23 April 2009

GLOBAL COLLECTIVE MEMBERS MEET DFID MINISTER

"How lucky we are… not learning from a book, or surfing the internet but actually meeting real people who are talking about their personal experience. Enlightening." -Tonya Greenidge

The Global Collective youth group that meet regularly at the GLADE centre have been involved with the Send a Cow project. The idea of the Send a Cow project is to use farms in the Mendips as a base for schools to visit and learn about farming and development issues in Uganda. On 19th February five young people from the Global Collective were invited to help prepare Fernhill farm in Cheddar for the school visits. They helped create a Ugandan homestead in a disused quarry making a keyhole garden, making bag gardens and making a fuel-efficient clay oven. Sophie Greenidge described the benefits of bag gardens as:
"upcycling old coffee bags so that you can grow vegetables without them being washed away if there is a flood "

On 8th April they were invited to another farm to help evaluate the project with DFID Minister, Permanent Under Secretary Michael Foster MP. Sophie and Tonya Greenidge were the brave ones who went to Lower Stoke farm in Wrington and did an excellent job explaining what they had learnt to the Minister as well as having copious photographs taken.
They also met some female Ugandan farmers who answered all their questions, showed them how to make bag gardens and the amazing ‘tip tap’ water saving tap. The life dependent issue of saving water in Uganda made a real impact on us.
"It made me realise how wasteful we are here, compared to in Uganda… with the tippy tap they collect the water after you have washed your hands and use it to water the bag gardens" -Sophie Greenidge
After the Minister was shown around the farm, there was an opportunity to informally chat with him. Tonya took the bold step of inviting him to play the Global Youth Action fortune-teller game. Tonya reflects:
"He seemed a bit surprised … his response was quite informal"