Africa Beckons – Can You Help?

August will see the Awakening the Dreamer message in Africa, and there will be facilitator trainings in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, the first in each of these countries and the first on the continent. This posting is a request for help, but first let me tell you about the people who have laid the foundations for this;

• Awal, a young guy in Ghana, horrified by the deforestation he sees first hand, contacts us in San Francisco and receives the Presenters Kit so that he can take the Symposium into the very communities where they are chopping the trees.  He has since presented the Symposium to other communities and his fellow students; this visit will allow me to train up some of these folk so that a community of facilitators rises up around Awal.

• Tracy-Kim, a proud South African, resident in Hong Kong and trained there as a facilitator, delivered 7 symposiums in different cities in her homeland during her recent holiday, exciting over 60 people to now want training.  We will be delighted to oblige.

• the other key has been the people in the ATD community world-wide who have brought their connections and contacts in to support the expansion of this message.  That’s how we have a large and enthusiastic group awaiting our arrival in Nigeria, consisting of people already in action through NGOs addressing poverty issues, climate change, children’s rights and more; this ensures we will already be landing amongst friends

As a result of this I will be heading for Africa in just a couple of weeks (schedule below), joined for the South African trainings by my friend and colleague Ruel Walker; it promises to be quite a trip.

So here’s 2 ways you can help today.

1. Please let your friends, contacts and extended communities in Africa know about the events below.  Please invite them all to consider attending one of these events or to contact me to meet during this time.  Another highly valuable resource as you invite people is the Symposium trailer here
2. The other help we need is money.  We are normally able to cover the local costs of events like these with income from symposium attendees and training participants.  But this model simply won’t work in Nigeria and Ghana, where our local contacts impress upon us that any kind of charge, however modest, will exclude lots of people and my budget is overspent just getting the air-tickets to Lagos and Accra.  I’ve been blown away by the generosity already exhibited by friends from Hong Kong, the US, Japan and elsewhere with who’s help we have been able to gather some funds to support the trip to Awal’s home in Tamale, and even to take him a laptop. There is still a need for more funds in each country, which means an opportunity to be one of the people making these trips possible, to help spread awakening in the world.  Please let me know if you would like to help, by emailing me here., any amount will make a difference, perhaps allowing just one more person to hear this message of hope and possibility and to themselves become ambassadors of a new dream for Africa and the world.  All funds will be administered through The Pachamama Alliance, as US-based not-for-profit.

The Itinerary

22 August                 Symposium                           Abuja, Nigeria

23 August                 Facilitator training              Abuja

24 – 26 August         Available for meetings       Abuja and Lagos

27 August                 Symposium                           Cape Town, South Africa

28 – 30 August        Facilitator training              Cape Town

31 August                  Symposium                          Plettenberg Bay

1 – 2 September       Facilitator training              Plettenberg Bay

4 – 6 September      Facilitator training              Johannesburg

9 September            Symposium                           Tamale, Ghana

10 September          Facilitator training              Tamale

What about this from Ghana

As Outreach Director at the Pachamama Alliance I get allsorts of requests from around the world, this is one of the most amazing, from an amazing guy, please take time to tread it and add any comments that you have about how to help Awal.

Hi every one,
My name is Yakubu Mohammed Awal,am 27 years old,male and a student at
the university for development studies in Tamale-Ghana,
am studying agricultural technology and in my third year of studies.
as part of our academic requiremnts to attain a degree my university
is mandated by the constitution of the republic of Ghana to blend
academic work witha rural practical experience which is compulsory for
every student in the university to participate in for three years.
this is how iot works.
In your first year of studies-ie in the third trime you’re sent to a
community anywhere in Ghana study the community
profile,topography,geographical location , population census, and the
community transect.
-in the second year- You are required to go there again and study the
problems and potentials of the community-where upon data collected you
ananlyse it with tools like the prolem tree analyses, pairwise ranking
etc.
in the third and final time – you go there again,and this time you are
reqiured to write a proposal with you findings in the community and
present to the school.
So,i the first year when i arrived in my community of research called
subriso number 1 which is located in the Brong Ahafo region which is
predominantly a forest area,
i was quick to notice that they had a major challenge,
and that was both legal and illegal chainsaw operation which seemed to
be an everyday activity.
I noticed with great dismay the rate at which the precius forest trees
were being depleted every day was alarming.
Funny enough enough this particular community happaend to be a settler
community,
They went there to farm cola nut and then the forest trees became a
discovery to them,
So the lazy youth abandoned their farming activities and simply took
up dogma machines and started cutting down trees which fetched them
quick money.
So they had more hands to join in the business and iut became worse.
But with my little experience of deforestation i tried to talk to them
about the dangers involved in this business but i was met with stiff
opposition from the towns people,
to them it was a gift from God and they were going to use it fully to
thier advantage.
so they woudnt listern to me.
but i also thaught they should listern because it was importand for us
to know that a well lived toiday brings a better tomorrow.
it became a challenge to then but my time to return to school was due
so i had to go back to school.
-Then i met Jon symes through a friend called alastaire wolfe who
introduced me to jon and the we exchanged e-mails and phone calls and
jon inspired me to organise a symposium for this people.he sent to me
a symposium dvd and some materials to study as aguide torwards
organising the serminer.
i accepted to do it and organised a symposium at this community on the
28of nov2008
This community has no electricity so i had tocarry my television set
together wlth a generator to this place.
i had three friends of mine who volunteerd to join me to do this one
of them had to do the translation for me since he spoke the same
language withg them.
on frinday at 10 am the entire community was gathered at the village
square top listern to the message we had brought to them.
we displayed thedvd and explained as it rolled on untill the end.
we then had an open forum where we receieved questions freom the
people as to their understanding of the video and the message,
the response was affirmative and we had to deal withy questions like ,
‘what do you want us to do now that you want us to stop cutting down the trees.?
‘where do we get money to go into farming since it is not cheap to go farming?
‘do we just leave the forest to waste now that yopu asked us to stop
cutting them?
‘were you(me)bringing jobs tro us as alternatives to cutting this trees?
‘How do wqe get our fuel wood then?
and awhole lot issues,
But am much as i tried to answer them i also gave the hope,since i had
no immidiate solutions to their answers.
but in the end they saw reason in my case and the chief of the village
called Nana Yaw Kyere. rose up and pledged his commitment to end this
chainsaw operations in the area,.
so we made a list of names mostly opinion leaders to endorse their
commitment to this fight.
we ended the day by praying to God for that day and asked him to help us.
Dear jon this symposium as it took place will change the lives of my
people and the generations yet unborn if this continues.
i want to do this to help my country and help realise the dream of
pachamama also.becase subriso number is just one community around
hundredsof those communities engaged in this acts.
but here i’am just a student,
it took me my entire savings to make this first seminar happen,
transporting the tv ,generator, my self , my two friends feeding then
and accommodating then became a cost to me, in the end i spent about
430 Ghana cedis 430 us dollar equivalent.
But i do not regret it bacause not is more expensive so long as it
pays to educated someone(people)
jon, i’ll be on holidays soon,
foe 1 month and i was hoping to use this period to visit the other
communities withe same message.But i cant afford it now since i do not
have any mony again and this time i wish to use a two weeks period to
cover about 20-25 communities and that will cost me a fortune.
please can you tell a friend to to tell a friend that if they can
assist me to this,
we will all contribute in changing the lives of many people around
especially here in Ghana.
thank you Jon,
hope to read from you soon.
N/B This is a long e-mail to you,
please i could not go through to make corrections please if find
mistatkes do understand.
thank you.
Awal from Ghana