:00.000+01:00

It has been a busy few months since returning to Ireland; writing the book ‘One Wild Life’- an account of my travels for the last year. It profiles some of the inspiring social entrepreneurs I met along the way and includes snippets of travelogue and a selection of photos. After many an hour in a library, I'm happy to say the book is really taking shape.

Since returning I’ve also been given one of the Social Entrepreneur Ireland Level One awards this year- with gratitude. The award is in recognition of my work to date and particularly my plan to share the stories of social entrepreneurs with young people in Ireland. An Award ceremony is taking place tomorrow evening in Dublin.

I'll also be speaking on the Pat Kenny Radio show tomorrow morning- about the awards and my travels. I’ll be interviewed along with Bob Seward, one of the people who I met in Cork, and Rotemi Adebari, the first Black mayor in Ireland, and another interviewee. Tune in at around 10.30am RTE Radio 1. It is usually me doing the interviews- so this is an interesting turn of events!

Responses, comments or queries can be sent to
onewildlife@gmail.com

WDYDWYD?

2007-10-08T21:05:00.000+01:00

‘Why do you do what you do?’

This was a question posed to Tony Deifell one of the people I met on my travels while passing through California.

Tony, a photographer and social entrepreneur- and not usually not short of words, found the question so powerful that he struggled for a response. Realising the strength of the question, Tony decided to create a photography project capturing other people’s responses. It has taken him around the states, but never to Ireland. So I decided carry the baton and take the question here- starting with some of the awardees from this year’s Social Entrepreneur Ireland’s group.

You can view responses on my flickr account; www.flickr.com/photos/cmulvany

If you want to join in, you can post your response to www.wdydwyd.com

Volunteer Programme- another year on

2007-10-08T20:08:00.000+01:00

For those of you who have been following this blog- and my own journey, you will have heard me mention the organisation Suas (www.suas.ie) on more than one occasion. I still feel the air time is justified. Much of my own learning about social change issues started out when I was running the Suas Volunteer Programme a few years back. It was meeting young people interested in making a difference through Suas, and meeting Suas’ partners in India and Kenya, which got me started on the ‘Exceptional Lives’ Journey; and I own a huge amount to the people behind it.

The volunteer programme has since grown from strength to strength- and last weekend saw this year’s 80 volunteer’s gather for a weekend of celebration, and reflection, on their experiences of working in education projects in India and Kenya this summer. The volunteer programme is a powerful experience in the life of a young adult- being exposed to grassroots development issues, learning about a new culture, and working as a team under often difficult circumstances.

I was lucky enough to be able to join in- and put together an exhibition of photos at the annual return reception, this year held in Maynooth College. Below are a few images;

(For those of you who may be interested in applying for the ’08 programme, applications will be open from Nov of this year. Check out www.suas.ie for updates).

In the headlines...

2007-07-27T12:19:00.000+01:00

You may remember the post about Rotemi Adebari, one the social entrepreneurs I interviewed, being elected as the first Black Irish Mayor. I spotted this interesting photo opportunity at an event in Cork yesterday.

The event in question was a seminar organised by Suas, Connect World and Concern on how Africa is represented in the Media. Speaking at the event was, among others, Aoife Kavanagh, an RTE presenter with a keen interest in changing the perceptions of Africa in the Irish media.

In summary- things have to change. Agreed!

New Trade Linkages- From Uganda to Ireland

2007-07-27T11:58:00.000+01:00

This small, crazy world of connections…

Back last year, when I was in Uganda, I tried to track down a fair trade coffee entrepreneur called Andrew Rugasira- but to no avail. Andrew had been recommended for an interview on a few different occasions, as a man with a broad vision and the determination to develop Uganda’s coffee supply market in an ethical and sustainable way. He is founder and CEO of Rwenzori Coffee (now Good African Coffee), but his packed and busy lifestyle meant that he was hard to find!

But two days ago, in a hotel conference room, in Cork, his name came up again. I was photographing a seminar with an organisation called Traidlinks, a new Irish NGO which connects businesses in Ireland to businesses in the developing world. Andrew, it seems, has been busy building links with Irish coffee businesses to learn and expand his own market.

(Paddy Maguinness- Concern, The Ambassador of Lesotho to Ireland, and Tony Barry from Barry's tea, speaking at the Traidlinks event)

Good African Coffee and Traidlinks have a lot in common. Both are of the opinion that foreign aid is not enough to make development work, but that trade is the key factor in generating employment and building communities. Good African Coffee respond to this by splitting profits 50:50 with their produces, and Traidlinks respond by getting interested business people in Ireland to share their knowledge, link with businesses in the developing world and create market space in Ireland for African products.

Traidlinks have helped Bewley’s coffee (one of the longest established coffee importers in Ireland), to link with Andrew. A team from Good African Coffee have come to Ireland to learn about Bewley’s chain of coffee shop; everything from roasting the bean to working behind the counter in the cafes. It is a fantastic example of the power of the private sector to accelerate development.

In another effort, Traidlinks, together with Barry’s Tea, Bewley’s, Jacob Fruitfields and a number of other companies in Ireland have teamed up to develop the Heart of Africa products; coffee, tea, dried fruits and nuts, importing products, redistributing the profits back to the producers and trying to get more African products on Irish shelves. Heart of Africa products are currently available in the leading supermarkets…(I particularly recommend the dried mango (yum) and I am drinking their coffee as I speak!)

This is a new form of collaboration in Ireland- as the corporate sector forges links with the development sector. It is early days yet as Heart of Africa breaks new ground, as the development sector opens up to new ways of thinking, and as local African entrepreneurs find different ways to enter the highly competitive European market.

I’ll be watching the space… and I may get to interview Andrew yet!

A poet of conscience

2007-07-27T10:12:00.000+01:00

Cecil Rajendra was in Dublin town over the last few days, as part of series of events organised by Suas and Concern to promote cultural diversity (Building Unity through Diversity)

Who? Yes, Cecil Rajehndra. He is a Malaysian lawyer, human rights activist, political critic, environmentalist, founder of Malaysian’s Free Legal Aid, poet .., and has been nominated, twice, for the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poems have a cutting edge to them, prizing open minds and calling people to account for the world’s injustices. They happen to be very beautiful too. Below is a poem Cecil wrote specially for the event.

A DIFFERENT SAMENESS

Each one different
yet akin ….
under our tent
of skin
our bones are white
our blood is red
& when dead
all flesh, as a poet
once said,
is food for the maggot.

Race, opinion, religion ….
little
more than brushstrokes
on
a galactic canvas.
Yet
rather than celebrate
our
diverse variegations
(as one often rejoices
in the colours of Spring
Sunset, Flowers, the Rainbow)
We
choose to exterminate
blow
up each other over
less than
minor shades of difference.

Cecil Rajendra
July 2007

A windmill to blow your mind...

2007-07-16T23:10:00.000+01:00

I came across this fantastic story of a young high school student in Malawi who invented a windmill- and just seems to have the most positive and powerful attitude to learning. I just have to share;

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

Riding high ... William Kamkwamba atop his windmill, which uses a bicycle to increase efficiency

………………….

An article posted on his blog;

William Kamkwamba, a 19-year-old high school student, first saw the internet at a TEDGlobal conference last month in Arusha, Tanzania. He was invited to the event - which aims to promote an exchange of ideas in the fields of technology, entertainment and design - after Malawi's Daily Times newspaper covered his efforts to generate electricity for his parents' farm by building a windmill of his own design.

The windmill is remarkable because Kamkwamba left school at 14 as his family was unable to pay the school fees. Armed only with his intelligence, a book on electricity, some plastic piping and found objects, Kamkwamba built his first windmill, which generated enough power to run a light in his room.

His second, larger windmill uses a bicycle to increase efficiency and was able to generate power for his parents' house and charge car batteries or mobile phones for people in his village.

As news of Kamkwamba's achievements spread, he was invited to the second biannual TEDGlobal conference, where his three-minute presentation about the windmill won him a standing ovation from delegates.

While at the conference, the young Malawian saw the internet for the first time and within hours began Google-searching for "windmill" and "solar energy" and was amazed with how many hits were returned for each search.

Kamkwamba was particularly impressed with the speed at which he could achieve things using the internet. "I was very excited when I saw the internet for the first time," he said. "The internet makes transfer of information very instant."

Back in Malawi, Kamkwamba applied his new knowledge about wind-powered electricity to a redesign of his second windmill, a process he detailed on the blog William Kamkwamba's Malawi Windmill (williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba), which offers step-by-step blog photos of the construction process.

The blog has since attracted global interest, with a Google search for Kamkwamba's name already generating more than 20,000 results, just a few weeks after his story became known outside Malawi.

A fellow African blogger and new friend of Kamkwamba, Soyapi Mumba, described his first impression of Kamkwamba: "What I like about William is that he didn't join the multitude of people just blaming government or policy makers for his lack of education. Neither did he point fingers at statutory corporations for the lack of electricity in his home. He didn't just sit down and blame his parents for all this, either."

Andrew Heavens, a journalist based in Khartoum, Sudan, says Kamkwamba belongs to the "cheetah" generation of Africans who are not going to wait for government and aid organisations to do things for them.

While Kamkwamba is certainly a cheetah, the migration from remote Malawian village to the global stage of cyberspace has not been achieved alone. He was assisted by US-based Tom Rielly, director of partnerships at TED and Kamkwamba's mentor. Rielly travelled to Malawi with Kamkwamba after the TEDGlobal conference and helped to establish the blog, typing while Kamkwamba dictated the content in his limited English.

With help from friends, the Malawian also set up an email address and an account on Flickr (you can search for William Kamkwamba's photos on the website).

"William was so hungry for books and reference material," Rielly says. "He asked me for a dictionary, which I brought with me to Malawi. But I told him, 'I want to show you something even better than a dictionary.' After I showed him the internet, William commented, 'With computer, you can do anything."'

Kamkwamba was to get a chance to prove whether his belief in the power of the net was correct when a computer - donated by conference sponsors in the US - was due to arrive in his village last week.

"My future plan is that I'm going to learn to research using the internet," Kamkwamba says. "Then I plan to build a water pump powered by my windmill so we can have water from the well in our house and irrigate our fields. Then, I don't know."

A colourful array

2007-07-04T11:25:00.000+01:00

Image samples from my travels!

Social Entrepreneur Elected as First Black Mayor in Ireland

2007-06-28T20:08:00.000+01:00

Rotimi Adebari, one on the social entrepreneurs I interviewed on the Irish leg of my journey has today been elected as the first black mayor in Ireland. Congrats Rotimi!

Here is the RTE news article about him. My photo of Rotimi was used on their news site.

A Nigerian man who came to Ireland seven years ago to seek asylum here has made history this afternoon by becoming Ireland's first black mayor.

43-year-old Councillor Rotimi Adebari was elected the Mayor of Portlaoise Town Council this afternoon by a vote of six to three and with the support of Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Independent members of the council.

At a meeting attended by officials from the Nigerian, South African and the United States embassies, the new mayor said his election was proof that Ireland is not just a country of a thousand welcomes but it is a country of equal opportunity.
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Councillor Adebari said Portlaoise is a town that looks beyond colour, creed and religion, but he said integration is a two-way process and involving or engaging members of the ethnic communities in local activities is the way to go.

The election was attended by a crowd of over 100 people drawn from the Nigerian community all over Ireland.

Elected as a councillor in 2004, Mr Adebari has a Masters degree in Intercultural Studies from Dublin City University and works with the local authority in Co Laois co-ordinating an integration projects for immigrants.

The father of four fled Nigeria with his wife and two children in 2000.

Simple and Solutions

2007-06-13T23:28:00.000+01:00

The best social change solutions are often the simplest. I have only just discovered this fantastic example recently through Worldchanging.com (I wish I had seen it in action on my travels through Africa). But this image has been on my mind for weeks, so I wanted to post. It is called qdrum

Water, meet drum, meet wheel, meet rope. There you have it. A few simple introductions later, one of the best pieces of design for development that I have come across emerges from the party.

Splashing!

Stop Climate Chaos- Umbrellas Take a Stand

2007-06-11T12:30:00.001+01:00

Following on from my travels, I will be keeping this blog alive with articles and escapades from my encounters with social entrepreneurs and change initiatives in Ireland.

Yesterday, I took to one of Dublin's strand, to join the Stop Climate Chaos group in their Umbrella Action Day against climate here. Here is my article below and a few colourful photos from the event;

Umbrellas Take a Stand.

It rains in Ireland, a lot. So it seems somewhat fitting that the umbrella has been co-opted as a symbol again climate change by a coalition of development, environmental, humanitarian, youth and faith groups called Stop Climate Chaos (www.stopclimatechaos.ie). Today the group was calling upon the Irish people to press the newly elected incoming government to legislate against climate change; and to do it urgently.

Donned with colourfully umbrellas, and against the backdrop of one of Dublin’s power stations, representatives of the coalition together with concerned citizens, took to one of Dublin’s coastal strands, literally dancing out their concerns. Choreographer, Muirne Bloomer, led participants in a brolly dance performance, young and old alike.

But it wasn’t all singing and dancing. The message for the day was clear; that Ireland needs to act, and act fast, if we are to collectively tackle climate change.

‘We have three core asks’, explained Gavin Davy, a spokesperson for Stop Climate Chaos, ‘We are looking for legislation on climate change, whereby Ireland introduces a budget to reduce its emissions by 3% year on year.
We also want to see that the legislation internationally surrounding the Kyoto protocol is carried, and that temperatures don’t go above 2 degrees.
Finally, we are looking for the developed world to carry its fair share of costs in helping developing countries to adapt to climate change’.

When it comes to development statistics Ireland has a mixed record. Currently, it is the sixth largest donor of overseas development assistance (ODA) among OECD countries. By 2012, Ireland is set to reach the UN target of 0.7% GDP for aid, and will be one of only a handful of countries to do so. However, somewhat ironically, 2012 is also the year in which Ireland is set to overshoot our Kyoto targets.

‘We are the worst carbon emitters’ explained Davy, ‘what we are giving on the on hand we are taking with the other’.

As it stands, Ireland is emitting 17 tonnes of greenhouse gases per person per year (2003, 2004, 2005). It makes us the second worst polluter in the European Union after Luxembourg and compares to an EU average of 11 tonnes.

As Oisin Coghlan from Stop Climate Chaos has indicated, taking carbon emissions alone, Ireland emitted over 10 tonnes per person in 2003.

Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda, four of Ireland’s priority aid countries in Africa, each produced 0.1 tonne per person. So every Irish person is responsible for 100 times the carbon pollution of the average Ethiopian or Ugandan.

They are statistics which are not commonly voiced in the Irish media, another trend which Stop Climate Chaos is trying to reverse. If today was anything to go by, they are at least a step closer.

It seems somewhat ironic however, that on a warm, sultry June day in Dublin (something which the Irish people are not accustomed to), the umbrella was used, not to ward off the rain drops, but to keep of the sun at bay. An eerie indicator of what is ahead perhaps, unless of course, the dancing coalition can put a sto(m)p to it.

Flights and Landings

2007-05-10T11:40:00.000+01:00

Quite a lot has happened in the last year. I am now in Dublin, writing up, and looking at ways to develop this project further. Exciting times ahead!

By following the archive links in this blog you can still read through my travels

April 2006: Ireland
May 2006: Ireland, Kenya
June 2006: Kenya, Uganda
July 2006: Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique
August 2006: Mozambique, South Africa
September 2006: India
October 2006: India
November 2006: Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia
December 2006: Cambodia, Vietnam
January 2007: Australia, New Zealand
February 2007: New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa
March 2007: United States
April 2007: United States, Ireland
May 2007: Ireland.

I will be keeping this blog alive with periodic updates, and you can still contact me at

exceptional.lives (at) gmail.com

It is never just one..

2007-05-06T16:14:00.000+01:00

A carrot cake is not just carrots, is it? It’s all the other great ingredients which go into the mixture which, when combined, can great a whopper of a treat. Same too with social ventures. I may have been interviewing just one of two of the people within a particular venture along the way, but really behind each one are teams and supporters without which success would never be in sight.

Same has never been so true than as with this journey. I may have stepped onto the plane alone but all along there were people supporting me, guiding me, pushing me, encouraging me. There were friends who lent helpful suggestions, colleagues who inspired me, strangers who went out of their way to show me the right way. Without them all, this journey would never have happened. To each and all I owe a huge and unending THANKS

There have been so many who have helped along the way, I am bound to forget a few in the list, but the following indeed deserve special mention for their contribution. To those who I may have left out, again, a special thanks..

When I was preparing and in Ireland..
Marion Berry, Meabh Boylan, Lissy Clarke, Sean Coughlan, Louis Crowe, Colman Farrell, Regina Fallon, Valerie Ringrose Fitzsimmons, Karen Furlong, Mary Rose Greville, Vanessa Liston, Tom Lyons, David Moffit, Eamonn O Dwyer, Paul O Hara, Cathal O Keefe, Philip Regan, Severine Reneaud, Lynda Stopford, Catherine Vaughan

Rotimi Adebari, Frank Buckley, Caroline Casey, Tara Cunningham, Mary Davis, Joan Hamilton, Salome Henry, Johnny K, Sr Stan Kennedy, David Mc Kernan, Tina Roche, Bob Seward

And all my family… thanks particularly to my Mum, Geraldine; brothers Brian and Paul, and cousins, Evie, Astrid, Irene and Viv.

A special group of people who found out about my work and were remarkably helpful along the way:
Greg Murray, Jean Russell, Nathan Cryder, Susan Megy, Anne Marie Bellevance and David Fick.

And…

In Kenya:

Joseph Nigigi, Betty Nyagoha, Dan Prior, Amy Prior, Micheala Hackner, Marcie Odell, Adam Tuller, Nick Moon, Fred Ouko, Denis Dennehy, Ben Ogunyo, George Ngesa, Stella Omunga

In Uganda:

Ita Harnett, Craig Esbeck, Christian Jordan, Trevor Dudley, Andy Snell, Rob Cornfield, Irene Oker Adokorach, Josephine Nazziwa, Joyce Mypanga, Anne Merriman, Peter Mugyeni, Ceppie Merry, Margarete Junker, Mwalimu Musheshe, Jackie Akhello, Ian Clarke, Abhay Shah, Rita Shah

In Tanzania:
John Riber, Louise Riber, Jordan Riber, Brigette Riber, Conor Mc Hugh

In Mozambique:
Allan Schwarz, Amy Gillespie

In South Africa:

Doulas Razionzer, Andie Razionzer, Barbara Jackson, Mathapelo Ngaka, Wiseman, Patrick Schofield, Micheala Howse, Kim Keiser, Taddy Blecher, Veronica Khosa, Kim Feinburg, Don Edkins, Nicky Newman, Sr. Margo Mulvey, Solomon Cidile, Lavinia Brown, Kjetil, Marita Oosthuizen, Bronwyn Feldwick Davis

In India:

Jyoti Mhapsekar, Rajiv Vartak, Jeroo Billimoria, Deval Sanghavi, Arron Kennedy, Sheela Patel, Sri K Vishwanthan, Jeff Biggers, Uma Prajapati, Min Ameen, Vipin Thekkekalathil, Nancy Thomas, Sujartha Balaji, Andal Damodaran, Sagun Saxena, Severine Saxena, Louis Crowe, Priankya, Bhuwan, Kailesh Satyarthi, Paul Basil, Lisa Heydlauff, Rathnaboli Roy, Sheela Sengupta, Purubi Roy, Manisha Gupta, Sohini Bhattacharya, Thangavel Velandi, Prof Vinay

In Singapore:

Chris de Souza, Melissa Kwee, Jack Sim, Jared Tham

In Thailand:

Michael Bauwens, Linda Nowakowski, Mechai Viravaidya, Titipol Phakdeewanich

In Cambodia:

Rebecca Cook, Ben Heath, John Weeks, KK, Sebastien Marot, Dana Langlois, Youk Chhang, Eva Mysliwiec, Sasha Constable, Srey Bandole, Delfine Kassam, Dear Sourm, Marco Marco

In Australia:

Harry Andrews, Sue Lennox, Colin Lennox, Kelly Betts, Don MacLurcan, Tom Dawkins, Robyn Keech, Tony Marx, Sam Keech-Marx, Cameron Neil

In New Zealand:

Gareth Morgan, Catherine Lambert, Kevin Rice, Eithne Wyndham Smith

In Tonga:

Don Blanks, Norie Blanks, Mona Blanks, Sohelya Boluri, Nick Flegg

In the US:

Susan Megy, Tony Deifell, Mardie Oakes, Jim Fuchterman, Victor D’Allant, Matt Flannery, Beverley Schwartz, Bill Drayton, Michela Hackner, Charles Best, Nick Cuttriss, Kyle Zimmer, Nina Smith, Mark Hanis, Derek Ellerman,
Rochelle Arms, Sarah Wagner McCoy, Richard Johnston, Cathal Kearney, Peter Haas, Maureen Bryan, Sarah Symons, John Berber, Anne Marie Belevance, Amy Banzeart, Amy Jaffe Barzach, Carlos Monteagudo, Eva Koncazal, Joost Bonsen,Lara Galinsky, Mark Mc Donnagh, Ned Augenblick, Chris MacCrae

Phew- that is some list of such great people.
So I’ll say it again. THANK YOU.

Closing the Circle

2007-04-06T17:45:00.000+01:00

Did time just skip a few beats?

I’m back in Ireland.
I’ve come full circle.
I’ve gone from ‘I’m am on this journey’ to ‘I have just completed this journey’

I’m sad, happy, tired, excited, confused, jolted, joyful, thankful, thankful and thankful again.

I’ve been catching up with family and friends. Figuring out what is next. Stepping into the future.

The next phase is about to begin.

I will be posting a more reflective piece on my travels, but in the meantime, I just need to set on Irish soil for a while, breathe, think, plan, and be.

This was some trip… and the journey is just beginning….

Cape Cod meets Cambodia

2007-04-06T17:28:00.000+01:00

Watching a film changed Sarah Symons’ life.. and her husband’s, and her kids, and her neighbours, and groups of women from Cambodia to India.

The film was ‘The Day my God Died’. The topic Child Sex trafficking. And the response from Sarah moved from initial horror to ‘What can I do to help prevent this?’ That question led her, and her husband John, to set up ‘The Emancipation Network’ (TEN) which buys and imports handmade products from survivors of trafficking and people who are at a high risk of being trafficked. When an alternative income stream for families and communities is assured, the risk of trafficking is radically reduced- a correlation Sarah saw that she could strengthen.

TEN now import goods and products from 14 different organisations, and are expanding their reach. John and Sarah’s home in Cape Cod became there office and storage depot and operates in a flurry of activity. Arriving to their home I was quickly taken on the grand tour, introduced to large boxes of goods-from hand embroidered bags to handmade paper- each top quality, and told about the story of the people behind the products.

Once the goods are purchased they are then distributed and sold though a series of ‘Awareness Parties’; a Tupperware model of sales, organised though a network of volunteers. The parties are a chance not only to sell goods (and thus provide an income to the artisans) but also increase awareness about sex trafficking.

John and Sarah are examples of the power of commitment. With a background in investment banking, John brought his business know-how to the job, looking at business models that are scaleable and economically viable in the long term. When he realise that the TEN model could really work, he quit his job in banking and teamed up with his wife to expand the business. This month they are opening their first retail outlet in Cape Cod.

My weekend with John and Sarah was a full of fun and inspiration- not only for learning about TEN, but also spending time baking with their fantastic kids Maya and Luke, and waking up to their dog Dakota tugging at my blanket to play!

Their door was opened to me as a stranger, and I left it as a friend.
How wonderful!

The Architecture of Design

2007-04-06T17:19:00.000+01:00

A stroll around the MIT Campus threw some interesting shapes....

Developement through Design

2007-04-06T17:10:00.000+01:00

The US in technology central, and no where is this more evident than at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston.

Through the TED Talks, I heard of a professor, Amy Smith, and a group of students who are applying their technological know-how to design products to accelerate development through a class called D-Lab (Development Lab). So, when in Boston, I went along to find out a bit more. It was good timing too, for the students were hosting end of term poster presentations explaining their innovations. There was briquette burner for in home use (with the briquettes made with sugar cane waste). There was a moulding vacuum device for making prosthetic limbs and a prototype intelligent pill dispenser box; all with application in the developing world.

Chatting to the class’ teaching assistant, Amy Banzaert I realised also that D-Lab acts as a catalyst to get more and more technically minded young people interested in developing issues. As part of the course, students have an opportunity to travel overseas to study the problems and develop prototypes with local communities. Once they are back at MIT, they work on their designs in collaboration with contacts they made. Ideas are sparked, developed, modified, redesigned and when a good design is hit upon, it is passed on to the next group of students who develop the idea further. A new generation of technical thinkers in incubation…

But what happens the designs?

Well, a good question. It was a question plaguing Peter Haas, so much so that he went on to establish AIDG (Appropriate Infrastructure for Development Group). Through his travels and studies Peter was seeing available solutions, which due to a lack of business models in the developing world to support the scale up and manufacture of the design, did not have the impact they could. And so he set about developing local businesses which take the designs, get them manufactured and then distributed locally. It is relatively early days for AIDG, but starting out in Guatemala they now have plans to replicate their own model in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Like D-Lab, AIDG tap into the latent talent of students by providing overseas internships. In doing so the local business’ benefit from technical knowledge and a fresh pair of hands. A good match all round I would say.

DLab and AIDG were good examples of how the link in the chain (from concept to distibution) need to be forged for effective solutions to spiral into action.

(Thanks to Cathal Kearney, a Irish pal at MIT who helped me set up the DLab meeting, and Anne Marie Bellavance for the link to Peter)

Are you a Zaadzter?

2007-04-06T16:58:00.000+01:00

Online social networks are sprounting. I owe much of the connections I made on this trip to one, the Omidyar Network. But on my travels I came across another, Zaadz, which is bringing people who are interested in change in connection. With a community of over 40,000 people signed up, that’s a lot of interest, and a lot of energy.

While in Boston, I met up with Jake Stetser, the chief integration officer at Zaadz. A complex title, which in reality means making the vision of Zaadz mesh with their website and technology. like the wording of their plan;

Our Plan.
Ours involves Conscious Capitalism infused with Spirituality and a healthy dose of Enthusiasm, Love, Service, Inspiration, Passion, Humor and Teamwork. People CRAZY enough to think they can change the world, Courageous enough to do something about it, AND Committed enough to stick to it when they feel like giving up.

If you think you are one of those crazy people, and you want to meet others, perhaps zaadz is a way for you.. give it a knock, who knows what it may open.

Care for a seat?

2007-04-06T15:59:00.001+01:00

Seeding SEED

2007-04-06T15:46:00.000+01:00

While in New York I was back on the couch surfing variant. But this time, I didn’t just get a couch, but a whole loft conversion, courtesy of the hospitality of Carlos and Ruth Monteagudo

Carlos and Ruth, and their son Daniel are a fascinating and wonderful family. Ruth is a lay minister and children’s book writer, and talking with her about the book writing (and illustration) process was an enlightening one. From concept to complete Ruth works with the illustrator to create a product alive with vision and fun- writing and redrafting together until a book ‘which neither of us could have done alone’ is brought to life. Collaborative creativity at its best.

Carlos has an equally fascinating career path. Trained as a psychiatrist, and one time assistant professor of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School, he realised that his was still to complete ‘his life’s work’. He was contemplating going into politics, seeing the need for higher level system change. To facilitate it, he applied and got a Kellogg Leadership Fellowship- a three year fellowship which allowed him to take 3 months off his full time job a year, and explore and question. This started a whole chain of questioning and routes, trying to understand the best way he could create the change he wants to see in the world. While on the programme he met this now business partner, Melinda Lackey, and together they started to see the need for collective visioning to create change. Through much research and dialogue they established SEED (Solutions for Economic Empowerment and Dignity), and organisation which takes groups of individuals though creative planning to raise their bar of their own potential.

As they say themselves;

SEED challenges social programs to go from good to extraordinary and provides the self-help tools to make this possible.

And as Carlos describes SEED;

My work at SEED is about reclaiming that dream of creating a new world together. It is about discovering what is possible, when we open our hearts and minds and spirits to the yearning, the “first impulse,” that I believe is within each of us…and to the brilliance inherent in our human collective.

Personally, I found it both intriguing and rewarding to talking to Carlos about his experience of the Kellogg Fellowship. He equated the journey to my own, and explained how this journey helped to shape and direct his life, and continues to do so. While I am just at the end of the physical travel of this trip, I also know I am just at the beginning, and the journey ahead is looking ever more exciting.

Onwards!

Breaking the Boundaries of Play

2007-04-06T15:40:00.000+01:00

Sometimes you just can’t meet everyone. But there are always phones.

Meeting with Amy Jaffe Barzach didn’t happen in person (time constraints, New York traffic) but we did have an interesting conversation. Amy is the co-founder of Boundless Playgrounds, an organisation which aims to make play accessible to all children, of all ability, across the US.

I hadn’t thought much about playground design before meeting Amy, but it is amazing what a shift in thinking about audience, and a few small design changes can do. Wider slides, ramps, sandpits at knee and waist level, wider doors. From a distance a Boundless Playground may look the same as any other playground, but such small changes can mean inclusion for a child who otherwise would be sitting on the sidelines.

It was exactly that image which got Amy going in the first place. Seeing a child in a wheelchair unable to access the local playground seemed like a cruel irony to her, and it got her thinking about the changes she could make to improve the interaction of that child. 100 playgrounds later she is still going strong. She has build up a team around her and is working with playground manufactures to think differently about who their products are for.

Boundless Playgrounds is a great example of seeing solutions though different eyes. By seeing who are on the margin, Amy has managed to shift where those boundaries are.

Play just got a lot more playful.

Derek Ellerman- The Polaris Project

2007-04-06T15:35:00.000+01:00

When Derek Ellerman was studying at university, he read a newspaper article about a group of Korean women who had been trafficked into the USA and were living just a few streets away. There was little reaction to the news externally, but within it sparked a sense of questioning about why little was being done to help these women. He bumped into a neighbour in his building one day, Katherine Chon, and they started to discuss the issue. Realising they didn’t know all they did some research and discovered that sex and labour trafficking is the third largest criminal activity in the world, and it is not just confined to developing countries.

Their questioning led them to set up the Polaris Project, a community of individuals from policy planners to grassroots activists committed to combating the problem. They run support centre for survivors and work in advocacy roles- a combination unusually rare in the sector. Across college campuses they also host a ‘Slavery Still Exists’ Campaign, raising awareness of the issues on home turf.

To Derek it is as much about shelters as it is laws, where working at both end of the spectrum; intervention and prevention are crucial to success. There is a long way to go yet, but thanks to the Polaris Project, it is getting a bit closer.

Donors can be Choosers

2007-03-27T18:22:00.000+01:00

I find it interesting how the web is changing the face of philanthropy and nowhere have I noticed it more than in the US. A great example of that is Kiva; the online peer to peer lending organisation. Another permutation of the concept is Donors Choose, a web based connection space for giving.

Charles Best, the founder of Donors Choose was a teacher in the Bronx, NY wanting to initiate projects with his students but struggling to find the resources to do so. He set up a website where teachers post proposals for funding and potential donors can then select the project they want to fund. In return the donors get back photos of how their money was spent, and student reports about their perceived impact of the donation.

Behind the scenes Donor Choose acts as a vetting and distribution centre. Proposals are all double checked to make sure they are genuine, and once confirmed the resources are purchased and mailed to the teachers, and bingo, things start happening. Donors Choose has generated over 11 million of donor dollars for schools all across the United States to date.

That’s a lot of giving, and a lot of choosing.

Young and Able.. meet AYUDA

2007-03-18T20:35:00.000Z

American Youth Understanding Diabetes Abroad may seem like a bit of a mouthful, but there is indeed bite to their work. AYUDA started out when two 15 year olds, Nick Cuttriss and Jesse Fuchs-Simon when to Equador for a summer. They encountered a young boy with Diabetes, whose parents were doctors, who could not afford his medical care. Nick and Jesse ended up raising finance and support to bring the boy to the United States for care, but they soon realised that they could not do this for every child. Instead what they realised was that they could help deliver diabetes management skills to those with the illness- which was a huge gap in medical provision in Equador.

To bridge the gap Nick and Jesse start summer diabetes camps for children with the illness, enlisting local and international volunteers to run the camps. It had a two part knock on effect. Firstly, the children who needed access to information on how to look after themselves could not access it more readily, and secondly, by engaging a whole band of young volunteers, it catalysed a wave of young support and commitment to tackling such problems.

I got to meet Nick in Ayuda offices in Washington, along with Merith Basey, a former volunteer which the team who is now working full time.

Still in their early twenties, Ayuda is a prime example of the potential of young people to effect solutions- when given the opportunity. At 24, Nick is an old hand!

A First for Books?

2007-03-18T20:13:00.000Z

FirstBook is a clever organisation, very clever. What makes it work, and work at scale, is an approach to resource which is not typical, but which makes a lot of sense.

FirstBook aim’s to give children from low income homes the magic of their first books.

What’s cleaver (aside from the concept) is the way they have managed to team up with corporations to form mutually beneficial deals.

Take FirstBook’s marketplace as an example; an online book sales site which sells to local reading groups at discount rates. The publishers often have excess books which they can not sell, and to store them costs money. Those in local reading groups often have access to some finances, but not much. If publishers were to post out books in small numbers to these small groups it would not be cost effective- and so they don’t. In come FirstBook, acting as a mass purchaser of low cost quality books, and a mass distributor. The publishing companies are happy, and the books are getting into the home, which ordinarily would not be buying books. BINGO.

Clever, hey?

Another example is marketing deals. The majority of revenue for FirstBook come though marketing deals, being a leader in what they term ‘cause based marketing’. Teaming up with Cheerios as an example, FirstBook were able to distribute five million books in cereal boxes. In turn, Cheerios or the like, get to co-brand books with FirstBook, having positive knock on effects for the reputation of those companies in the marketplace.

That’s just a couple of example. The organisation is full of them.

Kyle Zimmer who was one of the founders of FirstBook started out 15 years ago. Back then she thought it would only be a job for a year or two.. little did she know. At the time she was a Washington lawyer and her lawyer friends found it hard to believe that she was leaving the profession. But Kyle continued and ended up using her lawyer boardroom experience to negotiate deals for FirstBook- and continues to do so. Millions of books later, she and the team not only still going strong but getting stronger.

Call me a five year old..

2007-03-18T20:11:00.000Z

Metro commutes are usually not that entertaining, but while in DC I had a little giggle every time I passed through the following station; Foggy Bottom.

Call me a five year old- I don’t care. I still think it is funny!

Making a Mark on the Rug Industry

2007-03-18T18:37:00.000Z

For those of you who have been following my blog, you may remember that back last October I paid a visit to Bal Ashram, a rehabilitation centre for former child labourers in Rajasthan, India, established by Kailash Satyarthi. My visit there has stuck with me, I have told the story to many people I have met along the way, and the photos I took there are some of my favourite.

One of the many interesting dimensions to Kailash’s work are his efforts to eliminate child labour, industry by industry. One of the places he started to do this was in carpet factories. Through is work emerged a particularly effective intervention- the creation of a certification standard label which guarantees a rug a child labour free, know as Rugmark.

It is innovative in that it is tackling the problem through market demand, allowing consumers of conscience to purchase, knowing that the rugs they buy are not made with little hands. Rugmark is the fair trade label of the rug industry and since the introduction of the label the numbers of child labourers in the industry has fallen from about 1million to about 300,000. The numbers are still huge, but they are going in the right direction.

To find out more about Rugmark’s operations in a ‘developed country’ setting, I met up with the lovely Nina Smith, who is the Executive Director of the Rugmark Foundation USA. (She is also a new Mum, so I also got to meet the equally lovely Sammy). Nina came to Rugmark from 12 years of work in the fairtrade moment and an involvement with the ‘The Craft Centre’, a non-profit which promoted the fair trading of handicrafts from artisans mainly from South America… so in many ways Rugmark felt like a natural progression.

Talking to Nina was a certain insight in the level of work which is required to make system-wide change. It’s as much about rescuing the children for the factories, (as Kailash does), to how the product is labelled on shelves back in the US. Making the link between the two is one of the reasons why Rugmark has been successful.

Looking at it’s website, you would think that Rugmark is a many person operation, but as Nina surprised me, up until recently it was a one shop wonder back in the US- only her full time, with the backing of a board. What I found interesting is how she leveraged the connections and skills of those around her to make it all happen.

To me Rugmark is a great example of collaborative social entrepreneurship and thinking about how problems can be approached through incentivising positive consumer choice, rather than just laying blame.

Here is a photo of Nina and Sammy;

Never Again, Never Again

2007-03-18T18:28:00.000Z

‘Never again’.

After the Holocaust.

After Cambodia.

After Bosnia.

After Rwanda…

And Sudan?

‘Never again’ are words which Mark Hanis wants to stick this time round with Sudan. But 400,000 people have already died in Darfur, and the lessons of history are not sticking.

However, Mark and the team believe that something can be done. He himself is a result of genocide survival. His four grandparent, all Jewish, survived the Holocaust, and this belief in hope and optimism led him to set up the Genocide Intervention Network while still at college student.

The network works through primarily rallying political support, putting the issue on the agenda- and keeping it there. He believes that by creating a movement of people who keep saying ‘Never again’, and saying it enough times and in enough ways, that the message will start to stick. But more than that, the network also raises funds for African peacekeeping troops in Darfur and has an education campaign to widen public awareness about what is happening in Sudan. Their website also hosts ‘ten things you can do’ to play your part in saying ‘Never again’.

His advice to young people? Simply; Get Political.

Mark was awarded an Echoing Green fellowship for his work last year. You can read more about him here

What to play your part? Check out:
www.genocideintervention.net

From an Irish Lass in New York

2007-03-18T01:01:00.000Z

Happy St Patrick's day... Cold and snowy in New York, but fun never the less; here are some images from my day.

Some Urban Images from My City Wanderings

2007-03-12T04:23:00.000Z

Technologist Serving Humanity

2007-03-12T04:09:00.000Z

Outside Jim Fruchterman’s office is a picture of a rocket ship exploding. Most people would call the picture art; but for him it’s a reminder; he helped to build the rocket, and it exploded on takeoff.

It’s not that he was a ‘bad’ scientist. The picture is more a reminder that sometimes its just as well that things explode. Were it not for that, its unlikely that he would be where he is now; the founder of Benetech, a company based in the Silicon Valley, which builds technological solutions for social need.

Thinking about what else could be done with the technology behind pattern recognition- other than building missiles for the military- Jim’s ‘one big idea at college’ (his words!), was to invent a reading machine for the blind. The idea stuck with him, and it was not until some years later after realised that rocket ship building may not be his only path in life, that he forged ahead to build the reading machine.

So stared Benetech, which now, with a staff of 20 and 5 different projects, is leading the way in Silicon valley in the mergence of technology and social entrepreneurship.

By Jim’s own admission he is a nerd, or as he described himself, ‘an anorak’. But he is also proof of what brains can do when applied to solving the world’s problems. Take Bookshare.org, one of Benetech’s core projects, now the largest online library for people with disability- and it’s all legal. Recognising a provision in copyright law which enables books to be copied/ reproduced for the disabled, Bookshare now houses some 31,000 books and 150 periodicals which are converted into more accessible formats.

Other Benetech projects include project management software for the environmental sector, data management software for human rights activists, and literacy tools for individuals with reading difficulties.

One of Jim’s nuggets of advice was about risk taking. The venture capital model, when applied to business, expect some businesses to succeed, some to do moderately well, and other to fail. However the same thinking has not been applied to the social sector, where, he agrees, there is a general fear of failure. To Jim though, experimentation is the route to success. ‘I am known for setting up three different companies’, Jim jokes to elaborate, ‘but I actually set up seven!’The ones that were successful were the result of the risks and learning that happened as a result… and now look what is happening.

Jim and Benetech have been the recipient of many a prize. Recently Jim was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his endeavours.

The anorak has done well! Watch this space for more geek brains at work.

My Magnetic Poetry

2007-03-08T22:40:00.000Z

I was opening a fridge door, and got a bit distracted, here is the result.

Now, what was I looking for again??

He Sees Beyond Sight

2007-03-08T22:26:00.000Z

(Tony Deifell, Mardie Oaks and their Kitchen Table)

(At the opening of the Seeing Beyond Sight Exhibition)

On my travels the combination of blindfold and camera have made for some exciting adventures. Blindfolded I walked through a forest in Thailand and then a market in Cambodia. I wouldn’t have done it without the push from Tony Deifell, a San Francisco photographer/ social entrepreneur, who I ‘met’ through the Omidyar Network. Passing through the city, I made it a point to meet up with the mischief maker, whose photography exhibition, Seeing Beyond Sight (a collection of photos by blind teenagers) was just opening in a gallery in the city.

Tony Deifell is a talent bundle. He is has that unusual blend of analysis and creativity which lead him in fascinating ways. As well as teaching photography to blind students (which led the Seeing Beyond Sight Project), he was a founding director of KaBOOM!, a non profit which build playgrounds in neighbourhoods across the States, was the Executive Director of the Institute of Public Media Arts which promoted diversity across colleges in the States and obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School. A busy man indeed.

It’s a diverse mix, which Tony calls, ‘living in the slashes’. For him, innovation happens where disciplines meet. For him its art and business, used in combination to create social profit. Or, as he has written himself, “my ‘calling’ in life is to use my skills across different disciplines- business, social enterprise, art, media, religion, social justice to notice the cracks and help others notice them too. They are many- and the more we pay attention, the more we can work together to make the world whole again.

Fancy joining in?

Interested in the Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge- here are the instructions from Tony;

This experience isn’t about blindness – it is about seeing, noticing and paying attention with more than your eyes.
We dare you to take on the challenge of photographing blind. Sign up to do the Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge (some time in the coming year), or just check out what other people are doing.
People have done it in Africa, Cambodia, Australia and the United States.
-Blindfold yourself.
-Go out in public and make your way in the world.
-Photograph things you notice. And, just notice.
-Embrace the whole experience as much as the picture taking.
-Challenge some friends to do it. (send them the link: sf0.org/seeingbeyondsight)

We avoided doing our own assignment – mustered a thousand excuses at first. Then, we did it, and it was as amazing as it was challenging.
Take the plunge – we dare you.

Tony’s book, Seeing Beyond Sight, a collection of photos taken by the pupils in his blind photography class, has recently been published by Chronicle Books. It was can purchased on Amazon here.

(Tony happens also to be married to the wonderful Mardie Oaks, fellow social entrepreneur – see next blog- I’m telling you, that’s one heck of a household!)

Architect with Attitude- Meet Mardie Oaks

2007-03-08T21:58:00.000Z

Mardie Oaks was trained as an architect. Only it is not just houses she now builds, but communities, helping to integrate those on the margins of society.

Walking down the streets of San Francisco it is clear that there is a housing crisis. The homeless are everywhere. I’m not sure of the exact number, but it is in the thousands; many thousands. So when Mardie mentioned the margins, I assumed she meant this group. However, those who she works for are often the forgotten group; people living in institutions who in order to be able to function in mainstream society need special housing conditions. So, thinking about these needs, Mardie and her team at Hallmark Community Solutions design and renovate homes with these criteria in mind. High quality, affordable housing is the aim and finances are sourced though mainly government streams and revenue, in ways which have not previously been done.

Mardie was recently awarded an Echoing Green Fellowship for her innovative efforts.

Mardie and Tony Deifell (her husband, fellow social entrepreneur, see next blog), handed me the flowing quotation as I was leaving their home. It’s a reminder to them of the power of commitment, both in their work and marriage. It is a reminder to me too- it is the same end quote from Goethe which I had on my fridge door, urging me on.

Thanks Tony and Mardie.

We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money – booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

‘Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!’

[The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951]

Mission Murals

2007-03-08T21:49:00.000Z

San Francisco is a mural mecca. I went wandering and came across many a colourful encounter. Here are just a few.

Living on the Social Edge

2007-03-08T21:44:00.000Z

Victor D’Allant’s CV is almost intimidating!

He speaks five languages, there is barely a country in the world he has not been too, he has been a photo journalist, a magazine editor, ran a media consultancy, has degrees from the Sorbonne in Paris and Berkley in California.. and has a family. Now he is in a job which he feels is a culmination off all the experience applied to social change; Executive Director of Social Edge.

Social Edge is an online community which support social entrepreneurs and nonprofit professionals. It is about inspiring others with stories; sharing resources and building a global network for social change.

But for Victor his interest in social entrepreneurship didn’t start with cameras or computers or the internet. For him, it was eggs. Yes, eggs.

Here is the story.
In his late teens Victor volunteered in Burkino Faso as a community worker. Growing up in France, Burkino Faso was part of his history and so he decided to travel and explore more. While there he was living in a village and noticed that malnutrition was a serious problem. So he decided that eggs would be a good source of protein. He raised some money through contacts back in France, and donated a hen house to the local community. Eggs= fuller bellies.

A couple of years later, a friend of his was visiting Burkino, and Victor asked him to return to the village to check on the egg population. But, when his friend returned, there was no sign of eggs, or chickens.

This was Victor’s lesson. He realised that had he given the hen house to someone, and set them up in business the probability of the hens and eggs still being there was much higher. Plus someone would still have a job.

For Victor, the growing field of social entrepreneurship represents a more sustainable form of aid. So, for Victor, the long held ‘Chicken or Egg’ dilemma is no longer. Which came first? Well for him, it wasn’t chickens.

Lending Peer to Peer- by Proxy

2007-03-08T21:36:00.000Z

I have been following a fellow blogger, Matt Flannery, for sometime now on Social Edge, an online forum for social entrepreneurs (for more about Social Edge, see my interview with Victor D’Allant). Some when in town I popped over to meet Matt in person.

Matt’s blog is an insiders guide to setting up a social venture. He should know; he has been doing it for the last two years. The result has been Kiva.org, an online peer to peer micro finance lending platform. Sound complex? Well it’s not. The idea is rather straightforward really. I’ll give an example.

Take, let’s say, John, a 25 year old man in Kampala, Uganda who is setting up a bike repair business. John has a wife and family, has the usual bills to pay, and is also supporting his younger brother’s education. He can’t do that until he can get his bike business off the ground, and in order to do that he needs a loan. So he goes to a micro-finance institution (small loan bank) to ask for the money.

Pause there and meet Joan.

Joan lives in Dublin, a 30 year old school teacher. She has never visited Uganda, but has been following the news and is interested in getting more involved with development issues; but she a bit at a quandary how. She has given money to larger charities before, but would like to know more about where her donation exactly goes.

Basically, Kiva help to make some introductions. John meet Joan, Joan meet John.
Joan reads about John’s business online and decides to directly invest with him. The loan is made via the Kiva website, to John’s local micro-finance institution and then on to John. When John pays back the loan, Joan can track it online, and John can add some photos and stories.

John and Joan introduced. John’s business off the ground. Joan eventually paid back. And this year, it will be with interest.

That’s Kiva in a nutshell. It was Matt and his ‘amazing wife’ (his words- ahh) Jessica who got it off the ground, have rallied the support and continue to build the website along with a growing team in San Francisco. Other unrelated but fortuitous events have helped to speed Kiva’s growth, including Muhammad Yunnas winning the Nobel Prize for building the micro-finance field with Grameen Bank.

Other than that, it’s a lot of hard work, a lot of commitment, and a lot of introductions, oh, and broadband is a bonus.

To follow more on the Kiva story click here, and to make a loan, click here. There are lots and Joans and Johns to meet, and many more business’ to follow.

Cafe Culture gone Cyber

2007-03-08T21:12:00.000Z

In a city which seems to have more cafes than clients, what happened to café culture?

Here in San Francisco, cafes are more akin to libraries. Talking is almost a faux pas- this is laptop land, so wired it is wireless. If someone speaks, others look up with that same furrowed brow which condemn wandering whispers in the dens of college reading rooms.
Here it feels as if the entire café going society is about the sit a national exam; their backs bent over their keyboards, their looks worried. This is pin drop, hear it territory.

Want to meet me at a café to chat? Too risky. I’ll meet you at the library instead. In the meantime I’ll just order another coffee and check my email!

Closing the Circle

2007-03-04T18:51:00.000Z

Its funny, the further away from ‘home’ I travel, the closer I eventually get. I’m not trying to be philosophical here, it’s just the geography of round the world trips. Now that I have reached San Francisco, I’m three quarters (ish) of the way back to Ireland.

I have put ‘home’ in inverted commas for a reason, because the more people who have opened their doors to me, and the more places I feel are ‘home’.

This time round I am in the home of Susan Megy, one funky lady, who I ‘met’ virtually through the Omidyar Network and who has been cheering me on while I loop around the globe. Another funky such person is Jean Russell, who has been helping me all along with contacts and suggestions for people to meet. When she heard I was going to be in San Francisco she flew down from the Chicago region to catch up in person. It’s been fantastic to put faces to these names and I feel so privileged to be able to connect such good good people. Thanks Susan and Jean.

Irish doors will open in return… just let me get back ‘home’ first!

Stranded in Samoa

2007-02-28T02:49:00.000Z

Its amazing what damage a bird can do, the feathered kind. One flew into the engine of the plane I was meant to be on leaving Samoa, and grounded the aircraft ‘indefinitely’. One very dead, silly bird.

Turns out that 'indefinitely' was really just as long as another plane from New Zealand could arrive, some 17 hours later. It is a reminder that I really am far from a large chunk of land. In the meantime I get put up in a fancy pancy hotel, watching the pacific waves crash, savouring the sun.

Thanks bird!!

The Tongan Ocean of Light

2007-02-28T02:41:00.001Z

When you live on a small island, far from even other small islands, life takes on unusual dimensions, and challenges.

One of those challenges is getting a quality education. There are schools of course- a primary school in each village, and a secondary or high school in the large towns, but the standard is low, class sizes large and resources limited. This makes for some frustrated brains.

However, ten years ago, the founders of the Ocean of Light Primary School, decided to take on the challenge and in doing so are raising the educational bar in Tonga.

Back when I was last in Tonga, on a gap volunteer year after school, I worked for a some time at the then infant Ocean of Light Primary School. It has just 27 pupils and was very much still trying to find its feet. Ten years later, with new school buildings and a pupil intake of about 340, it’s feet are clearly found. There is now a kindergarten and a secondary school, and plans for more buildings. Last year the school opted for the Cambridge International School certificate, and now students can take A levels and compete for university places in whatever part of the globe they wish. The exams are tough, the standard high- and given the relative shortage of local teachers who are available to teach at A level standard, it’s hard to get staff.

But still the school continues, believing the just because you may live in an isolated place, it doesn’t mean opportunities have to be isolated too.

Interstingly too, and I dare say unique to Tonga, the school takes moral education and pastoral care as a very high priority. Although inspired by the principles of the Bahai’i Faith, the school uses ‘The Virtues Guide’ which a methodology for teaching social and moral behaviour across the religious and cultural spectrum. The principle of the secondary school, Nick Flegg, told me that about one third of the current pupils are Baha’i while the remainder are from the many other denominations which make up the Tongan population- Methodist, Baptist, Seven day Adventist, Mormon, all seeing advantage in the methodology.

Ten years on, it was fantastic to see the growth of the school. The challenges are still there (funding, staff, resources), but the school is committed to tackling them, and keeping the bar high. I hear too that other schools that other schools on the islands are sitting up and taking note… which is a good sign for educational opportunity but at bad sign for frustrated brains. I’m on the side of the good sign.

Tongan Tactics

2007-02-19T21:49:00.000Z

Outside dogs bark. The air is a heavy mix of humidity and jasmine. A fan rattles around to cool. I hear distant cicadas. Across the veranda, the stars are out in abundance. I sit here thinking about Tonga, for that is where I am, and I think about the States, where I am heading, and I think too about, Ireland, where I’ll soon return. The final leg of my travels is about to commence, but first, let me indulge. Let me tell you about Tonga.

Spin the globe around many times and randomly select a place. Do this over and over again. Chances are you won’t land on Tonga. The reason being, there isn’t very much to land on.

To be official, The Kingdom of Tonga is an archipelago in the South Pacific. 176 islands. 36 (last count) inhabited. Population 98,000 (last count). Some islands so small you can walk around them in five minutes. I ran around one earlier in the week and it took me ten. Think palm trees. Think white sandy beaches. Think pineapples. Think coral reef. And importantly, think ocean, lots and lots of it.

That is Tonga. That’s the bit the tourists, the few that there are, get to see. But given the size of the place, there is so much more.

There are a few basic rules to survival in Tonga. Follow them, and you’ll be a step ahead to finding out what that more is.

1. Don’t be in a rush. Things don’t happen quickly here, so what is there to rush to? You’ll be amazed at what you notice when you slow down.

2. Like your vowels. Because at least every second letter is going to be one.

3. Don’t be on an Atkins diet. Carbs are in here. Taro, yam, tapioca, bread fruit, potatoes.. often all on the one plate at the same time.

4. Stop and chat. It is the way this place works. If you can’t think of anything to talk about, talk about carbohydrates. They are really popular.

5. If you don’t swim, learn to, and get a snorkel- there is a magical world of reef and colour just below the surface, waiting to be explored. Dive in.

6. Swim with most of your clothes on. Bikinis are NOT in. Togs are very 2050. Try shorts and a t-shirt instead. You’ll fit in better.

7. Go to church. You don’t have to believe in it, but at least appreciate the singing. It will give you a glimpse into the Tongan soul.

8. Share. Share whatever- smiles, sweets, greetings. People give here. They give a lot. Give a little in return.

9. Get off the main island. The capitol of Nuku’alofa may seem like a one street wonder, but it is a metropolis compared to the rest of the islands. Hop on a ferry. Hop on a plane. Explore.

10. I’ll say it again. Slow down.

Follow that, and exploring doors will be opened. I have only a few hours remaining here. I’m off to knock on a few more.

Some of the faces and frolics

2007-02-19T02:03:00.000Z

Take II to Tonga

2007-02-12T22:16:00.000Z

Did someone just press pause?

I’ve jumped back in time, ten years in fact, when I lived on these islands. I’m now on Vava’u, my haunt back then, to visit the family who I lived with, and give myself a dose of the pacific, which time and memory has somewhat warped.

But it is all coming back to me now. The sights and sounds are familiar; crickets at dusk, a gecko’s chirp, cockerels crowing at ungodly hours, church bells ringing out for attention, palm trees everywhere, green green land, and ocean- lots of it.

It is so familiar that it’s almost as if time has stood still.

The pigs still torment the dogs, the dogs still torment each other.
The Vava’u high school uniform; deep wine, white shirts and the girls wearing bright yellow ribbons. They wave gestures of welcome. Malo’e’leli’, I shout, ‘Yo’, the reply.
Women in mourning, dressed in black, with traditional woven straw mats tied around their waists.
The shop fronts colourful, inside selling not much at all or overpriced imported goods.
A box of cornflakes is a treat. An ice-cream, pure indulgence!

Coming back I expected many changes, but what I see is not as dramatic as I thought would await. I see too many cars, too many plastic bags and more yachts in the harbour. There are some more shops, more restaurants… but not that many more. The market has moved closer to the wharf. There are a few internet café’s. The post office is looking more bedraggled. It still takes about 2 months for a letter to arrive from Europe, and that’s by airmail!
There is an ATM machine, which makes life a lot easier. The roads have been resurfaced; what once was like negotiating a deep ravine is now a smooth cruise (EU funding made it here).
The graveyards are even more colourful, with knitted quilts adorning gravesides.
The mosquitoes still bite.

The coral around my regular swimming spot has grown. I’ve seen new fish which I never saw before; in all a myriad of colour and stripes and shapes bringing new meaning to magnificent. The water is a warm bath, the snorkelling a meditation on diversity.

Yes, this is the Pacific.

The people are still big; big boned, big wasited. A heavily starch based diet- taro, tapioca, breadfruit, sweet potato, yam combined with coconut milk make this place a slimmer’s nightmare. Tasty but ‘waisty’. But then there is mango, passion fruit, soursop (a white fleshy sweet fruit), watermelons and pineapples so juicy, they dribble sweetness with every bite. These islands know how to provide.

I wander the streets and memories come back. Wonderful!

Community Communing

2007-02-12T21:17:00.000Z

Thoughts of community centres used to conjure images of grey haired grannies nodding off in chairs. A visit to Karori community centre, in one of the suburbs of Wellington changed all of that. There was indeed lots of grey hair, some no doubt the heads of grannies, but there was little nodding off, and lots of young faces too.

Eithne Wyndham Smith, one of two managers of the centre, gave me a tour around and a run down on activities. There is indoor bowls, meals on wheels, a drop in centre, a youth centre (complete with pool table and video games and two youth workers), a toy library (like a book library, only with toys- great idea), a parenting room.. among other things.

To help fund it all is an ‘op shop’, manned by volunteers, where the sales profits are fed back into the community centre to help with the running and maintenance of the services.

I popped along to the centre because in all of this talk about social change it is easy to ignore the things on our doorsteps. Community centres are hubs for bringing people together and for many an entry into new friendships. To others it is more than just that, but a lifeline.

(It was a case of small world syndrome when meeting Eithne. She mentioned that her daughter, Theresa, is currently working with the UN in Lesotho. I mentioned that a friend of mine, Joanna, is also working with the UN in Lesotho. One minute later Eithne pulls out of her email a photo of Joanna and Theresa having dinner together. Small world indeed- I love it!)

Morgan’s Magical Madness.

2007-02-12T21:00:00.000Z

So what do you do when a good investment turns into a NZ$47 million bonus. For Gareth Morgan, you give it all away.

I first came across Gareth not through his philanthropic streak, but his adventurous one. Gareth, his wife Joanna, and a team of others have taken long distance motorbike trips around the world. An Indian journey across the Himalayas; another they entitled ‘Kimchi Kiwi’s’ across Korea; and an epic, retracing the journey of Marco Polo from Venice to Beijing across the Silk Road. Photos and astute commentary are captured on their blog, www.worldbybike.com

Their travels are reminders of the cultural and geographical diversity of the globe, while also the ‘have’ and ‘have nots’ which punctuate it with disparity. So when Gareth’s investment came through, he decided to set up the Morgan Charitable Trust, and seek ways of redistributing his gains.

The money came as a result of the sale of Trade Me (New Zealand’s equivalent of Ebay), which Gareth’s son Sam had set up. At the time when Sam’s business was getting going, Gareth saw the investment potential and placed his bets. The horse came in a winner.

Seeing investment potential is something Gareth himself has made a business of. Trained as an economist, Gareth set up Gareth Morgan Investments, which now has a portfolio of ‘about NZ$1 billion’. He is also a director of Infometrics, an economic forecasting company based in Wellington. Between all that, his bike trips, and being a father to four, grandfather to one, he still has had time to write several books on financial investment including the recent New Zealand bestseller, Pension Panic, which he wrote while on his US bike trip (He packs a PDA, a fold-up keyboard and a satellite phone onto all this trips which make up his mobile office). Between all of that Gareth is a regular contributor to New Zealand’s Dominion Post and Christchurch Press, where his economic rambling are expounded with wit and charisma. He is also a regular voice on radio with dispatches while on his bike trips (including one from Iran when he and fellow travellers were under house arrest!)

Gareth speaks with a slight lisp, a remnant from an early cleft palette, which he says made him a prime bullying target. School was troublesome, grades were weak. It wasn’t until university where his academic focus was found. But by the time he had his PhD in economics from Massey University in Wellington, with a wife and two kids, he wanted a break. His wife Joanna is ‘bus mad’, and so they packed up home into a converted bus and went on the road for three years with a growing family; picking up odd jobs along the way. He was while living in the bus Gareth set up his first business (bus at night, suit by day), convincing investors to back a horse racing guide called Bettor Informed. It eventually failed, but the lessons were there to go on to set up Informetrics, and onwards from there.

Gareth is indeed a busy man. More bike trips are planned for the coming years. More books to be written, and meanwhile, the Morgan Trust will be redistributing the winnings.

(Gareth Morgan was named by North South Magazine as New Zealander of the Year in 2007. You can follow his blog, photos and commentaries on http://www.worldbybike.com
An account of his travels across the Silk Road is published as ‘The Silk Riders’)

My Photos in Action

2007-02-12T20:26:00.000Z

A collection of my India photos have recently been used by GlobalGain on their relaunched, revamped website. GlobalGain is a US based organisation which promotes and supports the replication of successful development projects.

To see how my photos look and to read more about Global Gain, click here…

One Very Literate Bird

2007-01-27T00:37:00.000Z

Kea are beautiful, naughty, playful birds; the clowns of the New Zealand crop. Their under feathers are a myriad of red and blue and their backs a jade green which flickers in the light.

They are entertainers too, this one typically so, which I found picking the notice off the post.

The View Offerings

2007-01-18T06:11:00.000Z

The Land of New Zeal

2007-01-18T05:59:00.000Z

The New Zealand landscape has already been dosed in superlatives, and I could easily dip it in some more, but I’ll spare you that. Instead I am going to share two poems which I have come across between my beach and hill wanderings, which, at least for me, capture something which the superlatives don’t.

Place

Once in a while
You may come across a place
where everything
seems as close to perfection
as you will ever need.
And striving to be faultless
the air on its knees
hold the trees apart,
yet nothing is categorically
thus, or that, and before the dusk
mellows and fails
the light is like honey
on the stems of tussock grass,
and the shadows
are mauve birthmarks
on the hills.

- Brian Turner

Deep in the Hills

Once I thought the land I had loved and known
Lay curled in my inmost self; musing alone
In the quiet room I unfolded the folded sea,
Unlocked the forest and the lonely tree,
Hill and mountain valley beach and stone,
All these, I said, are here and exist in me.

But now I know it is I who exist in the land;
My inmost self is blown like a grain of sand
Along the windy beach, and is only free
To wander among the mountains, enter the tree,
To turn again a sea-worn stone in the hand,
Because these things exist outside of me.

O far from the quiet room my spirit fills,
The familiar valleys, is folded deep in the hills.

- Ruth Dallas

I’ve had interviews of a different kind over the last few weeks. Interviews with nature. It is hard not to in New Zealand. In awe. In wonder. But while the beauty of the place uproots, there are also manifold questions about the fragility of the landscape and wildlife which inhabit it. I have heard some crazy statistics lately about the endangered birds of the world- of the top 50, about 30 are in New Zealand. It includes the Fairy Penguin, the Yellow Eyed Penguin, the Sea Albatross- populations of which are slightly stabilising due to rigorous conservation efforts, but which are nowhere near safe levels.

Then I look at the landscape, knowing the fjords and valleys are about 40 million years in the making, and ask myself, who really has a right to this place?

I have only been here a short while, but in that time I think I am developing a new perspective on time or an altered twist on significance; a longitudinal one. I am here for an eyeblink, lucky for the sight of it, privileged to walk it.

New Zealand. Land of New Zeal. More wanderings to do. More questions to ask.

In Oz, and Green

2007-01-18T05:54:00.000Z

“Demand for freshwater will exceed supply by the year 2030. Australians have the highest per capita water consumption in the western world. By the year 2025, two out of every three persons will live in moderate to high water stress conditions”

Heavy reading, delivered to my on a water bottle by Sue and Colin Lennox, co-founders of Oz Green.

Sue and Colin are passionate about clean water. They are also passionate about the belief that something can be done to reverse this trend. Specifically, they believe in the potential of young people to catalyse this trend, and so, ten years ago they set up Oz Green, an organisation which harnesses the leadership of young people into environmental projects. One of their programmes is ‘Youth Lead’, a programme designed to give 15- 25 year olds the opportunity to examine their role in the world, and look at ways in which they can build the skills required to live sustainably.

“We recognise that the challenges we face on the planet now are not going to be easily addressed’, Sue explained, ‘and the key characteristics that we will need are things like resistance, resilience and tenacity’. The Youth Lead programme is designed to build these skills, and enable current ‘young leaders’ to change both themselves and their communities. They also work with schools to care for rivers in their local environment.. plus they have a team of young people in India at the moment, working alongside local communities to help clean up the Ganges and attending the 5th International Youth River Congress. You can read their blog here

Thanks for that bottle of clean water Sue and Colin, and for future bottles...

tags: Water, Green, Australia, Social Entrepreneur, Environment, Rivers

Inspire Inspiring

2007-01-02T13:20:00.000Z

Inspire aim to do exactly what it says on the tin. Inspire.

Started up over ten years ago by Jack Heath, a former speech writer for the Prime Minister, the organisation has expanded to three core programme areas and a growing, vibrant team. I met up with Kelly Betts who runs ActNow, one of those three initiatives, while passing through Sydney. ActNow is an online web service which links volunteering or community involvement activities with young people. It also hosts stories from people who have got involved, each recounting what impact action has had on their lives. Its young people writing and supporting other young people, and ultimately about positive social change.

Kelly knows first hand what impact volunteering had on her. While doing a general economics degree in university she started to question whether she was ‘on the right track’. A stint as a volunteer in the Cook Islands after graduating shifted her thinking about her future, one which has led to the Inspire Foundation. To Kelly and Inspire, positive action can be captured in so many ways. It can be about environmental responsibility, asking difficult questions, raising issues among peers, even the act of voting.

Lauched in May 2006, ActNow has about 4000 new people checking out the site each day. Her vision is to make ActNow the first point of call for young people looking to find out more about social action.

ActNow are going big for 2007. With a huge music events marketing campaign planned, that vision may not be far off!

Calling All Lawn Lovers

2007-01-02T13:02:00.000Z

A wander in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney granted the following permission.

‘Please walk on the grass. We also invite you to smell the roses, hug the trees, talk to the birds, and picnic on the lawns’.

My kind of place really!

Around and About Down Under

2007-01-02T12:52:00.000Z

I have been gallivanting around Australia for the last month; or rather a very small section of Australia. It is such a vast continent distance seems to get redefined. I spent a few days in Melbourne, then drove along the great ocean road from Melbourne to Adelaide, twisting and winding across spectacular sea views, plus managing to get in a couple of cold dips in the sea.

From Adelaide, my mother (who I am travelling with for this leg of the journey) and I, took a flight to Hobart in Tasmania. A wild, rugged island, not dissimilar to Ireland in parts. Quite a remarkable place, where about 1/5th of the land mass is designated ‘wilderness territory’. No roads. No cars. No disturbance. There are a few overland walking tracks, and the odd boat is allowed up the rivers. This is land at its true and beautiful best. A large section of the remaining of the island is State forest or National Park. Which makes for a lot of trees. Green bliss.

From Tasmania it was back to the big island. Canberra specifically, where I got to catch up with some people who I met while living in China a few years back; Robyn Keech, Tony Marx and their daughter, Sam Keech- Marx. They are a fantastic family; conscious of their impact on the planet and living life according to those principles. Tony runs quite the organic garden out the back of the house, and it was a delight to sample the produce.

From Canberra it was to Sydney. In time for the New Year celebrations, along with a couple of million others. With a view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it was a ‘hairs raising on the back on my head’ moment as the fireworks lit up the skies- twice. Once at 9pm, then again to ring in the New Year. 2007 is off to a bang, literally.

Here is a little photo diary from the last few weeks. I have posted additional ones to my flickr site.

A Bit Behind

2006-12-12T06:04:00.000Z

Ok, so I am a bit behind. After six months of non-stop travel, and about 80 interviews in, my body told me to slow down for a while. I hit Vietnam with a bit of a bang- of the intestinal variety. It’s all part of the travel package really, but when it comes it knocks you for socks, and shoes, and flip flops… I had to lay low for a while, take it a bit easier, and just let all experiences of the last six months try to settle as my tummy recalibrates.

I did get to see a few interesting things from my hotel room tough… just to prove that I have been to Vietnam.

But I am glad to say, I’m on the mend. I’m also on the road again. For this segment of the trip I’ve met up with my mother, Geraldine, and we are travelling through Australia and New Zealand. The plan is to see some of the sights, while meeting some people along the way.

Thanks to Harry Andrews from Barefoot Power for putting us up in Melbourne. Harry and Steward Craine are two years into a very interesting ‘social enterprise’, or a business with a social edge, rolling out solar power solutions in Papua New Guinea and Fiji. Harry told me that only 10% of PNG’s population has electricity, which gives rise to a significant business opportunity. Combining it with low cost solar energy solutions (solar power lanterns and battery chargers, for under US$5), makes for a chance to mainstream renewable energy systems into these countries.

Harry’s house was full of solar power gadgets which Barefoot Power are piloting in different regions. Hearing about their journey over the last few years was interesting. A young professional, working in the corporate sector and travelling as a tourist overseas, Harry had that nagging feeling, ‘there has to be more than this’. With a background in environmental science and project management he wanted to make better use of this skills. He teamed up with one of his colleages, Steward, who was having the same feeling. Steward background was in enginneering, and they realised during frequents chats over a few beers that a business idea was brewing. (Steward was away on business when I was in Melbourne, so I didn’t get a chance to meet him) It was either all or nothing...and so they packed in their jobs, and set up Barefoot Power, researching opportunities, seeking finance, piloting initiatives, looking for scaleable models. It is still early days for them, and Harry is aware of the steep learning curve they are on. The business model has been drawn and redrawn as they incorporate new ideas and learning into their plans.

Young, committed, eager, interested. It’s a good combination. Hard work certainly, but as Harry explained, it is worth the try.

Hip Hop Revisited

2006-12-12T06:01:00.000Z

‘Tiny Toonz’. I looked at the name first and though of a kindergarten. But I was wrong, gladly. Tiny Toonz is the name of a hip hop dance group which a young guy, nickname KK, real name, unknown, who has been running in Phnom Penh. I was really impressed by KK, not only with his dance moves, but also the positive choices he is making to transform his own life, and help out others along the way. Here is a section of an email I wrote home about KK, but ultimately about making the choice to change situations.

Last night I went out to a hip hop dance practice in Phnom Penh. There was a group of about 20 kids and a young guy, KK, who was their trainer, all gathered in an upstairs room of KK’s home to work on their moves. I watched the practice for about an hour- the kids were incredible, twisting and contorting in magical ways, working hard to improve. KK had set up the group as a way to give the kids a focus, keep them off the streets. From the outset looking in, it was cool, funky, all positive, the kids looking like a bunch of innocent kids. But chatting to KK later, about his own background and about some of the challenges of working with the kids, it was not all so clear cut. The kids themselves are from mixed backgrounds. Many come from broken homes. Some are orphans. Some are HIV+. Some come from abusive settings. They are learning to dance out their frustrations on the dance floor, but they don’t necessarily leave them behind;. There have been fights, arguments, stealing equipment, not turning up for practices, letting the group down. The older kids get paid to go an teach other communities how to dance. But they don’t always show up, or they are not always motivated. KK himself has a chequered background. At 29 he looks hardened and streetwise. We didn’t go into too much detail, but when he was 6 months his family moved to California, and he grew up there, learning hip hop, and getting heavily tattooed along the way (he has an incredible tattoo of Angkor Wat on his back). But somethings happened (not sure what) and he was deported from the States three years ago- sent ‘back’ to Cambodia.

This is some silly US law, which is a strike once and you are out. Apparently there are many deportees in Cambodia now, people who veered off the so called straight path in the states, were not given a chance and were kicked out of the country. Many have landed in Cambodia with no jobs, no family, drug habits and no support.
KK landed in Phnom Penh alone and jobless. But rather than sitting around and falling further, he made a choice. To create his own life again here. To build networks, contacts, and to start dancing again. He started volunteering with a local NGO, worked for 7 months without pay, then eventually got a paid position as drugs and HIV outreach worker. When he comes home from work at 6, he starts dance practice with the kids. He has built relationships for the kids, and has become a role model for them. He has even taken 5 of them on as his own- kids who are orphans, or where home is too unsafe. They stay with him and he helps them with school fees.

So this is someone that was kicked out of the States because he wasn’t making a positive contribution to society? KK is no puritan cookie, nor are the kids. But they try. They are making choices day by day to improve their lot. It’s people at risk working to help each other out. KK doesn’t claim to have the answers for these kids, he doesn’t claim that dance will be their redemption or their solution, but he does know that they are talented, they love to dance, and at least for the hours they are in the room, they are safe. It’s not everything but it is something better than nothing. He knows he may not be the ideal role model, but he willing to give it a try and take on the responsibility. This is something I really admire. It’s all about choice.

A Long, Productive Stop Over

2006-12-12T05:47:00.000Z

(Outside Friends Cafe in Phnom Penh)

Sebastien Marot was on his way to Japan. He stopped off in Cambodia. Twelve years later he is still there. He never made it to Japan.

Some stop-over! In that time he has helped establish Friends International, got married, had a child, and is looking now at ways to replicate the Friends model in other countries. He was just back from a visit to Myanmar when I met him.

I asked Sebastian to give me an overview of Friends. One hour later he was still on the overview. It’s that comprehensive.

To summarise, Friends International look at ways of supporting street children and breaking the cycle which leads children to the streets in the first place. They run a number of projects. Their first and most established is Mith Samlanh (or ‘Friends’) in Phnom Penh, which provides vocational training, education, health and hygiene programmes, cultural activities and emotional support for street children and their families. They run a restaurant where young adults are trained in the service and catering sector. They have commercial units including a shop where goods from the training units (clothes, jewellery, bags. About 1800 children are supported each day through the programmes.

But that is not all. Friends International also running a number of other projects which aim to ‘break the cycle’. One is a child protection programme, ChildSafe, which builds networks of community support which includes taxi drivers, hotel operators, local authorities and tourists to protect children from abuse.

I could go on. I’ve been thinking about Friends considerably since meeting Sebastian. He spoke with clarity about understanding the system which results in having children on the streets. Prevention starts with family, so that’s where their programmes start. Through the shop outlet, Mith Samlanh can guarantee a decent wage to a family. But for their goods to be supplied to the shops, parents must sign a contract which states that they will send their children to school. Break the contract, no income. It’s a positive incentive for all. With an income, the families are given incentives to look after their children. More kids in school, less on the streets. Sounds like a good deal to me.

tags: Friends, Business, Cambodia, Social Entrepreneur, Street, Children

Documenting the Unspeakable

2006-12-12T05:36:00.000Z

To understand contemporary Cambodia it’s vital to step back just 31 years to the start of the Cambodian Genocide. It’s a shocking, violent, traumatic history but to ignore it is to step over a huge scar in the country, one which is still healing, and (is still shaping the growth of the country.

Ignoring is something Youk Chhang is certainly not about. Youk was just one of the all too many victims of the genocide. He survived, but his father, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins did not.

Youk started the Documentation Centre of Cambodia as a means of recording the history of the genocide, showing the world what happened.

‘It’s about family’, Youk told me first off. He lost his. He craves for it. But knowing what happened is a way, and sharing those stories is a way for the world to acknowledge the depravity it can reach to, and hold a hand up high and say never again.

Youk and his team have interviewed over 6000 individuals involved in the genocide, both persecutors and victims. They set up the Genocide Museum in one of the former prisons, Tuol Sleng, also known as S21. Between 1975 and 1979 it is estimated that about 11,000 prisoners were tortured and killed at S21. Walking around Tuol Sleng, encountering hundreds of black and white pictures of prisoners and images of their abuse, simply wrenches.

The documentation centre is now acting as a resource for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (which is soon to start), providing access to witness accounts and prison records.

Youk spent his teenage years at a refugee camp in Thailand, separated from his family. But what he admits started out as a quest for revenge, is now one of justice. For himself, for his mother, for humanity.

(Youk Chhang was named by Time Magazine as one of the Asian Heroes of the last 60 years).

Youth Star in Cambodia

2006-12-12T05:22:00.000Z

Youth Star Cambodia is putting volunteering on the Cambodian agenda. For Eva Mysliwiec, who started out as a peace corp volunteer, she believes that volunteering is a way of building community action, building skill and harnessing the leadership potential of a young population. With about 60% of the Cambodian population under 30, this is crucial.

Before setting up Youth Star, Eva spent a year travelling around Cambodia investigating the idea a Cambodian Volunteering Organisation. The overall result feedback was to go for it, and so that she did. Youth Star Cambodia was established in 2005 and the first cohort of volunteers sent this year. As part of the programme young Cambodians volunteer for a year in another provience of the country; working in educational and micro-enterprise projects.

To Eva, it is about giving something to the local communities while building a new generation of social leaders.

Eva, originally French, has been living in Cambodia since 1993. There has been huge change in that time, but the education system has been slow to adapt and she believes it is not equipping young people with the skills and confidence for civic engagement and social change. Youth Star hopes to fill those gaps, and given the postitive reports from the volunteers this year, it seems those hopes are being fulfilled.

An Arts Agenda- Cambodia Style

2006-12-12T04:32:00.000Z

I was on a bit of trail in Cambodia, an artistic one, which took me up the country and into some very creative spaces and offered some interesting historical insights.

After the Khmer Rouge genocide in the late 70s, most of the intellectual community, artists, musicians and writers were killed. The art school was closed and physical survival became priority, not artistic creation. As a result much of the country's cultural heritage was damaged. In the years that followed, preserving some of that heritage became crucial to maintaining cultural history. Today, that task remains, but so too does creating a contemporary arts scene which reflects and respects the recent history of the country, while healing Cambodia into the 21st Century. It is a task which Dana Langlois, Sasha Constable, John Weeks, and Srey Bandole (a few of the people I met while in Cambodia) have taken on, and who are helping to create a new artistic life in the country.

Dana Langlois, the founder of Java Arts Cambodia, started off opening a coffee shop in Phnom Penh, with a small gallery attached. The café became increaslingly popular, and as it grew, more and more people were coming in contact with contemporary artists through the gallery. From her experience with the exhibiting artists, Dana recognised the need for a forum to promote Cambodian arts. So emerged the Cambodian Arts Network, a forum to support indigenous artists and try to generate enough income and support for the artistic scene to flourish. Dana has just opened a new gallery in Phnom Penh to contribute to doing just that.

***

Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor are a must on any travel itinerary to Cambodia. I spent a few days in Siem Reap marvelling at the temples, where art and nature now are intertwined; tree trunks and architraves enmeshed. The temples blew me away and as I contemplated the cultural legacy of the Angkor era, I was also thinking about the genetic artistic linage that such a cultural could create, asking myself 'Is art in their blood'?

Sasha Constanble who runs the Art House, a gallery in Siem Reap, would answer 'Yes'. She told me she she sees it through her work both teaching sculptor and as a curator, and spoke of a rich Cambodian talent which due to a lack of opportunity for artists is undeveloped. Like Java Arts, Sasha hopes that The Art House will become a place to support emergent talent. Srey Bandole, one of artists exhibited in The Art House is just one of those talents.

(on my way to Battambang)

I met up with Srey Bandole in a city called Battambang, a six hour boat trip from Siem Reap. Chatting with him, I realised that his own work goes well beyond creation of individual art pieces to creating a culture and community which supports artistic expression, one in which artists can earn a living through their work. Bandole founded the Phare Arts School to achieve those ends.

A visit to the school was an impressive and entertaining affair. Phare is one of two arts schools in the country, with fine arts, music and circus training as options. Today over 1000 people attend, from primary to college level. Regular classes (Maths, English, Khmer etc) take place in the morning, and in the afternoons, children are given the choice as to what stream they want. It makes for a colourful backdrop.

(Some of the pulips at Phare primary school)

In addition, through the sale of work and circus performances the school can fund social workers for the community, and can provide some education scholarships to pupils.

I went along to an incredible circus performance one of the evenings I was there, cheering and screaming along with about 50 local kids, as fire throwers, acrobats, jugglers and gymnasts had us on the edge of our seats. This in Cambodia? Now, that was something I would not have expected.

Back in Phnom Penh, I continued to follow the Arts Theme, meeting up with Delfine Kassam, founder of Sovannah Phum, an arts association which brings dancers and musicians together. Weekly shows give performers a source of income, while helping to keep the traditional arts alive- including Khmer Shadow Puppetry. Performances portray social messages, and Sovanna have prepared shows on HIV/ Aids prevention and environmental protection. A troupe is currently preparing for a tour about the bird flu! Delfine herself used to be a circus performer and gained the money to travel by busking and selling juggling equipment en route.

***

A reading population is a learning one. But literacy is not widespread in Cambodia and the country does not have a reading culture. But for John Weeks and his dedicated team at Our Books, they believe it can and should be. They also have a passion for comics and see the creation of a comic books a means to get people reading.
John and his team were busy distributing their first comic book on the theme of anti-corruption, to schools across Cambodia when I was there. The Khmer version was hot off the press and an English version was just being proof read. Alongside that, they are archiving old Khmer comics, creating digital copies as another means to record a piece of Khmer history which otherwise would be lost.

‘If we did not do it’, John explained, ‘nobody would’.

***

(A huge huge thanks to John Weeks for this help during my time in Cambodia- for all the contacts, lending me a phone, and the general ‘heads-up’ on happenings).

tags: Arts, Gallery, Cambodia, Social Entrepreneur, Comics, Artists

Blindfolded Photography in Phnom Penh

2006-11-30T07:56:00.000Z

I needed a bit of help with this one. I stayed with a great couple while in Phnom Penh, Bec Cook and Ben Heath. I asked Bec to accompany me to the market one afternoon, to help guide me through it, blindfolded and camera at the ready- for the Blindfolded Photography Challenge, Part II.

We choose a good time of day, pre dusk, when the sun was a little less harsh and the heat had loosened its rein on the day. But it was still hot, and with a scarf around my eyes, I was sweating.

I’ve been into plenty of markets while on my travels, but this was the first one in Phnom Penh. Every market is different, each with unique haphazard layouts and always dense thing which you don’t expect. Walking around with eyes wide open can be tricky enough, so with eyes wide shut it is both tricky and a little unsettling.

Approaching the market I started to get nervous. I already stand out- the whitey that I am, but with a blindfold I was looking ever so slightly mad. As I put the blindfold on the local people started to react. Some laughed. One approached, ‘What are you doing? Bec replied for me, ‘She is crazy’. Thanks for the confirmation there Bec!

I could hear lots of banter around me. I could almost feel the chaos. Bec was beside me, probing, joking, looking after me. She really was my eyes, and I know that I wouldn’t have been brave enough to venture in alone. Good job she was there, because within a minute I walked into a scooter. Excellent start Clare. Down a step I go, into the market.

The air is heavy. I know, even though I can not see, that there are a myriad eye watching. ‘No eyes, No see’, I hear someone say. I’m treading a fine line between amusement and tainting the entire white race with a broad stroke of insanity. Opps, I walk into a table.

We are passing though narrow isles now. I’ve lost my orientation. Bec is telling me to walk straight, but even with that, I am bumping into things, and I haven’t even been drinking. It feels like we are walking quickly. By now though, I don’t mind that people are staring. It’s part of the amusement.

Bec’s hands are on my shoulders. There is a particular puddle that I seem to like. She tells me it is small, but for some reason I keep stepping into it. I’m wearing a pair of sandals and my feet are now wet and feel a bit grimy. Yuk!

‘Straight’ she tells me. ‘Don’t bump into the boy’. ‘Mind the eggs’. Don’t pick up the machete’. ‘You are quite the spectacle Clare’. ‘Mind your step’. ‘Watch the rubbish’. ‘Walk quickly through the meat section, I’ll blame you for this later, I hate the meat section’. True enough, the meat section did stink.

At some areas of the market, I could feel the heat more intense. I could hear things cooking around me. The sounds were a swirl of activity I couldn’t quite differentiate.

We came to a junction. I needed Bec’s help here. ‘If you go right, it’s dark’, she tells me. ‘If you go straight it is boring’.‘Left it is then’, I quickly decide.

Left takes us through some narrow spaces. We reach one place. I was about to saunter through but Bec tells me that is way too dangerous. I saw later what she meant- a row a people with woks boiling and charcoals burners looking very hot and very dangerous. We take another route and negotiate more narrow aisles.

‘The exit is coming up’ she tells me. ‘Good, I’m getting tired of this blind business’, I tell her. I meant it. It was draining. I was dependent, at risk, vulnerable, disorientated.
When I took the blindfold off I was glad. For one it was cooler, and two it was a lot easier to find my way around.

Afterwards we walked back through the market, retracing my steps. The layout was not what I imagined. The aisles a little wider. The puddles a little smaller. Then the diversity of fruit, and veg, and shoes, and bags, and people and options, which when blindfolded I just did not engage with. Some people seemed relieved when they saw me again, fully sighted, but a few others seemed a little angry, as if I had tricked them. Opps.

When finished, I felt relieved but enriched. A New experience. New exposure. And a whole new way of looking at trust.

Thanks Bec, my guiding star.

tags: Blind, Blindfolded, Cambodia, Photography, Phnom Penh, Travel

Cambodian Arrival

2006-11-17T09:39:00.000Z

The line for visas is like a factory conveyor belt. I fill in a form. Hand over a passport photo. Hand over my passport. It gets passed along a line of 10 very official looking officials. At the end of the counter I hand over $20 and am handed back my passport, visa inserted. Stamp stamp. Easy enough, I’m in.

The lovely Bec Cook, who I’ll stay with while here (a friend of a friend), has arranged for a tuk tuk driver to meet me. I see a bright eyed, smiling man holding up a sign, Ms. Clare Mulvany'. When I meet him it turns out that he was expecting two people, Clare and Mulvany. ‘Two just became one’, I inform him showing him the name on my passport to prove that I am actually Clare and Mulvany all rolled into one. He smiles. Laughs. Runs to get his tuk tuk.

His tuk tuk is spanking new. Black and red glossy leatherette, with silver polls swirling to a black and red canopy. I am reminded of a carousel, and step up into it, imaging plastic horses bobbing up and down with me going around in circles. I ask the driver his name. ‘Mr. Gogo’. Appropriate enough for a tuk tuk driver don’t you think. We go.

The 5km drive immediately reminds me that I am not in a so called ‘developed country’, and as we pass by the life on the streets, past the thriving little restaurants, the sounds of children’s play, the barber shop on the footpath, I’m thinking, ‘so if Ireland is meant to be ‘developed’, does that make this ‘undeveloped’”. I think not.

There is so much energy on the streets, and forms of transport. Scooters and mopeds, myriads, each going in different directions. I’m sitting, thinking, ‘I love the chaos, somehow it feels so much more natural than the highways and concrete of Bangkok’.

Over the next couple of days I start to notice, more and more, what is carried on the scooters. Two people is probably average. But then you see families, kids hanging on. Father, mother, granny, baby, chicken. You see people carrying all sorts of things. A fridge. A computer. A ladder. Cabbages. Packs of noodles. 50 or so chickens strapped around the handlebars and saddle. Eggs, all stacked in trays on the back. Then you see the things which are fixed to the side of the mopeds, like a mobile restaurant. Park and set up a business.

This is a city on the move. Two wheel moves. Phnom Penh. Phenomenal.

tags: Travel, Transport, Cambodia, Social Entrepreneur, Phnon Penh, Bikes

2006-11-17T09:29:00.000Z

While in Ubon, I stayed out with Linda Nowakowski, a woman I came in contact with throught the Omidyar Network , and her dog, Nu Song, (meaning, Second Rat!) I however took to calling him Nuisence. I’m a dog lover but this one, cute as it was, stretched my affection. Nu Song took a shine to my toes. He nibbled, them, hard and frequently until I couldn’t even walk across the floor without them attacked!!

Anyway, moaning aside.

Linda teaches English to undergraduate business management students at the university. It’s a high tech classroom. 25 students sit around 20 computers (still a shortage of availability), internet live. They are creating a Wiki for their course, an online collaborative website, to store resources, notes, contact details, a glossary of terms which can be looked up in class, and acccess an online dictionary and thesaurus.
Assignments are emailed (when they are actually done… apparently completion rates have not been high this term, but Linda is on to it!). The world is at their fingertips. No digital divide for these students. I do not really know what I was expecting, but it was not this. Expectations uprooted, in a postitive way. Great.

I got to give a talk to the students about my travels; sharing some photos and tales. The African continent seemed like another world to them, but maybe now, it is just a little bit closer. I hope so…it’s at their fingertips after all.

tags: Thailand, Business, University, Social Entrepreneur, Teaching, English

Rice Co-operation

2006-11-17T02:51:00.000Z

The Issan region of Eastern Thailand, boarding Laos and Cambodia, is the poorest region in the country. The land is flat and dry. The crops very much seasonal. The rainy season has just passed and the rice is high, reading for harvesting. In a good year there will be two harvests, but it is not guaranteed.

It is a politically complex region too. In one area around Ubon Rathathani, the regional capital, a single MP owns 90% of the land. For the farmers working the land, they are dominated by his politics. He infulences rice market prices and grants and subsidies available to the farmers are dependent on their voting preferences.

But a group of farmers were seeing that they were getting a raw deal organised themselves into the Mekong River Rice Farmers Co-operative, a group based on the Buddhist principles of self sufficiency, which promotes crop diversity and collaborative marketing for increased sales. I went out to visit the region with Titipol Phakdeewanich, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Management Science from Ubon Ratchtani university. He is doing some research into the political awareness of the farmers, and the potential for developing a farmers union.

One of the co-operative farmers showed us around his land, which is designed on the self sufficiency principles. The farmer in turn trains other farmers how to make diverse use of their land, thus decreasing dependency on the rice harvest.
The is a lot of diversity on his plot;
Rows of cabbages, enough to feed his family and surplus for the market.
A small pond, with catfish, kept in stock for domestic usage.
Banana trees planted between the rice fields.
A mixture of fresh herbs; dill, basil, parsley.
Mango trees. Papaya trees.
And of course, rice. Plenty of it.

Driving past other farms, his looked very different. Greener. Richer. Lots of rice, but back-up also, such an important factor, especially when the rains don’t come. They came this year, next year, who knows?

Peerage? The New Peer Age.

2006-11-17T02:45:00.000Z

Since the beginning of this trip new ways of communicating and working together are becoming known to me; and the technology to enable it practically free.
I blog. I put images on Flickr. I use collaborative online networking site, like the Omidyar Network to help me track people down and find out about interesting projects. I use VoP software like google talk, skype to connect for free around the globe.

I think about it. Even five years ago a trip of this nature would have been a lot more labour intensive. It would have been harder to find the people and more expensive to contact them. What’s interesting me also is the possibility for collaboration with individuals which I otherwise would never have met had it not been for this technological development.

It’s a fascination shared my many it seems, none more so that Michel Bauwens who had set up the Peer to Peer (or P2P) foundation, a network driven organisation which aims to research, document and promote the emergence of such new networks.

I ‘met’ Michel first through Omidyar (surprise, surprise), but tracked him down in person in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, where he put me up for a few days and shared his insights and discoveries.

To Michel peer to peer is ‘a form of human network-based organisation with rest upon the few participation of equipotent partners, engaged in the production of common resources, without recourse to monetary compensation as a key motivation factor and not organised according to hierarchical methods of command and control’.

Phew. Complicated? Well if you are reading this online chances are that you have used or are right now using a product which is a result of such peer networks. If your computer is running on a Linux operating system you certainly are. If you have ever used the Mozilla Firefox internet browser, then you have. If you have look something up in Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia, then yes again.

To Michel, these products indicate the potential of P2P to not only change the face of technology, but also radically alter work practices and global collaboration. They are indicators that people, by connecting in new ways, have the power to reshape the way society operates, for the better.

Michel is Belgian philosopher and internet pioneer. He is credited as setting up the first cyberlibrary while working as knowledge manager at BP. His life has taken him on many a shift and turn; as a documentary film maker looking at the relationship between spirituality and technology, as founder of a marketing company, as founder of a Belgian internet print magazine, and now working full time on P2P documentation and promotion. All the time learning to recreate himself along the way. He dispensed a some gems of wisdom which he has learned on this own journey, including;

-Don’t ask for permission! If you are trying something innovative, do it. When people see that you are doing it, and that you are successful, then they will support you.

I like it!!

tags: P2P, Network, Thailand, Social Entrepreneur, Peer, Foundation

Condoms and Cabbages

2006-11-17T02:29:00.000Z

A condom in Thailand is known colloquially as a ‘Mechai’. Mechai Viravaidya, the founder of Population and Community Development Association (PDA) is known in Thailand as ‘Mr. Condom’. It’s no coincidence.

Back in the 80s, Mechai realised that a potential AIDS epidemic could erupt, and knew the time to intervene was critical. So he donned a ‘Captain Condom’, Superman-esque outfit and started distributing condoms around Bangkok. He’d go into the red lights district and host condom blowing competitions. There was also a Miss Condom beauty competition. He’d travel on buses dressed as Captain Condom and distribute safe sex and health information. He said at the time, ‘If Thais remain unaware of the dangers of AIDS, it will soon be too late to prevent the deadly disease from spreading. We have to try to keep the disease under control’.

Mechai’s antics were laughed at, but importantly he got noticed. More importantly, so did his message, not only by the public, but also the government.

The government saw the need to intervene on a wider scale. The army was mobilised and 326 army controlled radio stations and the army run TV station launched a 3 year educational campaign to help prevent the further spread of HIV. The business community were also targeted, with Mechai proclaiming, ‘dead staff don’t produce and dead customers don’t buy’. Businesses listened. About 100 corporations enrolled in PDA’s ‘Corporate Education Programme’, training staff about AIDS.

Over the coming years PDA were at the forefront of Health education in Thailand, working across society, with sex workers, in factories, in prisons, in villages, in schools, at border crossings. They continued to mobilise government interest and also set the tone among the NGO world, desensitizing condom use.

The statistics around STD prevalence rates in this time are a testament to the intervention work. In 1989 the Ministry of Public Health reported 410,406 STD cases, representing 7.69 cases per 1000 of the population. By 1997 this had fallen to 22,765 cases, or 0.38 per 1000, and since that time has continued to fall. Condom use is also up, dramatically. The use of condoms by commercial sex workers in 1989 was reported to be 25%, by 1993 it was up to 92%. In all, sexual behaviour was radically altered, saving lives.

PDA has grown and diversified over the years. Family planning. Refugee education. Rural development. Microfinance. Post tsunami rehabilitation. Each strand taking innovative measure to create change. There is a book in this alone!

Interestingly too, PDA run commercial businesses including a restaurant and two resorts called Condoms and Cabbages.

I sampled a meal and spent a weekend camping at one of the resorts in the hills north of Bangkok. Quirky, fun, beautiful settings, and importantly profits get driven back into PDA. I’ll drink to that.. and eat to that, and swim to that, and camp to that...

(Mechai was last week named by Times Magazine Asia as one the Heroes of the last 60 years. He is one of two Thai people named, the other is the King)

(Home for a few days while staying at Condoms and Cabbages, SapTai)

tags: HIV, Aids, Thailand, Social Entrepreneur, Health, Condoms

Following the Festivals

2006-11-10T05:48:00.000Z

My timing to Thailand is been perfect.

I got here just in time to enjoy Loy Krathong, a festival of lights, candles, floating lanterns and colourful parades. It is kind of a Valentine’s day and St Patrick’s Day rolled together, with some Buddhist spirituality mixed into the medley.
Fantastic!

Here are some images.

tags: Festival, Floats, Thailand, Loy Krathong, Photography, Lights

Eyes Wide Blind

2006-11-10T05:38:00.000Z

Another challenge excited. A blindfolded one. Sound strange? Well, the experience was, but a wonderful one.

Tony Deifell, who I came across though the Omidyar Network, has been involved with Seeing Beyond Sight, a project teaching photography to blind teenagers.
Tony set the challege guidelines; to get more people to experience new ways of seeing. Here's the basics.

Challenge yourself to see the world differently – with more than your eyes.

FIVE SIMPLE GUIDELINES:

1. Blindfold yourself.
2. Go out in public and make your way in the world (go one block, one hour or one roll of film; go with a friend or alone)
3. Photograph things you notice. And, just notice.
4. Embrace the whole experience as much as the picture taking.
5. Share your story – for each photograph write a caption about your experience. (write several paragraphs if you want)

If you depend on your eyes to get around, then it is hard not to use them. Although you can tell us about that, focus more on what you noticed about the world as you embarked on this journey. This experience isn’t about blindness – it is about seeing, noticing and paying attention with more than your eyes.

I’m in Thailand at the moment. I found myself at the edge of forest, one waiting to be explored. So I decide to walk it blind.

There I headed, slowly, up the hills. Things start circling in my head. 'Nobody in the world knows where I am at the moment' (I has headed off randomly, in search of some greenery). 'There are three wild tigers remaining in this region'. 'What if I get lost?'.

But I paused. I took some clean Thai air into my lungs and started to sense the greenery around me. Beautiful. The camera started to click as I stated to sense. The world started to come alive in new ways. Touch. Smell. Heat. Sound.

I admit though, I started to get really nervous about ten minutes into the experience, and took off the blindfold. But it was enough time to make me realise more of myself, and challenge myself just enough to know that I want to do it again. Next country, Cambodia. I’ll attempt it there.

tags: Photography, Travel, Thailand, Social Entrepreneur, Blind, Blindfold

Lantern Images in Singapore

2006-11-08T07:58:00.000Z

Look up, you never know what you will spot.

Toilet Tantrums

2006-11-08T07:52:00.000Z

WTO. World Trade Organisation. Right?
Well, it depends on the context. Put Singapore, Jack Sim and WTO together and you get the World Toilet Organisation. No kidding.

Jack is one of the only people I have met to have a passion for toilets. Clean ones. To him, the mark of how prosperous a nation is can be marked by how clean their public facilities are. Which does not make for many prosperous nations. He reeled off a stultifying fact. 1.6 million children dying each year from diarrhoea related illnesses, mostly due to inadequate sanitation facilities.

So the WTO are on a mission to clean up the world’s act. But it is not just about clean toilets. In some places there aren’t even proper toilets. So it is about the design and implementation of proper facilities. It is about teaching people how to maintain them. It is about adequate water supply, and ensuring that drinking and latrine waters do not mix. It is about teaching basic hygiene practices. It is about understanding the system which results in the 1.6 million deaths and making appropriate changes in the system to reduce that number.

Sounds like a very costly affair? Well in some respects it could be. But for Jack, he does not let not having the finance to do it stop him. He sees the world as ‘resource rich’, and himself as the catalyst or facilitator, linking those resources together. The lack of something is simply a motivator.

The lack of clean toilets was his initial motivator, and he used the media to rally support. He would be seen about Singapore wrapped in toilet paper, carrying a toilet brush, with a large toilet seat around his next. It made people laugh, but it got attention.

Did it get yours?

tags: Toilet, Business, Singapore, Social Entrepreneur, Sanitation, Water

Smog and Leadership- forging the connections in Singapore

2006-11-08T07:35:00.000Z

There is a running reference in Ireland where Dublin is referred to ‘The Big Smoke’; the grand city, enlarged, congested, dominant. But when it comes to smoky large cities it is beginning to pale in comparison. I’ve had my fair share of large cities since beginning this trip- Nairobi, Jo’berg, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Singapore, Bangkok, and each time I get to another my reference point for ‘Big Smoke’ is being redrawn. Dublin looks more and more provincial.

Singapore I was told was not normally smoky, but on my visit it indeed was. Forest fires were raging in Indonesia, due to slash and burn agriculture and the wind brought the fumes southwards, leaving a dull haze to linger between the skyscrapers. ‘Those Indonesians’, I overheard some Singaporeans exclaim, passively. But others were attempting to make the connections and ask the why behind it. Like Melissa Kwee for instance, Chairperson of the Halogen Foundation, a youth leadership organisation, who on the day that I met her had just come from a meeting with the Ministry for the Environment, trying to spark the debate, and action on the issue.

Understanding global connectivity and networks is a core component to Melissa’s work with Halogen, and specifically getting more young people to make the connections and see that they can play a role in actualising solutions.

To ‘get’ more young people to think and act in such ways, Halogen have developed a series of innovative programmes to engage young people in critical thinking about their roles. Again very similar to Suas in Ireland- a connection I enjoyed making too.

They just recently held of pan Asian youth conference, 1 Degree Asia, bringing young people together to inspire action and thinking about their role in their local and global communities. Halogen also organised national young leaders days; an initiative across schools in Singapore, in which speakers come to the young people talk about how they are effecting change. Jack Sim, from the World Toilet Organisation was one such speaker (see next blog). Then the connection gets deeper. An idea I really liked; '10 minutes of time', in which CEOs from a spectrum of businesses are teamed with you a young person who each commit ten minutes of their day to on-line coaching/ mentoring.

In all Halogen is about teaching young people about responsible leadership; both at personal and social levels.

Some may even go on to tackle global smog issues. My lungs will celebrate that!

tags: Youth, Singapore, Asia, Social Entrepreneur, Leadership, Foundation

Politics in Play

2006-11-08T07:24:00.000Z

Chris de Sousa was a college friend of mine from Singapore. So passing through the city, I stayed with him and his wife for a couple of nights. I did not know this before I arrived, but Chris had recently been elected as an MP for Singapore. At 30 he is the youngest in parliament. So I got to go along to one of his ‘meet the people’ sessions, a weekly community forum in which residents can address their concerns to their local MP. In this instance, Chris.

I went along to the session not to get into heavy discussion, but to see the political process in play. Which was interesting. When we arrived a queue had already formed with local residents and their issues, and about 15 volunteers, many young, were there to help out on the night. The process was efficient. The residents first met a volunteer, where the case was heard, recorded and if a response was required by the MP, briefing notes were prepared and draft letters written. I sat in on a few briefings. A man who needed a visa extended for his Indonesian wife. Another who need a letter for emergency dental treatment. Another who needed references for this children so as to apply for scholarships. All fairly basic things, but nevertheless genuine concerns.

What interested me also was the volume of volunteers, many under 30 who turn up every Monday evening to help out. ‘Why?’, I asked them, ‘What motivates you?’. ‘To be part of a community’, one replied. ‘To gain experience’, said another. ‘I enjoy it’, said another.

This is the reciprocity of volunteering at play. People give, people gain. Motivations may be political, or people may just need to belong. Whatever the reasons, in those rooms I did get a sense of community, and saw the ‘meet the people’ session as a necssary cog to help the system tick.

(Thanks Chris and Sharon for the warm welcome).

tags: Singapore, Politics, Travel, Social, Asia, Volunteer

Kolkata developments through the eyes of DAS

2006-11-08T07:09:00.000Z

Back in Kolkata, I met up with the staff of Development Action Society (DAS), an organisation I got to know through my previous work with Suas. It had been three years since my last visit, and driving out to the area of Ballygunge (close to where they are based), I was amazed to see the change. What once were open fields, now shopping malls. What once was just a petrol station, now new apartments, a café and a boutique.

In all, there were many more signs of enterprise and business than I expected. Good hey? Yes, in some respects. This is becoming the new suburbia, the rising middle class. But for the people who DAS works with, the ones who do not have the money for coffees and petrol and new fancy clothes, they are being further marginalised. As Sheela Sengupta, the co-founder of DAS, explained to me, for these women, life has not improved much.

After catching up with the wonderful DAS team, I went along to a meeting they had arranged in one of their community centres in another outlaying region of the city. They had organised a gathering of local women to address the town councillor; a rare occasion in which they women could air some of their concerns and issues. Before the meeting DAS also held one of their outreach dental clinics- to save the women from having to travel in twice to the community centre.

The meeting commenced and the women, one by one, started to speak out. The issues? Alcohol abuse. Domestic violence. Education. Child health.

These women were brave. There was little doubt that what was spoken got back to their husbands, and little doubt too that some of them will have received a beating when they got home. But the women are persistent and want their conditions to change. They have called for another meeting with the councillor, to which their husbands will be invited they can raise issues face to face, which DAS will organise.
Whether the councillor actually does anything is ancillary. There is power in these women coming together, the power in numbers paradigm. Colourful power.

tags: Development, Women, India, Social Entrepreneur, Change, Kolkata

Farewell to India- for now.

2006-10-28T11:56:00.000+01:00

I write this on my last night in India.

Seven weeks in India. Seven weeks of what?

Of colour, lots of it. Colour as iridescent saris blaze around every street corner. Then the glossy black and yellow of taxis and the glaring orange of festival flowers. The piquant green of tea plantations. The lush green of coconut plantations. The lazy green of cardamom trees. The black of a girl’s oiled hair, the black of men’s moustaches, the pupils of eyes (you staring at them, them staring at you). The chorus of colour as Diwali swings into fare; fireworks painting the sky like a circus. The pink of pickle. The night blue of night trains. The bright light of bright days.

Seven weeks of bright, busy days.

Looking back on my time here, I realise I’ve been to places and done things I never thought I would do.

Travelling at speed on the back of motorbikes through the alleyways of Mumbai, and Chennai, and other unpronounable places like Thiruvananthapuram. Wild rickshaw rides. Slow taxi rides. Plenty of traffic jams. Wonderful, long, lulling train journeys. Queues. More queues. Waits. Punctures. Blessings. Grace.

I’ve been to a school experimenting with science teaching. Another with children’s banking. Another with philosophy. I’ve visited women ragpickers who have joined together to form recycling units. I’ve been to a bio-gas plant. I’ve had a jiving lesson. I’ve sat in on karate classes. I’ve been to a surprise party. I’ve had conversations about venture philanthropy, partnership, business, arranged marriage, female infanticide, terrorism, corruption, altruism, God, schizophrenia, innovations, marketing strategy, Bollywood, home, love. I’ve lost count of the cups of chai I’ve drunk.

I’ve swum in the Arabian Sea. Paddled in the Indian Ocean. I’ve gone on long walks, got lost, and ended up on longer walks. I’ve been to a Jatropha plantation. I’ve sat with professors, teachers, scientists, social workers, politicians, restaurateurs. I’ve learned about the long-term commitment needed for rural transformation. I’ve learned about artificial insemination in cows. I’ve been to a mushroom farm, a bio-technology lab, a vocational college.

I’ve been into temples. I’ve been blessed with blessed water. I’ve been given flowers, sweets, spontaneous hugs. I’ve meditated in Auroville’s matrimandir. I’ve seen a solar powered kitchen and a battery powered car. I’ve met people working to combat child sex abuse, child labour, child trafficking. I’ve met others working to promote rural innovation. I’ve met a women who creates beautiful children’s literature. I’ve met another who helps kick-start social ventures. I’ve met up with old friends from Ireland and met lots of new friends.

I’ve seen flowers which bloom once every twelve years. I’ve seen ancient sculpture. I’ve been to a crocodile farm. I’ve touched a python. I’ve seen women stand up for their rights. I’ve danced with former child labourers and heard the stories of their liberation, from their liberators. I’ve given puppet shows, with mixed success.

I’ve given to beggars. Stepped over beggars. Not known how to respond to beggars.

I’ve lost my wallet (again), and had it returned to me, money and cards intact (again).

I’ve been to an adoption centre. I’ve been to tiny roadside restaurants and five star hotels. I’ve been into the homes of people celebrating their sacred festivals.

I’ve laughed. I’ve cried. I’ve been exhausted. I’ve been exhilarated. I’ve been learning. I’ve been trying to make sense of it all.

Travel does this to you. It enriches as it shakes. Perceptions start to shift and alter. You start to shift and alter. You take a step and the world unfolds with colour and learning. You take a step and the world takes the next ten.

The world? Well, it’s the people you meet along the way who point you in the right direction. Or a book you read which clarifies a point. Or a film you see which sparks a train of new thought. Or that kid you play football with. Or that mother you make eye contact with. Or that beggar you pass on the street.

Seven weeks. I know. I can hardly believe how much can be packed in. A lot has happened, and there is still a lot more to come.

I am thankful. I am lucky. I am learning.

The journey continues. Onwards. Inwards. Outwards.

Beyond the Cuckoo's Nest. The work of Anjali

2006-10-28T11:45:00.000+01:00

The Goal.

Give me a break now
To savour the flow of joy in an open meadow-
Oh, give me a break now.

The back alleys of love
I can’t comprehend.
Who’s good and who’s bad
I’m not concerned.

It all mixes and mingles-
Let’s all say together- Come
Let’s create a society so dear,
That the whole world will
Stir in wonder.

I understand monotheism
Understand waterfalls
And Mandakini’s surge
All of you might be planets and meteors,
I want to be a star.

- Shaktipada Jana (Anjali Rehab Programme Participant)
Translated from the original Bengali by Paramita Banjeree.

‘Shaktipada Jana (35) was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was admitted to Lumbini Park Mental Hospital as a long staying patient. Anjali facilitated the process of reintegrating him into his family in 2003. He works in a motor garage. With a passion in poetry, he has gifted Anjali three hard bound notebooks full of his own poems’.

So opens Anjali’s book, ‘Beyond the Cuckoo’s Nest’. It is no ordinary little book; for it brings you into rare societal places, which are too often locked away. It is part of Anjali's, a Kolkata based organisation's work to promote awaremess of mental health issues.

Visiting the Anjali team in Kolkata, I got a chance to visit the Lumbini Mental Hospital. Hospital? Well, that would be pushing it. It looked and felt more like a prison. Patients locked in drab wards. Little stimulation. Bare beds. The patients were admitted for care, what they generally receive is neglect; often over medicated, over sedated, almost criminalised.

Anjali, however are working hard to change the system- both within the hospitals, and without; working with state bodies and the media to change the way mental illness is perceived and responded to.

In the hospital they organise therapeutic interventions for ‘participants’; art, music, drama, dance and also basic life skills. I was just in time to attend one of the music therapy sessions and see a group of women who came alive again given the opportunity to express themselves; they certainly know how to sing and dance, and yes, once again little Clare was pulled up to perform!

Rathaboli Ray, the founder of Anjali, explained some of the workings of the system to me. The admittance procedure to metal hospitals is heavily legalised. Once admitted patients are rarely released, for again it would involved the courts and complex legal proceeding. But this is one area where Anjali are now working. They work with the courts to secure release for healthy participants, and then work with families to re-integrate the Anjali participant into the community.

Beyond this, they rally the media, raising awareness of the conditions in the state hospitals, promoting change.

Anjali’s model has been replicated to eight other mental hospitals. Progress has been made. It is slow, hard work, but at least with their efforts, an alternative model has been proved to be effective.

Some Images from the Ashrams

2006-10-28T11:28:00.000+01:00

Some images from my visit to BBA's Ashrams.

(Above: Moi, Kailash Satyarthi, Nathan Cryder, Greg Murray- at Bal Ashram, Rajasthan