Youth Speaks: Rochelle

I've had the opportunity to go on two Cred trips, both to Kenya, to Spurgeons Academy in Kibera slum.

Both trips I have seen myself and other being impacted by the new cultural and love of the country.  

These trips have allowed me to open my eyes to a new way of thinking and seeing.  

I was able to see how the children, the teachers and children’s family actually live. This made me look at everything in completely different way, a way in which I had never experienced before.  

Even though the trip had its overwhelming emotional times, I wouldn’t change these moments for the world. These are the moments which make me the person I am today. 

My attitudes and perspectives of life are viewed the way they are now because of the experiences I have been faced with on the trips.  

The Cred trips also allowed me to discover my love for teaching and they have given me a passion to want to become a teacher, which I am now pursuing at University.  

If anyone is given the opportunity to go on a Cred trip, I would fully recommended going on it. The amount you get from these trips is more than any person can ask more, memories which can never been forgotten. 

Never too young

In the USA, beavers are an animal that lives in and out of water, builds and lives in a dam, chops down trees with its bare teeth, and has a tail that it uses as a rudder. In the UK, Beavers are a little version of Cub Scouts and go from age 6 – 8yrs old.

In October this year I am leading a team of young people to India on a CRED trip, to work in a school for under-privileged children in rural Andhra Pradesh. One of the team members, Kiran age 14, helps at his local Beaver Scout colony, and when they heard that he was going to India the Beavers decided they wanted to do something to help.

Each year they do a sponsored walk, and this year they decided that the money raised would go towards something needed by St Josephs school in India, and just a few days ago I got an e-mail saying that they have raised over £500 – that’s a lot of money for little legs to raise!

I contacted Janaki, the founder of the school and our key liaison person, and told her about the money and asked what it would be spent on. The Beavers were hoping it could be on something specific so that we can get photos when we are there in October, and not just teachers' salaries etc – a bit too abstract for 6yr olds to get excited about!

So imagine my delight when I heard back that the school had just in the past few weeks been praying about how to try and fund some crucial bits of furniture that they need: a few desks for the children to replace some damaged by a storm, some computer desks to replace those previously rented and taken back by the owner, and some shelving for the staff room to allow the staff to have a more efficient working environment. And the cost for those items: £470!

For Janaki and myself, and all others in the mix who believe in God, this is clearly an answer to prayer. For those who don’t have the same beliefs – well they see it as perfect timing; but maybe it is also a little bit of food for thought, when they hear Janaki praising God for His provision.

For the Beavers who walked their walk and raised the money – it is proof that you are never too young to make a difference to the lives of others!

I Have a Dream

It had to be done! On the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, I can’t do a blog that doesn’t make reference to it in some way.

Although many of the young people on the teams I lead think I probably am old enough to have heard the speech live, I would just like to confirm that I am not, and so my only experience of it is through history books, archive radio broadcasts etc. It was certainly a very impressive speech, and one that was pivotal in the civil rights movement in USA.

But whenever I hear the words ‘I have a dream’ my thoughts go only momentarily to MLK, and then they move on to the many conversations I have had more recently that also refer to dreams for the future.

At various points in my many trips overseas with CRED Teams I have had opportunity to chat with young people from the various CRED partner projects, and ask them about their hopes and dreams for the future. These are all children living in poverty; many orphaned, some living on the streets, some refugees, some from marginalized communities. Some are in recognized schools, some are in catch-up education centres, some are waiting and praying for access to education to be made available to them. And given that sort of background, it would be understandable if their hopes and dreams were fairly low-level, more on the scale of survival and having food and clothes and security.

But no, almost without fail, the dreams of these young people are much more aspirational – they want to be doctors, teachers, pilots, lorry drivers, engineers. I’ve had some say they want to be dancers, or musicians; one wanted to be a meteorologist; a couple of girls wanted to be nuns; one lad in Kenya wanted to be president!

And when I hear the answers, I feel so torn inside – on the one hand I admire their faith in the possibility of a better future, and I pray that it will come true in their lifetime; but on the other hand, as I stand amidst the squalor of the slum, and consider the background to their individual lives, I wonder how it can ever come true.

But then I asked Harriet about her dreams. Harriet is a mother and a member of the Acholi community in Kampala, a tribal group displaced by civil war several years back, and now without any land rights or proper recognition. Harriet’s dream is to have a home where the bedroom is separate to the living room – bam, back down to earth with a reality shaped bump.

Maybe that’s the difference between the hope-filled, black-and-white, optimistic outlook on life that children have, and the ‘shades of grey’, battle-scarred, self-preservationist outlook that adults tend to take. And if so, where do each of us fit in to that description? Is this a prompt to take time to stop and review.

Oh to be a child, and have a child-like view on the world – to be hope-filled, to reach for the stars, to step out in faith in their God of love, and take the risks needed. God is in those dreams, God is waiting to hold the hand of those who take the risks and steps of faith – but we need to make the first move.

May we all have a dream this day – a dream for a better future; for ourselves, for the children who want to be doctors, teachers, dancers, meteorologists and more; and may we dream in faith and through prayer to our loving Father, who loves to see the right dreams come true.

CRED visits Bulgaria

Exploring Bulgaria

NB This has been lifted directly from the CRED Foundation blogsite - just to increase the opportunity to spread the word about what is happening in Bulgaria. Thanks to Simon Paylor for the writing, the photography and the travel!

One of the most rewarding aspects of our work is to meet new people and explore the work of potential new partners.  It's not something we do lightly - we usually rely on recommendations or good reputation - but it's always a privilege to go somewhere new and to hear new stories.

So it was great to have the invitation from the Trussell Trust, known for their co-ordination of Food Banks all over the UK, to visit the work they support in Bulgaria with children and young people. 

Bulgaria is a fascinating country with a very mixed history.  It wasn't long ago that it was a communist country with secret police, but the political consequences are still being played out.  Even now, the average wage is no more than £300 a month, with high living costs; even for those who have a job, life is not easy.

However, there is a group of people in Bulgaria (and a few other European countries) who are victims of prejudice and exploitation, many of whom experience living conditions similar to Sub-Saharan Africa:  the Roma people, or as some call them 'gypsies'.

NB Roma are originally from Northern India, but were confused with Egyptians ('Gyptians' became 'gypsies').

Downtown in Stara Zsagora, 3 hours outside of the capital Sofia

The view from the top of the Roma community

The situation is complex, the needs are stark, and solutions are rare...  Issues such as trafficking, sex work, high disease prevalence, abandoned or orphaned children, low education standards, and incredibly poor living conditions are all too common.  Trussell Trust supports the Foundation for Social Change Inclusion (FSCI) and World Without Borders, both of whom are starting to contribute to lasting change, and who are addressing the difficult issues of inclusion, integration, and disenfranchisement.  

There are shards of light, rays of hope.  A new model of empowering young people leaving institutions or the care system.  Inspiring members of the community, like Gancho and Milena who set up WWB-they gained degrees and PhDs, but with a sense of 'mission' to invest and develop Roma communities.  Early work with children to inspire hope and achievement, and liaison with local authorities and schools to make sure that every child matters. 

Gancho and Milena, founders of World Without Borders

It's heartening to meet people who give tirelessly for what they are doing, and have a big vision for local communities and the country as a whole.  We're looking forward to developing relationships with Trussell, FSCI and WWB, and hope that in the future we can introduce schools, young people and others to a great country and some big issues that are right on our (European) doorstep.

Youth Speaks: Chandos

Chandos came out to Ethiopia on the CRED Team Trip this July, to get involved with the Women
At Risk project.

Here are his thoughts on the trip, and the impact it had on him. It was definitely a significant time for Chandos, so read on to hear from him.

My story!

 

You would think that after taking part in one of the previous CRED Team trips to Ethiopia, I would know what to expect and if I am honest the stories I heard, the things I saw have changed me. 

I have always been  told that change is good, and after about just a day into the trip I did start to question if things will ever change? My fear was soon shown a brighter light when we got to the school on Monday and the young people at the school came to greet us with smiles, that could light up a room and one young boy came up to each member of the team and gave us a hug. It was then that I began to see that even in pain or fear nothing can stop you from trying to be stronger and be happy regardless of the world around you.

 

I  know we see and hear the stories of millions of the new and on fundraising charity programs and events like Comic Relief or Children in Need, and we build up an image of what their lives arre like day in , day out. Even I used to see people living in extreme poverty and feel a mixture of feelings and hurt, but it doesn't really hit you until you are sat in a families house in the middle of the slums hearing a story of injury,death and suffering. In that moment you realise the true extent and meaning behind why people give up everything to help people in these positions.

 

I have always wanted to be a Social Worker, so that I can help to make change in our society in the community that has helped me and those around me. I remember that on one of the nights at the hotel we were sat telling one another of one thing we will take away from the trip, something that we would take back to the UK to share with the world. I remember  thinking the moment the plane lands back on UK soil I am not going to stop sharing the message of the people I had met and what they had helped me to learn in just a week.

 

it is funny how life can put challenging situations in your way and those that we met, spoke and lived with for those 10 days gave us an insight into how life in comparison to yours or mine is for them. Both times that I have been to Ethiopia I have seen those with wealth living a lifestyle of luxury and the lifestyle of those who live off nothing which to us would be less than £1 a day. This is no life for anyone no matter who you are. Yet this is the place that thousands of people call their home - a place of life, love and hope and in each person I met there was not one who didn't hold these values close to their hearts. 

 

One thing that hit me more than anything was the faith to believe that better things can come from anything even when it feels like you can not see light of the situation, and it was about half way through the week that my faith in God and Jesus grew
From a young age I always had faith in the word of God but it was around 7:30 in the morning and I had decided to join the prayer group and it was then that my faith grew. This gave me the strength to see that although there may be so much poverty this might not always be the case as the work  that CRED and other organisations do are helping to change or at least decrease the amount of people living in poverty. 

 

When you see the true hardship of the people in places like Ethiopia it leaves you feeling a whole load of emotions but these are both good and bad. This was hard for me to see at first especially when I learnt the story of Abel, a young man supported by Women At Risk. His story was one that left me speechless. I remember sitting with him and one of the social workers who work for Women At Risk and I  didn't have any idea of what he goes through day in day out. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was told about. 

He spoke about his parents separating and how his mother moved away living him and his younger sister to live another member of his family. If that wasn't enough for a young person to cope with he then had to go back to living with his father as the member of family who was looking after him and his sister moved to live elsewhere. What came next brought me to tears; he said that he gets beaten on a regular basis and has to leave school before everyone else so that he can take care of his younger sister and cook and clean. I asked when did this all start he replied " from my 17th birthday". 

He is now 18 and the thing that got me is this is someone the same age as me yet he is beaten, his pride taken away from. 

HOW can this happen? 

At the end of the week after hearing his and some of the other young peoples stories I did not want to leave! But I know that one day, once I have finished my degree, I will go back to Ethiopia as it's like a home to me now. 

Chandos and Abel

  

Int’l Day for Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition

The night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in Santo Domingo (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) saw the beginning of the uprising that would play a crucial role in the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. Since 1998 the United Nations has marked August 23^rd as the
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.

Unfortunately, although the Abolition of the Slave Trade is reputed to have happened, as a result of the uprising and other ensuing events, the sad truth is that International Slavery continues to be prominent, and to ruin the lives of countless people around the world.

Commonly referred to as Human Trafficking, it is the worlds fastest growing global crime and it is estimated that 9.1 million men, women and children are trafficked across borders and within their own country at any given moment in time. People are trafficked for sexual exploitation, forced begging, sacrificial worship, removal of human organs, to be child brides or to bought as labour in sweat shops, circuses, farms and domestic servitude.

Every country is affected by human trafficking, whether as an origin country, a transit country or a destination country. Often a country will be all three, and whilst it is recognized that the majority of trafficked victims come from the poorest countries, we should not sit back and think that we are too ‘respectable’ a country to be involved. Trafficking is an issue in the UK, in the US and throughout the ‘western world’ just as it is in countries of lower incomes.

The following stories are taken from the Stop The Traffik website: www.stopthetraffik.org

Wihini and Sunni – India:

Wihini, aged nine and her brother Sunni, a boy aged seven, lived on Thane train station in Mumbai, India with their parents who were both alcoholics. Wihini and Sunni were regular attendees of the Asha Deep Day Centre, run by Oasis India, where they learnt to read and write and were given the opportunity to play. After attending daily for three months they disappeared. The project staff went to look for them. Wihini and Sunni's father told how a man had come and offered money for them and that he had sold them for the equivalent of $30. That was the last the father and the staff of Asha Deep Day Centre heard of them. In that area of Mumbai every two to three months children disappeared or were kidnapped and sold into prostitution, forced labour, adoption or child sacrifice.

Sophie – UK

"Two years ago everything changed. I was trafficked. I was fooled. I was deceived by a man who said that he loved me. The tragedy is that I believed him. Now I know that love is not shown by forcing me to work on the streets, beating me up, force feeding me and turning me into someone with no mind of my own. I had become like a frightened rabbit. I was terrified that he would kill me. Death too often felt like my only way to escape.

 People are product.
 I was one of them.
 But I am a survivor.

I have a new life but I am haunted by the faces of those who used me, those whom I did not choose, those for whom I was nothing more than a ten-minute thing.

Please join STOP THE TRAFFIK and make a difference to people's lives... ... people like me."

You can listen to Sophie’s story at: www.stopthetraffik.org/real-life-stories

William Wilberforce who is accredited with being one of the key people in bringing about the Abolition of Slavery, once said: ‘You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know’.

Having read this blog, I’m afraid to say that you can no longer say you didn’t know about human trafficking and modern-day slavery, if that was your line before. The question is – now that you know, what are you going to do about it? And if the answer is ‘I don’t know’ then can I recommend the following two websites as first points of call:

Stop the Traffik: www.stopthetraffik.org

Unseen UK: www.unseenuk.org

History repeated

As I listened to the news this morning about the UN security council meeting last night that had failed to reach a resolution on the increasing atrocities in Syria, my heart fell. I had a sense of history repeating itself.

When I was in Rwanda in July this year with a CRED team we visited the Genocide Memorial museum in Kigali. The displays were very graphic, and there was no doubting the terrible acts that took place. One section of the museum outlined the build-up to the genocide, and the intervention, or not, of the international community. It spoke of the slow and inadequate response of the United Nations, and of how so many people would still be alive now if the response had been quicker and more determined.

When we met with some of the genocide victims, and they told their stories, occassionally it was mentioned how they wondered if the world would help save them in some way; and one of the victims spoke of how they had sought shelter in the UN compound, but then when the UN withdrew those seeking shelter were abandoned to their fate.

I wonder how many Syrians are feeling the same today? How many Syrian children are asking their parents, as they wait to hear the next bomb falling, or learn that another friend or family member has been killed, whether the outside world cares at all?

I know the solutions to these awful situations are never straightforward, and I'd hate to be one of the people having to work out what is truth, what is propaganda, and what is the right response. But at the same time, I do wonder how much worse the conflict has to get before the world decides it can't stand by and watch any longer, but instead will take some action to try and help save a very very hurt, angry and broken country.

I'm not going to suggest what that action should be - I don't think I really know - but I pray that something will change, so that there is an end to this shedding of so much innocent blood; and that historians won't look back and say that the actions, or inactions, of the world are another example of history repeating itself again.

'If it is God's will, it must be God's bill'

When I was in Kenya earlier this year with a CRED team, we found ourselves carrying out our programme of activities at the same as a major rebuild of the school was taking place. It certainly made for an interesting insight into their attitude to health and safety; as the children lined up for their morning porridge or lunch-time githeri, foundation blocks of rock, bags of cement, piles of sand and other building materials were delivered into the playground, and the builders worked on the new construction.

The building work being done is phase 1 of what promises to be a wonderful new school facility for the children at Spurgeons Academy in Kibera slum. When it is completed, the children will have classrooms that are big enough to fit everyone into, with proper windows, and walls and a roof that don't have any holes. They will even have proper toilets and adequate hand-washing facilities. They still won't have interactive whiteboards or any of the other fixtures and fittings that are basic expectations in our classrooms nowadays, but they will provide a much better learning environment for the students, and a much more inspiring facility for the teachers, and everyone is very excited about that prospect.

Whilst with the Spurgeons staff on the trip, I asked them about the expected timings for completion of the building, and they quoted end of July 2013. It seemed pretty ambitious to me, but I'm not a builder, so what do I know! However, today I received an e-mail from our Spurgeons contact, Kenyanito, with an update to the building works situation. It didn't make for wonderful reading!

Basically a combination of discovering the need for unexpectedly deep foundations, plus a 36% increase in price on some building materials, plus a significant mis-quote have resulted in a big hole in the budget. And as the 'short rains' are now falling steadily the stability of the construction that has taken place already has been put at risk.

Could be pretty down-heartening reading in one sense. But the e-mail from Kenyanito didn't come across like that. To him, a man of great faith and for whom prayer is always number 1 on the list of action points, the e-mail was just a statement about where things are at for now. It was just a message bringing us up to date with things, and letting us know the reality. Sure there was a comment that if we know of any funds that could help fill the hole then please could we explore them, but it wasn't an e-mail pleading for money.

Instead his closing sentence was this: 'We are trusting God for his divine intervention and am certain sure that he will never leave us not forsake us. The impact that the completion of this rebuild will cause to the kids is huge beyond any measure. As I always say my sister: if it is God's will, then it must be God's bill.'

What a great faith, what an inspiring faith, what a challenge to those of us who say we are of faith. No more hiding behind the excuse that we can't afford to do something; if we sense it is what God is calling us to, then our motto should be: 'if it is God's will, then it must be God's bill'.

He will provide, if we take the risk and step out to let Him.

Big Fat Fluffy Difference

So, at church yesterday morning we sang a new song. It was introduced as one for the children, but I have to admit when the words were projected onto the screen my first response was one of inner groaning, followed by 'I can't believe I am singing this'!

The words go like this:

'I'm gonna make a difference,
Make a big, fat, fluffy difference,
Make a big, fat, fluffy difference in the world
I'm gonna use my talents
Gonna overcome each challenge
And make a big, fat. fluffy difference in the world'
(copyright: Scripture Union)

Then in the first verse it talks about how 'God's given us lots of things, so we can really shout and sing, and do our best to help somebody else; Jesus gave his all, and then he gave a call, let's all make a difference in the world'

In the second verse it moves on to how 'some people are so funny, they make bucket loads of money, and all they do is spend it on themselves. Others are quite strange, they throw life down the drain, they don't try to make a difference in the world'

And in usual song style, there are repeats of the chorus at regular intervals throughout.

So, definitely not deep and profound words, but when you actually look at the theology behind them, and the implications of the words if we were to put them into action - they are pretty spot on. And as I sang (reluctantly at first!) about this fat and fluffy difference that we are all called to make, it was very clear that the younger ones in the church definitely were enjoying the song, not least because they were able to understand the words and the concepts.

How often do we talk about things in language that sounds good, and intelligent, and as though we have got it all sorted, but actually forget to always stop and think about whether what we are saying a) matches our actions and attitudes, and b) is accessible to those we are trying to reach? I know I for one can be guilty of not always getting the terminology right, or of hiding behind the theology and not actually stepping out and taking the risk, or actually trying to make the difference in the right way or when the opportunity arises

Moral of this rambling: the important things in life might not always be presented in ways that we would choose, but that isn't an excuse for us to step aside and pretend they aren't relevant. If we all made big, fat, fluffy differences in this world, what a better place that would be!

PS - Gillian, this blog is dedicated to you!!!!