Sunday 30 December 2007
Friday 28 December 2007
Solar Cooking
Akany Avoko is a children's home in Madagascar. On the day I visited we were treated to a tasty lunch cooked by solar power as you can see in the photo.
Is this a plausible way forward to power shortages in Developing countries? Is the technology advanced enough to make solar power a viable source of energy? What about issues of affordability?
Thursday 27 December 2007
My Father's legacy
My beloved father passed away on 17 December 2007 at 11.15 AM East African Time. The death of a parent is a shock to the system whatever age you are, you try and make sense of this loss but in vain. Within the Ugandan society it is normal to hold a wake for the deceased. This provides an opportunity for families and friends to grieve.
At my father's wake so many people turned up some I knew and others I did not. Of those I did not know was a woman who was so consumed with my father's passing that she cried inconsolably, and repeatedly said "you poor things who is going to love you now that your father is gone". This is comment was not addressed to anyone in particular but more like "thinking out loud" I was keen to establish who she was and spoke to one of our neighbours, who informed me that she was a local woman who recently lost a son. The child attended a local school and my father owned the school buildings. My father had made contact with her and had been very kind to her during a difficult time and for the days that followed she was invited to our home if she needed someone to speak to
Throughout the wake and the funeral service people spoke of my father's kindness towards them and how he had been instrumental in the building and maintaining the local church.
My father's biggest achievement in my mind and the legacy he leaves behind for me is that of helping those that are less fortunate than he was. I do not know whether he was aware of this. My father was passionate about education and apart from his immediate family he put at least 70 other people through the education system, some of these people went on to achieve great things, some are doctors, diplomats, government officials teachers etc. He often said "I have the money to pay school fees for anyone who wants to attend school" the rest is up to you.
He leaves behind huge boots to fill and I hope that through Ethnic Supplies I too will make a difference to some one's life
At my father's wake so many people turned up some I knew and others I did not. Of those I did not know was a woman who was so consumed with my father's passing that she cried inconsolably, and repeatedly said "you poor things who is going to love you now that your father is gone". This is comment was not addressed to anyone in particular but more like "thinking out loud" I was keen to establish who she was and spoke to one of our neighbours, who informed me that she was a local woman who recently lost a son. The child attended a local school and my father owned the school buildings. My father had made contact with her and had been very kind to her during a difficult time and for the days that followed she was invited to our home if she needed someone to speak to
Throughout the wake and the funeral service people spoke of my father's kindness towards them and how he had been instrumental in the building and maintaining the local church.
My father's biggest achievement in my mind and the legacy he leaves behind for me is that of helping those that are less fortunate than he was. I do not know whether he was aware of this. My father was passionate about education and apart from his immediate family he put at least 70 other people through the education system, some of these people went on to achieve great things, some are doctors, diplomats, government officials teachers etc. He often said "I have the money to pay school fees for anyone who wants to attend school" the rest is up to you.
He leaves behind huge boots to fill and I hope that through Ethnic Supplies I too will make a difference to some one's life
Thursday 13 December 2007
Lunch with a Millionaire
In September 2007 Channel 4 run an interesting documentary that had many Ugandans and others glued to the their Televisions, no this was not BIG BROTHER, well that was my view anyway but some journalists whose job it is to review the previous night's TV programmes thought it was , in fact they were amazed that the CH 4 had spelt the programme title correctly with punctuation in the correct space.
The programme was called "MILLIONAIRES' MISSION". http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/A/africa/ Channel 4 teamed up with an NGO called World Vision and challenged 8 UK based millionaires to use their entrepreneurial skills to come up with ideas that would help a remote village in South West Uganda lift itself out of poverty. Ironically my visit to this part of Uganda on 31 December 2006 led to the birth of Ethnic Supplies, like the Millionaires featured in the programmes I was blown away by the beauty of this part of Uganda but shocked by the poverty and struggles of day to day people. Women carry water up very steep hills, children lose classroom time to carrying water from the bottom of the hill to the top where the school is located but they do their best to survive through subsistence farming and selling handicrafts to the odd tourist. As a visitor/tourist you wake up to the most amazing views over the hills and valleys, mist, lush vegetation, then they are the gorillas as well as the beautiful lake and as Deidre of the Millionaires put it "who needs Ibiza when you can come to Uganda?"
By the end of the programme they had come up with practical solutions for the villagers to work with that became successful. The message seemed to be one of the ideas have to be arrived at by the locals to ensure sustainability and ownership. One of the ideas was to help women weavers in the village find a market for their baskets and by the end of the programme they had succeeded and earned £200. In a village where the weekly income is £0.09pence this was a fortune. At the end of this particular episode I got in touch with the people associated with the programme and they put me in touch with the group in Uganda and my representative there met up with them and we have since added their baskets to our collection.
At the time I was unaware that the Surrey Chamber of Commerce has a very good working relationship with one of the Millionaire by the name of Shahid Azeem. So it was that when the Chamber issued their Winter programme I noticed that Shahid was going to be the guest speaker at the Xmas lunch at Losely park, I registered promptly. The lunch was yesterday 12 December 2007 and what a treat! Losely as a setting is an amazing place. Shahid told us about his journey from very humble beginnings to wealth and his time in Uganda. He filled in all the gaps of what we didn't see and brought us up to date with some of the people that the group worked with, specifically that a young man with minimal electrical knowledge was enabled to set up an Enterprise that has seen him rise to a solar power specialist in the region so much so that he now exports these panels to Sudan.
Shahid said something that resonated with me, "Grants/aid doesn't work and if you want to make a change you have to work at the grass roots, that's where you can see actual results, the second point was that people in Africa are just looking for opportunities to earn a living and are not just waiting for hand outs" Corruption is a problem in places and gets in the way of real and effective change.
Monday 3 December 2007
Ethnic Supplies, The story so far
Having been around East Africa and Madagascar work at Ethnic Supplies started in earnest in September, that's the work of finding a market for all the wonderful hand products.
I found my self at a Women' Fellowship in Long Ditton in Surrey addressing it's members by sharing the producer's stories as well as my own! I have never liked public speaking and this was my initiation and it lasted 2 hours! My audience was obviously impressed as they passed my details on to other groups and I am booked for 2 events next year!
I teamed up with the Madagascar Embassy in London and in October we held an exhibition to show case Madagascar as a country as well as the women's hand products. The exhibition was such as success that I have received requests from other African Embassies to help them carry off something similar. October was a busy month for me, I was invited to participate in the Commonwealth Education fund. This fund enables them to pay school fees for African girls for a whole year or so. The best thing about this system is that the fees are paid directly to the schools. In addition the spouses of the African High commissioner and Ambassadors, invited me to their fund raising dinner, in aid of the girl child of Africa.
October is Black History Month and I was proud to participate in the celebrations of Credit Sussie Bank in Canary Wharf . I was invited by the Voice of Africa to be a co-presenter on a women's programme to discuss issues that affect women but specifically how we Africans in diaspora can help address issues of poverty on the continent
November got off to a good start too with the local media here in Surrey running news items about Ethnic Supplies. When I set up Ethnic Supplies, my hand was literally held by the Surrey Business Link. When they decided to run road shows entitled WHAT IS STOPPING YOU aimed at women looking to get into business for themselves, Ethnic Supplies was selected a show case business. I was given the opportunity to address attendees, by telling them how and why I got started as well as the challenges and how I have overcome them. Someone I met at this event told me about a museum in Exeter Devon, she thought they might be interested in the cotton bags from Tanzania, and sure enough when I wrote to them they contacted me and placed a large for their gift shop! I am currently in talks with the London Zoo as well as a German Real Estate Developer.
All of this has come about through networks of people that I know as well as the new networks that I have formed and I am grateful to them.
Sunday 2 December 2007
Saturday 1 December 2007
Discussion
" Our African women need all the help they can get because they are the core of the family, society and without them everything would collapse" This was the reaction I got from two Zambian men I met at a Hotel I stayed at in Dar es salaam in July.
What are your views? Are they right?
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