Bee wrote this post about Syria and World Vision. I felt a bit bad about it, as she text me afterwards to tell me she cried in a cafe while she wrote it, but as Bee says, optimism is about action. I hope it makes you think.

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Recently I have pushed myself to be relentlessly optimistic.

I have complained about people putting negative Facebook statuses up about the government and current affairs, educated and researched or not. I have wanted to shut out every piece of horrifying news and walk around with a blind smile on my face to stop myself from falling apart.

But then I realised that optimism and hope isn’t just about faith, it is about action. It isn’t about avoiding difficult issues, it is about tackling them head on, doing anything you can, at least saying something, starting a conversation. So I decided that I should probably say something, because it is Charity Tuesday and if I can get even one person to read and help, then I’ve done something, and if we all just do a little bit and spread awareness then hope becomes change and optimism is no longer something we have to fight for.

In this video, Zeinab is 13 years old. The same age as my little sister, but she seems so much older. I felt like she was older than me, just by the way she spoke about her situation. She had dreams of being an artist. In Syria, she was happy and went to school with her friends. She had everything that you or I would take for granted, from a TV to clothes to a real mattress to sleep on.

After the arrival of ISIS, it was no longer safe for Zeinab to be in Syria. The only way that she could protect herself was by leaving her family behind and going to marry a grown man in Lebanon. She now lives in an informal refugee settlement with only the bare essentials. As the winter draws in, temperatures in Lebanon are dropping to below freezing and water is leaking through Zeinab’s thin tent. The things that Zeinab has had to go through at such a young age are completely unfathomable. I would stop at nothing to make sure that my sister didn’t have to go through the same thing, so I see no reason why we should let thousands of young girls like Zeinab suffer through it either.

It could happen to any of us.

Despite everything, Zeinab remains a strong young woman in the face of adversity and is making the best of things that are happening to her. The most chilling thing about the video for me was that she did not break down once or look upset at all. SHE has relentless optimism. And thanks to World Vision, she has hope for the future as well. When Zeinab arrived at the settlement there was no clean water or sanitation, but World Vision has now built latrines and water tanks to greatly improve Zeinab’s quality of life. World Vision are also providing warm winter coats to the children in the settlement to help them through the winter months.

There is a lot that we SHOULD be doing to help people in the Syrian conflict and there is NO reason why we can’t be doing these things. Even just going to World Vision, seeing more of their work and spreading the word can in turn help young women like Zeinab survive the atrocities folding out before us at this very moment.

People say that humans have destroyed this planet, but I believe that if a small percentage of them can knock it down then the rest of us can work together to build it up bigger and better than before. With optimism, help, support, awareness and whatever else it takes. Because there isn’t a life on this planet that doesn’t matter.

Please consider making a donation now. Just £14 can buy a winter coat, to help one of the two million refugee children living in tents and poor housing to survive the cold conditions.

 

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As you may know, a couple of years ago I visited Ethiopia with World Vision, and ever since I have sponsored a child there – Eyerus. If you can’t commit to child sponsorship, you can support World Vision with one off donations too.

So, what’s the problem?

Poverty, conflict and disaster leave millions of children living in fear. Fear of hunger and disease. Fear of violence, conflict and exploitation. Fear that robs them of a childhood.

How does your organisation set out to solve it? What makes your approach unique?

Our local staff work in thousands of communities across the world to free children from fear. We live and work alongside children and their families to help change the world they live in for good.

Our worldwide presence means we’re quick to respond to emergencies like conflict and natural disasters. We also use our influence and global reach to ensure that children are represented at every level of decision-making.

We can do this because people like you are prepared to sponsor, donate, pray, campaign or simply share the stories of boys and girls who have been given lasting hope for the future. View Post

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You might not immediately make the link between sponsoring a child with World Vision and National Stationery Week, but then the talent of any writer is take two seemingly unrelated subjected and weave them together into a convincing story.*

Now I am a massive fan of stationery and love any excuse to buy a new pen, but in today’s modern touchscreen world I don’t often get to do much actual writing. One of the only times I ever sit down to write a letter is when I write to Eyerus, the child I sponsor through World Vision. I began sponsoring Eyerus after my trip to Ethiopia last year and it’s always lovely to get a letter from her – we’ve never met and yet she always shares such interesting details about her life. Child sponsorship really makes you appreciate how your money makes a difference to individual people and their communities.

Child sponsorship with World Vision National Stationery WeekRyman very kindly gave me a voucher to spend on treats to celebrate National Stationery Week – 31 March  – 6 April – so I thought it would be nice to share this with Eyerus. I bought myself a lovely new red pen to write my letter in (rather worryingly the same type of pen my Grandad used to insist on writing all his notes in when he was very old and forgetful) and I bought Eyerus a notebook and some coloured pencils.

Child sponsorship with World Vision National Stationery Week

Child sponsorship with World Vision National Stationery Week

Child sponsorship with World Vision and National Stationery WeekI’m pretty sure they won’t be celebrating National Stationery Week in Ethiopia but I hope that Eyerus gets as much joy from a notebook and coloured pencils as I do.

Do you still write letters to anyone?

*I’m not sure that is actually a writing thing, but one thing writers do need to be able to do is make a story convincing, and I pretty much convinced myself of that fact.

Disclosure: Ryman sent me a voucher in return for mentioning their pencils.

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This is a guest post from Must Have Gifts, part of World Vision UK. I did not receive payment for this post. I sponsor a child through World Vision and visited Ethiopia with them earlier this year so it’s a cause that is close to my heart.

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If you have family or friends with a birthday in November or December it can often be a challenge to find a great present that means something but that doesn’t stretch the bank balance too much just before the expensive festive season. Thankfully, there are lots of charity gifts ideas from Must Have Gifts that can make a difference to other people’s lives as well as celebrating a special occasion.

What are charity gifts?
These are gifts that range from maize for a field through to re-building a roof for a clinic. A gift is brought online and donated straight to the community and the person you are buying for receives a card detailing the gift that has been made in their name.

A gift that doesn’t sit on the shelf
A charity gift of a mosquito net, a kid goat or chickens really makes a difference to children and the communities they live in. This would probably beat another pair of socks or a tie for that family member you are just sure what to buy.  These gifts improve lives as families can get produce from the animals and sell any excess, generating income. View Post

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They say that you can tell a lot about a person by having a rummage through their bathroom cabinet, but if you want to be a little less creepy, I reckon that having a look at their fridge can do just as well.

I like my fridge. I spend a lot of time wanting to open it and eat treats, so I have tried to cover the front with things I like – things that might hopefully distract me and make me forget why I was there in the first place.

Here it is: View Post

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So here I am, back in the UK.

After what felt like a very long journey over the weekend, during which I managed to lose my glasses and my train tickets, I am home again.

It has been an incredible week, and I have plenty more stories to share yet, but I fear it is that time, after someone you knows comes back from abroad, where you have to sit through a slide show. The beauty of this one is that I’m not actually in your house (unless you are Boyfriend or one of my children) and so if you skip to the end I’ll never know. It would be polite not to though. Just saying.

Best get comfy… View Post

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Do you remember the famine in Ethiopia in 1984?

I was six at the time, but I remember seeing the coverage on the television. I remember too that my Auntie Jill bought me the Band Aid single for Christmas. What I don’t remember though is being able to connect the images I saw on the screen with actual people. The people dying were a thing, a concept, rather than individuals. At six years old exactly how would you get your head round it otherwise?

Of course the problem was that they were real people.

On Wednesday we drove around 350km north of Addis Ababa to the Antsokia Valley, where in 1984 around 15-20 people were dying every day because they didn’t have enough to eat.

Zewde Mulatu took her four children to a feeding centre in Antsokia in 1984. All of them survived.

Zewde Mulatu took her four children to a feeding centre in Antsokia in 1984. All of them survived.

Can you even begin to imagine how that must have felt? The initial unease as the rains fail to appear, a growing sense of panic about how you will feed your family, turning to hopelessness as you realise there is nothing. It’s impossible to imagine, with our supermarkets on every corner, being able to walk for miles and simply not be able to find food.

What’s amazing, if you think of the coverage of the famine, is that anyone survived at all. The pictures I remember seeing of children, skin and bones wrapped in dirty blankets, certainly didn’t inspire hope. Those affected at the time definitely weren’t hopeful. Thanks to aid organisations across the world though, most of those who experienced the food crisis, who could see no way out, lived to tell the tale.

Today we met with Aschalu, a daughter of Zewde, who was a child at the time of the food crisis. She was 10 she tells us, and is 35 now. It doesn’t quite add up, but then a lot of people in Ethiopia are hazy about their age as they’ve not been officially registered at birth. Amongst women particularly there in a tendency to lie – everyone wants to be younger. It seems some things are the same wherever you go.

Aschalu

Aschalu

Stepping into Aschalu’s beauty parlour is a bit like stepping into a sauna. The small shack is sweltering, the heat having built up over the day from the sun, the driers that stand against one wall and the two pairs of curling tongs that sit over an open flame. A woman sits in curlers under one of the driers and a young girl perches on a chair in the middle of the room, her bare feet dangling, steam rising from her unruly hair as it is straightened.

Aschalu's beauty salon

Aschalu’s beauty salon

I'm not sure what the Ethiopian equivalent is of 'been anywhere nice on your holidays?'

I’m not sure what the Ethiopian equivalent is of ‘been anywhere nice on your holidays?’

Tongs. Ouch.

Tongs. Ouch.

We sit in chairs along one wall, sweating quietly.

Aschalu tells us her memories of the famine of 1984. “I remember walking, looking for food,” she tells us, looking straight at the camera, her face passive. “Along the way many people were leaving their dead babies and children at the side of the road.” It’s an image I can’t bring myself to dwell on for long – families with no choice other than to simply throw their loved ones to one side. “I remember being fed with a spoon,” she tells us, “with porridge.”

Aschalu is just one of many people we meet in the Antsokia Valley who are proof that there can be life even after so much death – both in terms of people and the environment. When World Vision arrived nearly 30 years ago Antsokia was completely barren and dry. Nothing could grow and the land could not support life of any kind.

Now though, thanks to both aid and training and to the incredible determination and resilience of the area’s inhabitants, Antsokia is thriving. The local school teems with excitable, smiling faces. Local farmers have developed improved farming methods and irrigation systems, and women like Aschalu have created sustainable small businesses that provide an income for their families.

We know though that Ethiopians are nothing if not ambitious and Aschalu won’t be settling for one small salon. Like every single person we have spoken to so far, she has very clear hopes and dreams for the future, and Aschalu not only plans to expand her beauty salon business, but also wants to branch out into photography, opening a studio where people can come and have their portraits taken.

When you see the changes that have been made in the last 30 years, you can’t help but feel excited for the future of Ethiopia.

If you’ve been moved by this story, please consider signing up to support the Enough Food For Everyone IF campaign – it only takes a minute.

 

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This is one of my favourite pictures of the trip so far. It really captures the things I am growing to love about Ethiopia already – the colours, the smiling faces and the warm welcome we receive everywhere we go.

"Ethiopia"

Yes we stick out like a bit of a sore thumb, but whereas in some places this might make you feel uncomfortable, here it makes you feel special – everyone really does want to be your friend.

Picture by Kayla Robertson, World Vision. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for more photos and updates.

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If I had a pound for every time I had used the word ‘amazing’ today I would be a rich woman, especially by Ethiopian standards. I actually used it twice in a tweet earlier today, which isn’t very clever, but the people I have met today really are amazing, so I make no excuses for the word.*

Today we went to visit an amazing** food project that has been supported by World Vision. The project is made up of around half a dozen women, all of whom were facing significant challenges when they started the group four years ago, including living with HIV and struggling as single parents to provide for their children on their own. One thing they shared though was ambition – a determination to makes their lives better.

The group were supported by World Vision and by the Ethiopian government to set up a business making the Ethiopian staple, injera. They wanted to do something that would provide an income for their families for years to come, a sustainable business that they could then grow into something much bigger as in turn their confidence and experience grew. View Post

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Living in one room with five other members of your family may not seem like exactly the lap of luxury, but when ten years ago you and your children were living at the side of the road under a plastic sheet, it’s actually something to get pretty excited about.

Hannah lives in Lideta with her husband, who is HIV positive, her three children, her niece and her grandson. With the support of World Vision, she purchased a washing machine to set up her own laundry business, and now takes in washing from her community. This is the family’s only source of income.

Despite having so little, Hannah is keen to share. She welcomes us into her home quite literally with open arms and enthuses about the support she has received from World Vision. “Take the kitten!” she exclaims, when we coo over her pets, “take me if you like! It is the least I can offer.”

She proudly shows off her store room, complete with supplies of injera that she has prepared over the last few days, and crouched in the narrow passageway that leads from the front door to the main room of the house proceeds to cook us a feast. Chairs are strung from the ceiling, pink lacy cloths cover her coffee table, and photos of her sponsors sit proudly alongside a photograph of her daughter graduating from school. View Post

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We stepped off the plane at 6.30am Ethiopian time this morning after what couldn’t really be described as the most comfortable of flights.

Think Ryanair, but for seven hours. Then pick a seat against a wall that can’t recline. Chuck in pastries and tea at 2am and the worst film in the world being shown on a tiny screen, miles away down the aisle. Oh and then ask the chattiest man in Cameroon to sit down next to you.

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That’s all nothing though is it? So I was a bit uncomfortable for a few hours. First world problems as Bee would say, and quite literally in this case compared with some of the challenges faced every day on Ethiopia. I feel a little bit pathetic complaining about eating and strange times. I should be grateful I have something to eat at all.

We can’t find our lift at the airport, so end up getting a taxi across town. It’s still only 8am here – although more like one o’clock if you use the Ethiopian system of counting the hours since sunrise – but the streets are already swarming with people. Men holding hands stroll casually into the street, accompanied by frequent beeping from cars and buses, but no one seems to be in a rush. Homosexuality is not allowed here, but people are generally affectionate and tactile, so it’s not uncommon to see friends walking hand in hand.

At our hotel, a nap is most definitely on the cards.

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After a sleep and a little something from my flapjack stash, we head out for a bit of an explore, and stop for a visit at the Holy Trinity church. The building is relatively modern by UK standards – it was finished in 1944 – but the stained glass and the light inside is beautiful.

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Just driving around is awesome and I’m hypnotised by the people, shacks and stalls that line the street. Today has been about settling in, but tomorrow I’m going to get to meet the group of HIV positive women who have started their own successful food business. I can’t wait.

P.S. I am blogging from an app on my phone due to a suspiciously unreliable ‘high speed’ internet connection so please forgive me if this post looks odd in any way – I’ve never app blogged before.

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….Actual Ethiopia. Not just some trendy Bristol cafe that sells exotic meats – the actual country.

I’m going on Saturday as a guest of World Vision, to raise awareness of the Enough Food for Everyone IF campaign and I will visiting all kinds of amazing people and projects, seeing first hand what World Vision have been doing to help Ethiopia develop over the last 30 years. I will be honest though and say I have mixed feelings about it at the moment.

"enough food if"

Let’s put it into a little bit of context.

It would be fair to say that I’ve led a pretty sheltered life when it comes to other countries and cultures. We never went on family holidays abroad as children, and my only flirtations with foreign travel were school exchanges. As these were often simply ten days spent living with strangers, not understanding anything that was happening and generally feeling terrified, they didn’t exactly give me a positive view of what travel was all about.

I had babies young, and money and time were always an issue – travel fell fairly low down on my list of things to do. I have tried harder over the last couple of years, but have still yet to explore any further than about Spain, and quite frankly that was too hot for me.

Ethiopia then. It’s going to be a little outside my comfort zone. About 3,000 miles outside it actually.

That’s not to say I’m not incredibly excited, and honoured to have been chosen to take part in the trip. I’m sure it’s going to be absolutely amazing, and I could never have said no, but if I’m totally honest, I am anxious too. Partly it’s just the natural trepidation that comes with doing something new, but I’m also worried about how I am going to react to the poverty we’re sure to see, and the struggles and challenges that women – essentially mums just like me – have to face every day. I cry at the VW ad where the girl grows up and her dad gives her a new car – how am I going to cope with seeing women and children effected by poverty, disease and difficult living conditions?

This is where you come in.

Obviously it would be great if you could give me a lovely virtual pat on the back and tell me how brave I am, but that’s not really what it’s about – how brave is it exactly just to visit for a week and then come back to my lovely warm house and comprehensive health and welfare system? Not very.

What I need is to know that I am making a difference. It might only be a small difference, but I need to know that something I do or say or write might make you stop and think, just for a minute, and perhaps make a little change in your own life. I’m not saying you have to abandon your home and dig wells, but perhaps reading about women setting up their own businesses, working hard to provide their children with enough to eat, might just make you think twice about binning those leftovers. Maybe knowing that there are farmers struggling to even get their crops to grow might help you make the switch to supporting your local farmers, rather than relying on supermarkets for everything.

Even if you just learn something new, or have a laugh at my expense when I make some horrible cultural faux pas like whipping out a Mars bar in the street because I’m peckish then that’s OK too. I am bound to do something crass like that.

So this is what I’d like you to do:

I’m flying out this weekend and will try every day, from Monday to Friday, to write about the people I have met and the amazing things I have seen that day. Please sign up to my mailing list if you’re not already, so you don’t miss my posts.

For each post, I then want to create a talking point or theme – something that just makes you think about something in particular, and consider how the people I’m meeting in Ethiopia might have an impact on your life. I will have a linky on each post so if you’re a blogger and feel inspired, you can right and share a post too. If you don’t have a blog, I’ll suggest one little thing you could do or change that could make a difference. It won’t be anything massive, but if we all do it, we can tun it into something positive.

We’ll also be on Twitter, using the hashtag #foodfrontline, so follow me or follow the hashtag and do help share our news if you can.

As Margaret Mead said, “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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