I am noticing that I always find this time of year exhausting. The few weeks after the clocks go back and up to Christmas seem to really take it out of me. I have been sliding back into bad habits and not looking after myself which is always a danger. Work is totally swamping me and I need a week or two to rest up a while. Not to worry, it will come and I am taking steps to make sure I stay healthy.
Like many of us, I have been thinking this week about the people in The Phillippines. I am sure we all felt overwhelmed when This young woman was shown on the T.V news asking "We are so very hungry and thirsty....that's why we are here.... so if you have water or food there maybe you can give us." Giving money is all we can do.
Pausing to wonder at the glorious blue sky and at human creativity in my lunch break. - 4th November
I'm thinking of having a new car. Another long journey to make today so hope I am back before dark. - 5th November
I need to drink more water and have more early nights. Feeling pretty meh today. - 6th November
Saw this today when I was out and about and needed to visit the smallest room. Decided that we need some clarity around here about house rules for our family lodgers. Enough is enough. - 7th November
Work took me to a town where I used to live. Autumn colours were really striking there. I couldn't take the photographs I wanted as I was too busy to stop. So this leaf and the wet grass will serve as a reminder. - 8th November
My first 40 days. #100 days - 9th November
Making space for a walk in the dark. There may be lights but it's dark out here. - 10th November
Today I was going to post about beetroot. Instead I wanted to draw attention to this blog post at "Save the Children", which asks bloggers to spread the word, about the effects of the worsening drought in Somalia and other parts of East Africa right now.
I am sure that like me, you've seen the news today and are already aware of the emergency appeal by Save the Children. Just in case I've re-posted the video and a longish quote from the website, giving information about the short and long term aid work, taking place in East Africa.
Save the Children report that twenty thousand people have arrived in a Kenyan refugee camp during just the last two weeks, from other parts of the region, and over two thirds of these are children. A small donation of £13 will buy a clean water kit for a family of five for one month. £50 buys high calorie food for 150 children suffering from severe malnutrition. I was so struck by the abundance of good food growing on our allotment and the rain refreshing the gardens today. I just had to post about this, even though I know that people in the West often feel they are bombarded with appeals for aid and sometimes think they can't give anymore or that they haven't got enough themselves.
I was so struck by the luxury of the rain today, after two or three very hot days here! There is an abundance of veg and fruit growing in our garden and on our allotment. I have money in my purse with which to go down to the shops to buy food. I cannot imagine being as hungry and thirsty as these children are, or being a parent who cannot feed her children. I hope you will just take a few minutes to watch, read and if possible donate.
Words taken from the Save the Children website:
"Save the Children is already on the ground saving lives. We’re rapidly providing food, water, medicine and crucial support to families who have lost their incomes. But with your help we can stop this crisis becoming far worse.
We are distributing life-saving water to areas severely affected by the drought and improving water supply and sanitation facilities in health clinics and schools. For example, we’ve distributed over 24 million litres of water in South Central Somalia, reaching over 70,000 people.
We are providing jerry cans, water filters and water purification tablets to ensure that water is safe to drink.
We are treating malnourished children. The life-saving treatment is usually quick and simple - so far this year, we have treated over 8,000 malnourished children in our feeding centres in Somalia.
The longer term
We're helping families break the cycle of drought and hunger.
We were already working in the region, and saw the early warning signs that the drought was coming. So we’ve been able to respond very quickly and save many lives as a result.
But the scale of the crisis demands that we and other aid agencies go further to get support to all those who need it.
In Kenya we’ve been working with communities to prepare for this drought – for example in Mandera (a heavily affected region) we have been giving 12,000 families cash to help build their resilience to the coming drought – that’s 12,000 people that are significantly less likely to fall into food crisis now.
We don’t want to create dependency on food aid, so we’re working to respond to the immediate needs and long term needs in a sustainable way.
We’ve changed the traditional food aid package – transferring food distributions to local traders instead of aid organisations, and then substituting part of the imported food aid with local, fresh, healthy produce. In doing so, we are helping the local market, local traders and local communities to flourish.
It’s working – our data shows that people participating in the scheme are eating more frequently (an additional whole meal a day), and their food supply is lasting several days more.
Traders have seen an increase in their incomes (28%). Families say the system is more dignified, and healthier. It’s sustainable, and empowers communities, and increases resilience. We have scaled up the scheme, from reaching 12,000 per month to 40,560 now.
These children don’t have to die - but to save them we need your help to act now.
Red Nose Day arrived this year on the 18th March, also the day that marked one week on from the earthquake and tsunami in North East Japan. A friend of mine commented that they felt the event should be posponed as people would be giving to organisations, like The Red Cross who are helping with the disaster relief effort. My friend was wrong, at the end of the night £74,360,207 had been raised, which the presenters announced was a record breaking amount.
Whilst watching some of the films made for this year's event, I learned about the Kibera slum area of Nairobi in Kenya. I will never forget one film showing Bernard aged 16, one of many ophaned children all over the world who is caring for his four younger siblings. At 12 Bernard had had to identify his father's body, his father had been killed in riots that occured following the 2007 elections in Nairobi. His mother died a few months later, she was aleady ill with HIV when her husband was killed. Since that time Bernard and his siblings had been living in one dark room next to a toilet used by 50 other families, the toilet sometimes overflowed and ran through their home. Bernard wanted to get an education but often had to miss school due to having to raise money for food to provide a meal a day for his family. The grief this young man was suffering from was very evident in the film, and so was his commitment to his family and his courage. The celebrity taking part in the film and placed with this family, decided to take action straight away to change things for this one boy and his siblings.
I couldn't post the film here but I found another film about the children of Kibera, made by the "send my friend to school" campaign which raises awareness in UK schools and is the UK part of a worldwide movement, the Global Campaign for Education. The campaign lobbies the UK government to deliver on its promise to realise education for all by 2015.
Since 18th March, and as is the case every year that Red Nose Day uses television reports to inform us and to touch our consciences, there are critics who question the motives of the celebrities involved or who tell us that our giving should maybe be a little quieter and more continuous. I'm not going to address these issues here, though there are questions here that I also feel uncomfortable about. What is clear to me is that Red Nose Day, and other such events that were the result of Live Aid, started the very important work of raising awareness of how change could be made, instead of sitting and watching and feeling helpless(as many were doing in the mid-eighties). This article discusses a recent report: The new state of donation: Three decades of household giving to charity, 1978 - 2008, and captures both the concerns and the positives, about high profile events like Red Nose Day very well indeed. It also gives some figures about how the number of households giving to charity has fallen since 1978 and points out how Red Nose Day and Sport Relief are raising awareness amongst a younger generation who are less likely to members of community groups linked to churches, for example.
Whilst I feel that there is more than enough to go round, and that those of us that regularly try to reflect on what and how we do give (and what more we can give), I also feel that there is never enough and that those of us who can, also need to be involved in creating change within our systems. The 2011 "Send My Sister To School" campaign and The Girl Effect are just two ways that our giving and our actions can become more mindful. They also show us, as does Comic Relief, how joining together with others, adding our voice to many, and giving with joy, creates change for all of us around the world.
Folllowing the distaster in Japan there were those who responded by telling us not to give to such a wealthy country. Some excellent advice is given by Good Intentions Are Not Enough regarding this question and how to ensure that if you want to give to Japan, which many of us did when we saw the horror unfolding on March 11th, that you do so in ways which help not hinder.
It can all get so complicated can't it? As I have said earlier there is more than enough, and however we choose to do it, however small our voices, let's just keep on giving. Wherever there is suffering, how can we not? Our money, our time, our attention, our skills, our love.
I've been feeling a bit washed up and washed out this week. The world is in turmoil. The news is just terrible for so many people.
Much closer to home too, events are happening that are out of my control and will change my life.
Today I received messages from the universe which contained some much needed energy and hope.
The tide is fierce and unrelenting.
While out walking I saw a mother with her two children standing right on the edge of the sea wall. Three tiny figures. She was almost as small as they were and holding their hands tightly. She had dressed the children in those all-in-one waterproof suits before setting off, and right now they had their hoods up and tightly fastened around their chins.
Three figures holding on tight to each other as the sea crashed very close to them, their faces full of delight and wonder. I could hardly hear their screams of excitement above the roar of the tide.
Further down the coast, these birds were also making the most of the tide coming in. They looked incredibly beautiful flying in unison, just above the water. The tide washes up much of value.
I am lucky enough to still have some choices about how the coming challenges affect me and my family. Choices about my thoughts, if not about my feelings. Choices about taking action for others. The energy sent from the universe today, has led me back to this. Choices.
In January 2010 there came the terrible news about the earthquake in Haiti. Last night as I watched this baby's story I remembered all the lives that have been affected by this event. There were other earthquakes too this year, in Chile and in China once again, and we also watched helplessly as on our TV news reports, we saw people's lives destroyed by the floods in Pakistan. Alongside these natural disasters, countless other children are caught up in conflicts throughout the world.
The doctor who brought baby Landina to the UK for medical treatment gave this interview earlier in the month where he talks about the issues about her future that they now face. What is right? Should he have brought her here? If she is returned to Haiti when she is a little older how will this affect her now she has bonded with her host mother? So many questions.
This is a news report about the story and showing Landina's mother facing the reality of deciding what is best now for her daughter. So many questions.
As the 2010 ends I am grateful for the doctors and nurses and other volunteers who are giving their skills in the places that need them most. For the journalists that keep us informed about what is happening in the world. For the individuals who act, lead by example and speak out.
Dr David Nott is now committed to providing a home for Landina's mother and siblings, one to where she may hopefully be able to return. He has set up a fund for this purpose, Friends of Landina where donations can be made. Having chosen to intervene, he now cannot walk away and talks about his commitment to Landina being lifelong.
"Landina's network of influential friends inspires confidence that she will be well cared for, whatever happens, but one senses there are some difficult decisions ahead. 'In one respect she is a microcosm of Haiti,' Nott says. 'She shows the importance of following through. When the earthquake happened, people felt sorry. Billions of dollars of aid money was promised. Where is it? Haiti is worse than it was 10 months ago. It's an open sewer. Just as I can't help Landina and then leave her, so governments shouldn't abandon Haiti." (from The Telegraph 13/12/10)
With the UN backed elections taking place in December and January 2011, let's join Dr David in not letting go of hopes for this country and it's children, in keeping the pressure on and in doing whatever we can. There are fewer questions here.
A few months ago while having dinner with one of my older relatives and some of her women friends, one of them mentioned Gladys Aylwood, a Protestant missionary to China in 1930. Gladys Aylwood was at first thwarted in her goal of becoming a missionary to China, she was told she was not clever enough but saved up her wages in order to buy herself a train ticket. Gladys ended up staying in China, learning to speak the language and becoming a Chinese Citizen, she died and was burried there. The woman I was speaking to, remembered when Gladys came back to the UK and gave a series of lectures around the country, one of which this elderly friend of my relative had attended.
This conversation over dinner, reminded me of watching a film about Gladys Aylwood in my childhood. The film, The Inn of the Sixth happiness was Hollywood's 1958 interpretation of Gladys Aylwood's life story as written by Alan Burgess. I had not realised until I started looking a little more closely and reading some accounts of her life, that Gladys had been unhappy with how the film portrayed her. Gladys didn't like her romantic involvement that the film suggested, and she thought that the film focused less on her missionary work in converting the Chinese to Christianity, and more on her heroic actions.The title of the film was also changed as the inn was in fact called The Inn of the Eighth Happiness, I haven't managed to find out why this was thought necessary.
As a child however I was simply inspired by the story of an ordinary woman who travelled across the world on her own and made a difference to the lives of orphaned and abandoned children in China. The film also focused on how also she was part of the enforcement of changes in the laws banning the practice of foot binding
Looking at why Gladys went to China in the first place, it is hard for many of us now, not to judge harshly the negative aspects of the legacy of missionary work, and to separate this out from Gladys Aylwood's heroic and important actions, which took place out of compassion for her fellow human beings.
This article from the New York Times following the Haiti earthquake, explores the motives that different modern day missionary groups might have had at the time. There is also an interesting discussion here that highlights the tension that must exist for religious groups in providing aid/development work without their main aim being about conversion.
Well this blog post seems to have run away with me! I wanted to post about Gladys Aylwood because my first encounter with China was through the film about her life. This blog has a place for stories of inspirational women, and to my child-like eyes she certainly was that. From a child's eye view the answers to the problems in our world can seem much more simple. Claiming your space in the world as an adult brings with it a huge responsibility to "do no harm and leave the world a better place than you found it". (Patricia Cornwell)
This past month the news has been even more heartbreaking than it usually is. In our world today there is always so much to be anxious about, feel angry and sad and powerless about. It's all right there in our living rooms, just a click away. This week we have had the shooting of peace activists by the Israeli Army, the shootings in Cumbria by an angry, isolated and disturbed man, the ongoing reports about the Gulf oil spill and countless other tragedies going on throughout our world.
We rarely hear about the massive amounts of positive action, taken by ordinary people all around the world everyday, we have to look for them. Small actions or big, they go on around us, often unnoticed and it's on days like these that we really need to notice each small voice. In these voices we are reminded of our true selves and are inspired to come together with others to make a difference and stand up for what we believe in. Touching base with individuals past and present, strangers and friends, who are inspirational in so many different ways, is one way for us to find some hope and peace again in a troubled world.
This is just one of these inspiring individuals Rupy Kaur. I am waiting to read about how she got on with her sky-dive yesterday. Hope all went well Rupy.
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