QSA | The Australian Friend

An Open Letter on Behalf of the World’s Poor.

1206 June 2012 No Responses »

May 202012

Jackie Perkins, New South Wales Regional Meeting.

In 2000, Australia agreed to play its part in global efforts to halve the number of people living in poverty by 2015. Australians can be proud that, so far, their leaders have kept this promise made in our name. This commitment has been supported by both sides of politics, as it should be. This is Australia’s promise to the world’s poor, no matter who is in Government.

Millions of Australians expect this commitment to be maintained. And millions more of those living in poverty are depending on it.

To achieve the 0.5 per cent target means that just 50 cents in every $100 of our national income will go towards our aid program. This falls short of the global target of 0.7 per cent, but it still means a lot to the world’s poor.

In an Open Letter to the Prime Minister, signed by 152 CEOs and Board chairs of development NGOs, including our own Kay de Vogel and Jackie Perkins from Quaker Service Australia, and a number of celebrities, all agreed with Andrew Hewett Executive Director of Oxfam Australia who said that ‘It is unacceptable that more than 20,000 children still die every single day due mostly to diseases that are entirely preventable.’

Geoffrey Rush, Australian of the Year and UNICEF Ambassador said ‘We have made enormous progress in the battle against poverty. Australia must not cede the commitment to aid that is held across the political spectrum. To do so will jeopardise the futures of millions of people who have been given the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty, in no small part, thanks to Australia’s foreign aid’.

QSA, although one of the smaller development agencies in Australia, recognises the significance of the global challenge and of the improvements that have and are being made, but more is needed. The money promised by the Government to be spent on aid is desperately needed, so that, along with the money so generously donated by the public, we can continue to make a difference.

In this open letter we ask the Prime Minister to recognise that we cannot balance the budget with the lives of the world’s poor, and it is up to her, and her ministers, to prove that when Australia makes a promise, we keep it!

This open letter was prepared by the peak body ACFID (Australian Council for International development) and was signed off by a number of development agencies and celebrities. It has been modified for publication in Australian Friend.

QSA Notes April.

1206 June 2012 No Responses »

Apr 072012

Jackie Perkins, New South Wales Regional Meeting.

Cambodia – Department of Women’s Affairs

As ever, QSA continues to pursue a rigorous agenda when it comes to supporting project partners to best move forward in supporting the communities with which they work. This necessarily includes providing training to project staff members in order that their expertise can then, in turn enhance the opportunities and quality of life attainable for those community members whom the project supports. A recent example of this has been a training co-operative between QSA and APHEDA (Australian People for Health, Education and Development Abroad) or Union Aid Abroad as they are maybe more commonly known, running across Kampong Thom and Pursat provinces in Cambodia. The co-operative ‘skills-swap’ scheme was established in order that project capital, education and skills reach a broader section of the community than would otherwise be possible and a workshop pooling ideas and resources can only spread the know-how deeper and wider!

APHEDA staff trained 20 staff and farmers from QSA partner projects in locations in both Kampong Thom and Pursat provinces facilitating workshops which ran 3 to 5 days, in raising fingerling fish. The training has been successful and despite the Kampong Thom project needing to construct a pond for the farming, the Pursat office had an established pond ready for use. Fish farming has become for the projects and communities, a very effective alternative source of additional nutrition, income generation and has also provided sustainable alternatives to the over-fishing of many fish from the natural environment where in Cambodia many edible fish stocks are significantly depleted.

At the back of the Kampong Thom demonstration centre where the fish farm pond will be located.

QSA trainers offered their part of the exchange, over a course of 3 five day workshops, a thorough training in Permaculture practice for 16 participants from 4 provinces which included specialisations such as seasonal crop growing, water saving in the dry season, compost fertiliser making, seedling germination, integrated pesticide management and fruit tree crafting, cutting and pruning, among others. Particularly in light of the recent flooding in Pursat province, the training has also included Permaculture training in how to grow vegetables during the wet season which will shortly become paramount as rice stocks become scarce after losing the rice harvest to flooding. This is of further import as the understanding of Permaculture practice as working with, rather than against the environment resounds at this time and the correlation between good food and good health is felt strongly in the communities and projects alike.

The trainees practicing how to make natural pesticides.

Trainees also had the opportunity to build their own demonstration garden where Chinese cabbage, tomatoes, mint and other vegetables were established. Indeed, after the second workshop 14 trainees travelled to the Mong Russey district of Battambang province to establish a model vegetable garden for their Community Training Centre also. The pathways towards sustainable land care and agriculture, income generation and health have coalesced very productively throughout this joint skill-swap scheme. May our project partners find much success in achieving their goals.

World Development Report 2012 – Gender Equality and Development

The recently published 2012 World Development report asserts that much progress has been made in closing the gender gaps between men and women in the developing world over the past decades. Across four major outcome areas, those of women’s rights, education, health and labour force representation, achievements and liberties which took hundreds of years to be established in wealthy countries such as Australia have taken 40 years to embed themselves into the fabric of society in low to middle income countries. The paramount importance of gender equality has long resounded in QSA’s project work as a development in and of itself and it is heartening to have acknowledged the work invested and the challenges sustained by the communities for whom such changes are new.

Despite much progress there remains much ground to cover and the report acknowledges that the status of women and gender imbalances in many countries and population groups remain serious, even crippling. As inspiration to continue to work towards true equality in gender relations and opportunity, light shines brightly from the end of the tunnel to hear that more women are literate than ever before, labour force participation has for young women increased almost 2.5 times between 1995 – 2000, women have reversed the education gap and now have higher completion rates than men and the world’s fastest recorded decline in fertility has taken place, from an average of 5 births per woman (1960) to 2.5 (2008), which has significantly lowered maternal mortality rates and increased female life expectancy. The full report is a fascinating read and can be accessed in full via the World Bank website http://www.worldbank.org/.

Pitchandikulam Forest

Grateful thanks are also extended from Joss Brooks and Anita Truchanas at Pitchandikulam Forest where Joss has been updating us of their clearing and reconstruction efforts, what follows is a heartfelt thank you and section of his latest update:

Dear Friends who have helped us in this time of need,

The copper, mauve, gold and greens of the new growth bursting out from the broken limbs of broken trees exhilarate us, covering up the ragged wounds in our, since December, dramatically askew forest.

The forest remains all damaged angles, bent trunk leaning on the next bent trunk, though now leaves surge forth in a huge vertical aspiration towards the sun.

The chainsaw buzzing signals the arrival of the team to clear paths through the confusion and liberate younger plants from underneath the older acacia branches that have crushed and contorted them. Some of the trees are 150 ft tall and 3ft diameter!! It takes one day for the crew to clear one tree with our small chainsaws, it is careful work to protect the plants underneath. We imagine it will take several years to clear the whole sixty acres of Pitchandikulam !

Our forest community is profoundly grateful for the help that has been given to us so far by friends and well wishers. Additional donations have enabled us to buy chainsaws and petrol and will support a team of an extra 5 people for another several months in order that we can make a larger, communal dent in the huge task ahead of us. Thank you. Joss and Anita

The Trainees practicing how to make natural pesticides.

World Development Report 2012 – Gender Equality and Development

Pitchandikulam Forest

Dear Friends who have helped us in this time of need,

The copper, mauve, gold and greens of the new growth bursting out from the broken limbs of broken trees exhilarate us, covering up the ragged wounds in our, since December, dramatically askew forest.

The forest remains all damaged angles, bent trunk leaning on the next bent trunk, though now leaves surge forth in a huge vertical aspiration towards the sun.

The chainsaw buzzing signals the arrival of the team to clear paths through the confusion and liberate younger plants from underneath the older acacia branches that have crushed and contorted them. Some of the trees are 150 ft. tall and 3ft diameter!! It takes one day for the crew to clear one tree with our small chainsaws, it is careful work to protect the plants underneath. We imagine it will take several years to clear the whole sixty acres of Pitchandikulam !

QSA Notes

1203 March 2012 No Responses »

Feb 242012

Pitchandikulam Forest, Tamil Nadu

Some months after the devastation of Cyclone Thane Jackie Perkins has returned from a visit to QSA’s project partner at Pitchandikulam Forest in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. During her visit she has had opportunity to take stock of the enormity of restorative and regenerative efforts undertaken by Joss Brooks and his staff in the immediate post cyclone emergency. In addition to this the trip has been a dynamic though sobering insight into the longer term imperatives necessary to restore livelihoods, health, safety and wellbeing to the project and to the wider affected community.

Cyclone Thane crossed the coastline of Tamil Nadu on December 30th 2011 in a narrow band between Cuddalore and Puducherry, and over the course of 24 hours, left a trail of destruction through the Cuddalore and Viluppuram Districts. The path of the cyclone took in Pitchandikulam Forest and the international community of Auroville, both of which suffered considerable damage, the coastal town of Puducherry and extended up to the Nadukuppam Village where most of QSA and AusAID funded projects recently have been located.

The damage sustained by the communities living along the ‘disaster prone’ Tamil Nadu coast, many of which continue to manage the after effects of the 2004 Tsunami, has been profound. Recent articles in the press and reports have made comparisons between the two disasters, and noted that with the tsunami there was extensive loss of life and damage covered a wide area, whereas Cyclone Thane was more concentrated with fewer people killed, but damage and destruction of property and crops being far more extensive. An independent NGO survey team has recorded 57,362 homes as totally damaged and 51,395 as partially damaged which may or not mean that part of them is habitable. Thousands of families have had their livelihoods destroyed or disrupted with cash and tree crops of banana, coconut, tapioca, pulses, mango, casuarinas, jack-fruit and cashews decimated. Livestock losses have also been immense with upwards of two million animals lost including tens of thousands of chickens. Food shortages are also expected to occur with newly planted rice paddies washed out by torrential rain and water contamination wide spread. For the region, it will take some time for services to be fully restored and with no electricity supply, and no effective pumps for water to be drawn up out of wells or supplied to houses, urban streets in poorer suburbs can quickly become a torrent of rainwater, sewage, rotting refuse and garbage as services become overloaded, and to date over 2,000 adults and children have reported symptoms of fever and diarrhoea. Concerns for human health and particularly disease outbreak are in the minds of local officials.

And so it is in this challenging circumstance that the Pitchandikulam Forest project has with great resilience taken to what according to Joss Brooks the project manager and Kanniapan the Nursery and Infrastructure Coordinator will be the two year task of, clearing out all of the debris, planning, repairing and rebuilding and replanting. The project has had help from some contracted community members, all established staff and some volunteers, to all of whom they are extremely grateful in the shared goal of seeing the forest restored and functioning as a training centre again.

If anyone would like to make a tax deductible donation to support this on-going work, please contact QSA at administration@qsa.org.au or 119 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010, 0296 989103.

Sustainable Enterprise Development in Auroville Bioregion (SEDAB) project and Pitchandikulam Forests planned contribution.

Pitchandikulam Forest has also newly become involved in a proposal drawn up by a joint team of several economic units operating at Auroville, and covers agriculture, natural resources, cottage industries and information sharing aiming to create a range of sustainable and innovative rural enterprises in communities throughout the Vilappuram District of Tamil Nadu. The proposal holds to enhance the financial returns from livelihoods for the poorest communities in the area, utilising natural resources in a sustainable way, and provide technological and marketing information, links to credit and infrastructure to ensure profitable enterprises. Among the hundreds of enterprises Pitchandikulam Forest’s contribution will include growing and marketing of Spirulina, medicinal plant collection and training, the production of herbal based cosmetics as part of a beautician training program and snake rearing for snake venom towards the production of anti-venom.

Vasandham Society and Environmental Education Centre (VERC)

Since the last QSA monitoring visit to the Vasandham Environmental Education Centre (VERC) also in Tamil Nadu, there has been much significant change relating particularly to energy; supplies and production. The nearby Vaigai River flood plain has seen 520 large wind power generators installed and has also welcomed a more beneficial arrangement with the power company purchasing rather than leasing the land on which the turbines stand. Everyone spoken to about these generators was very pleased to have them in operation as the area now has a reliable energy supply and there has been no issue regarding sound pollution when in motion.

Solar panels have also been successfully installed upon the roof of the centre itself further underwriting the Centre’s power needs at all times and a windmill type energy generator is also awaiting complete installation. These installations are part of a wider plan at the project to further expand sustainable energy resources and their benefits including a planned biogas conversion, water pumping from the dams to demonstrate appropriate water management systems and the training centre’s weather station monitoring weather patterns in order to track changing situations as they affect agriculture.

Most fortunately the area was did not experience any damage in the recent Cyclone Thane and as such cash crops such as cashews are still thriving. However there has been some species changes as older trees cease to be productive which has led to the project manager Guna to introduce some compensating, income generating alternatives such as such as the sale of timber , honey production and beeswax candles.

Guna and his staff are also very keen to deepen their water stores at VERC, in order to make wider use of the water which flows down from the adjoining Forestry Department land and rock outcrops. Any expansion needs to occur prior to the next wet season and ahead of a pending government decision concerning the location of a wildlife sanctuary planned for the area. Should the Sanctuary be built it will bring with it planning restrictions and also the need for bigger and more robust fences particularly as leopards, indigenous to the region, would be one animal encouraged to the sanctuary. The sanctuary is welcomed by those at the project in the belief it will restore the natural biodiversity in the region, and hopes to be able to work with the Forestry Department to help bring it about.

The VERC staff has also established a training timetable working in organic farming methods currently with 8 farmer’s groups as well as providing advice across a range of other ‘sustainable agriculture’ topics such as which traders selling animal feeds are adding stone dust to add bulk and weight to the grain, and how to check for this unwelcome additive. A regularly scheduled framers workshop covering the manufacture of natural fertilisers and pesticides took place during Jackie Perkins’ most recent visit where she was able to observe the Centres’ inclusive training methodology in action. The VERC trainers ensured a variety of teaching resources were available relative to the varying literacy levels of the farmers as well as facilitating practical demonstrations in which everybody took part. The farmers were eager to learn these new skills, and there was much discussion and exchange of ideas on topics such as the ‘green revolution’ and enthusiasm for converting from chemical based agricultural practice to organic methods. Other examples of workshops that have run recently cover integrated pest management, companion planting, crop rotation and inter-cropping.

CAMBODIA – Update to December QSA notes.

Friends will be pleased to know that flood waters in Cambodia have receded and the trainees have been able to re-establish their permaculture food gardens. QSA has reissued the seeds and seedlings given out before the flooding and these have since been replanted. As such, the seasons roll around and the hard work continues!

The Little Green Hat … a tale from the Quaker Shop

1112 December 2011 No Responses »

Nov 292011

Topsy Evans, South Australia Regional Meeting

One day in early 2011, a gentleman came to the Quaker Shop to give us a large suitcase of clothes. He explained that his wife had died over six years ago and it had taken him until then to start to sort out her belongings. He had heard of the Quakers and had come from Jamestown in the State’s mid-north to give us this case of her clothes.

He left without giving us his name. When we opened the case, we realised that its contents could not go out on our racks for sale. They were a life-long collection of special, beautiful clothes, preserved and cared for by their owner and packed very carefully, with a handwritten inventory on the top. From ball gowns, to her ‘first and last bikini’, they were all there!

We thought long and hard about where they should be placed. First of all we had to find out more about their owner. Over time, she came alive in our imaginations, as we thought more about a woman who worked with her husband on the farm, and also took care to wear such beautiful clothes.

Tucked into a corner of the case was a little, hand-made green hat, with a nametag sewn into it. A search of the Telephone Directory, using that name, and ‘Jamestown’ produced only one entry. When we rang the number, it was answered by an elderly man in a nursing home who was quite sure that he had not taken a suitcase of clothes ANYWHERE. A dead end.

Then we told him the name on the hat. ‘Oh, she was my daughter, but she died years ago.’ He gave us the name of his son-in-law, and we had found our donor!

When we rang ‘Alex’ he was very pleased to tell us about his wife, whose death had obviously affected him greatly. He sent us some photos of her (one wearing one of the dresses in the suitcase) and a short summary of her life. She had lived all her life on farms in the Yunta-Jamestown area. She had combined life and work on the farm with a keen interest in fashion. Most of the dresses were custom made for her by a dressmaker in Adelaide, or bought from a shop there, which had specialised in clothing made by well known Melbourne designers.

The History Trust of South Australia has accepted the entire donation to be preserved as a collection of clothes made in the 60s and 70s in South Australia. They are delighted to have such a complete provenance for the collection.

Her husband, when he heard the news, said ‘I only wish that she were here to know about it’. So do we!

Flooding in Cambodia

1112 December 2011 No Responses »

Nov 282011

Ponna Em, showing flooded homes

Jackie Perkins, Quaker Service Australia

I have just returned from a monitoring visit to Cambodia where the widespread flooding in that country has caused major problems for the people, especially those living in remote, rural locations. There has been very little media coverage of the situation affecting Cambodia, though more about the floods in neighbouring Thailand, particularly as it begins to affect the industrial and economic hub of the country and its airport. Flooding is a tragedy wherever it happens as there is often little that can be done in the face of such a large volume of water spread over many kilometres, and we only have to look to recent events in Queensland for examples of that. But when a tragedy affects us here in Australia there are a number of community organisations and government departments which swiftly arrive to deliver essential supplies, provide rescue to a safe location, help clean up what the flood waters leave behind and rebuild our homes. In Cambodia such resources do not exist.

It is usual for some areas of Cambodia to be briefly flooded each year as part of the aftermath of the monsoons. This is an effective component of rice growing which benefits from being planted in very wet soil. This year has been unprecedented in living memory both in the extent of the flooding and the duration. Many areas have been under water for at least eight weeks! The effect of this has been enormous. Homes are cut off, roads damaged due to the swirling waters, livestock lost, schools closed, and agricultural areas washed away. Many families have used up all available food stores, and over 200 people have lost their lives. For many families living on the banks of rivers and ponds, flooding is a natural annual event, and they possess a boat which enables them to collect supplies or travel to safer areas if necessary. This year the flooding has affected many families for whom this type of experience is new – they don’t have a boat and so are stranded, and many cannot swim which is particularly true of the women I spoke to recently.

The Cambodian Government and members of the Red Cross have managed to deliver supplies to some communities, but not all. The national papers are full of quotes from people who have not received any supplies, or from members of a community that has been given rations but from which they were excluded. Ponna Em, QSA’s project manager in Pursat Province is also a member of the General Assembly and has been busy distributing these supplies but as she pointed out to me, it is very difficult if you don’t live in a community to know all of the details of the people, to know where the more marginalised members live or are currently sheltering. When people arrive to deliver food there is quite a throng of people who gather to receive the supplies, though it is difficult to know who is related to whom to know if every family is receiving something, or other families are getting too much. A system of vouchers has now been introduced to address this situation, which is making things a little easier.

And what of the impact of the flooding on QSA’s projects? Well sadly all of the wonderful permaculture gardens which Friends on the Study Tour saw and admired have been submerged, causing the roots of many plants and trees to rot and so will need to be replaced. Supplies of seeds waiting to be planted have become waterlogged and useless, and replacement seeds and seedlings especially of rice, the staple food, have become scarce and more expensive.

QSA has been asked to provide the several hundred trainees with replacement seeds and seedlings, which will cost about $20,000. Can you help us to do this? Any amount of tax-deductible donations towards this extraordinary situation would be most gratefully received.

The QSA office address is 119 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. Please indicate that the donation is for the seeds and seedling replacements in Cambodia. Thank you Friends.

Uganda

1106 June 2011 No Responses »

Jul 072011

QSA Notes: people, places & projects

Under the watchful eye of Josephine Kizza, the trainers at St Jude Organic Farming Centre in Uganda continue to help rural communities to achieve greater food and water security.

For Monica Ssenkindu, a 42-year-old widow with a large family of nine to support, this training has made a huge difference to her situation. In just two seasons Monica has been able to raise enough money to move out of a grass thatched, mud and wattle house to a simple but permanent house. She has started a poultry farm and now has over 500 laying birds, and from a half-acre plot of land, she raised nearly $450 in January and February from excess passion fruit. Before accessing this support, she grew traditional crops of bananas, cassava and sweet potatoes yet despite all her efforts, the yields were not even enough to provide two meals per day for her family or earn enough for the basics such as paraffin and salt.

Would you like to meet some of the amazing people in Uganda such as Josephine and Monica? Then think about joining QSA’s next study tour to Uganda, leaving in late April 2012 (just a few days after the FWCC World Conference in nearby Kenya).

If you would like to be kept informed of the plans for the study tour as they unfold, please let Jackie Perkins know (administration@qsa.org.au or 119 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010).

QSA projects and climate change

1106 June 2011 No Responses »

Jul 062011

With so much in the news about climate change, it is interesting to know how it is affecting the work of QSA and its project partners. A series of discussions and surveys among project participants in Cambodia, India and Uganda has revealed comments such as needing to dig deeper wells to reach good water supplies, changes to when the rains come, some seeds don’t germinate as well or crops are not as plentiful, new areas are suffering from malaria.

Our partners in Tamil Nadu, South India have been discussing climate change issues with school children as part of a ‘Young Scientist’ program.

These students from Kottikuppam Primary School in Tamil Nadu gave a presentation to younger school students and some adult guests on chemical elements and the periodic table, vitamins and mineral content of everyday food, herbal plants, solar technology, and significant scientists and their inventions. All of this was done via small plays, puppetry, verbal presentations and song, with some scientific experiments to demonstrate various points.

A drawing competition was held after a series of lessons about solar energy, asking the students to draw their ideas of how it could best be used. (See drawings above.)

A year-long program funded by the Australian Government’s Agency for International Development (AusAID) in Tamil Nadu with support from QSA has been looking into alternative power and water sources in a rural community. The program, located in Devikulam Village, close to Nadukuppam, included the development of a rural design centre, with demonstrated environmentally sustainable methods of addressing water and power supply, and new building designs and materials, all suited to a village setting.

A range of educational meetings and workshops have been held for widespread dissemination of these ideas. Also provided for the community have been a range of solar panels, torches and street lights; repair to the whole water system with every tap and pipe tested and repaired when necessary; and provision of a number of toilets and bathrooms to improve sanitation and hygiene standards.

For some families this has meant they have water coming out of a tap close to their home for the first time in six years, even though the plumbing had been there all of the time, but water leaks and blockages to some pipes meant that the water never reached their home — something we take for granted here.

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Illustrations: Use of solar power to operate pump for irrigation of rice, by K. Divya, 13 years (above left); Solar power hooked to a bullock cart so that people can see at night, by G. Kamesh, 10 years (above right).