MaggieHayes

So the week has gone- ever so quickly may I add. I am going to walk 4 miles tomorrow as well since I missed doing it on Tuesday and feel guilty so would like to do the same as everyone else and do the 7 days.

The week has certainly provided the time (walking 4 miles can get pretty boring otherwise) and space for me to be able to ponder what poverty means and the efect it has and who/what groups of people are affected here in the UK as well as internationally. It made me consider how it is so easy to take things for granted when you have them so easily accessible and that such easiness should be respected and not taken advantage of...

Have I made a difference? People kept asking me why I was doing this. I felt it was so much more about the awareness than a tangible result- this, for me, is what development is and how change will come about. Motivating individuals to challenge their beliefs and then their behaviour will, in turn, create change. I have spread the word to people and opened a dialougue with others about poverty and subjects alike. Attitudes and values are vitally important in ending poverty..

I certainly end this more motivated and excited for change and what I can do. Thank you to the community of us that have taken on the challenges and helped each other out. Also, thanks to all my friends for your support, especially when I was ill on Monday!

Anyway, away from the Oscar like speech... This week campaign may be nearing to a close but its meaning is not and that will continue through us all. 

The next starts Wednesday with the DEMO on London about the cuts to higher education and rise in tuition fees. This week has reinforced how lucky we are in this country in how accessible most things are... But, what I have developed a greater passion for is in lobbying for change. Sitting around, moaning, will not improve or change anything.  Worldwide, education, for me, is a right not a privelege and it must remain this way here in the UK. We are lucky to have free education and great facilities and this should not be taken away from us because people fought for us to have is so now it is our turn. Especially, when it is in our hands to demand for protection and change.

On this note of enthusiasm and motivation, I will say goodnight!

xx :~)

Watching all the fireworks on Friday night made me think. There we were watching all the bright colours in the sky, laughing and giggling along to the loud loud music that was being blasted over the fireworks (hence the use of two louds) and yet did any of us think about what any of it actually meant. We were standing in a park watching money being blown apart. Being blown apart for 20 minutes. That is a fairly long time when all you are doing is watching sparks and hearing loud bangs. It made me think again about the complexity of poverty: the different aspects of absolute and reltaive poverty. I felt awkward because I didn't want to complain about the fireworks because everyone was having such an amazing time, including me!  But, there at the back of my head I began questioning the value of all this, what it meant? I thought it presented me with a good example of the two terms...

All these people were having fun watching money being blown apart. Fireworks are so expensive and this display was funded by the local council. Could this not be more wisely used? Loads of things here in this community need funding, substantial investment in order to improve or in some cases last in such an economic climate as now. How is it justified? Such questions and doubts created a rather demorialising feeling to be honest and I seeked to consider its value more carefully. I thought about how much fun it was how I was standing there with all my housemates and in other areas of the field, other friends were scattered, to be meeting mwith me later on in the evening. All day people had been talking about 'Fireworks in Sefton'. Yeah! Everyone was going. The community spirit was there, everyone was in this together. It then hit me how sad it is for those that can't get out on nights like these for so many different reasons. Be it they are ill, be it they cannot travel to such parks or be it they are scared of social interaction and are, instead, left alone... I would of hated to have been stuck in without the choice of whether I wnated to go or not. This social exclusion is the core of relative poverty and something youth and community groups try and tackle by helping people feel comfortbale and providing support, something no matter who you are, where you are from, need. So, I thought more positively about how lucky I was to be able to come to such events and to be able to enjoy life most of the time! The council create and support such events because communtiy spirit and togetherness is so important and crucial to a healthy society. So, even though reinforcing the ideas of relative poverty here in Liverpool, I recognised the positive and important reasons for such events and continued smiling and enjoying all the wonderful colours in the sky that come but once a year with thousands together watching!

 The colours brighting up the sky!

 walking for water, to survive.. I have today and tomorrow left- I am doing an extra day because I missed Tuesday because I was poorly but want to do what everyoen else has done and do the full 7 days..

Yesterday, I certainly walked my emails!  I walked about 5 in 2 hours and my body is slightly feeling it today..

When walking around looking for the location of university forum, it hit me that I am still able to choose when I walk these four miles. I am not able to do all of my miles before a set time because I have other commintments but these are things that I choose to take part in and enjoy doing. The various meetings I attend daily for societies at uni are not chores that I have to do to maintain a certain level of survival but things I do because I love and, there is that word again, I have the CHOICE. This challenge has made me realise how lucky I am to have such opportunities and facilities open to me and that I have every right to want to be involved. Then on top of all these things, I can come home and turn the tap on drink as much water as I want, go upstairs and enjoy as much hot water as I want in the shower. These are things I do not have to do anything for, they are there, on tap.

 So, my four miles walking is for me, my consumption and I can fit this in around my day because I am able to save water from previous days to last the day until I can refill. But, others around the world have to walk this distance and get water for entire families and then carry it back with them.

Walking for water this week has really made me consider how everything we have is so easily obtained, so easily used and then so easily refilled.

It has been hard walking for the distance at times, especially in the continuos lovely Liverpool rain...

The challenge has reinforced my ideas about the complexity of poverty and the strands of both relative and absolute poverty... Walking for water is a world away from the social exclusion and the deprivation here in the UK and it is something you actually need to surive.. Without water you become ill (something I experienced Monday) and people have to walk long distances for one of the most abused yet basic amenity consumed worldwide?

This is one side of poverty that must not be dismissed and this challenge has really brought it home how awful it is some people in the world can't access water yet people here leave taps on and on and on but, relative poverty cannot be ignored either because I feel we all deserve the best possible, fairest chances, something that is not measured by income, class or gender etc. These things relate to the whole world and hence, I conclude, poverty cannot be explained in a few sentences yet explored, discussed and debated like in such challenges as this week.

 until later.. Mags.. xx

Back on track- 4 miles = 4 litres of water.. Check!!

Saving the water I had left over to fill up by bottles!!

The debate also went really well..

The motion was This House Believes That Poverty is not All About Money, but Solving it Is.

The debate involved the arguments of aid and how dependency on aid is not the way forward but money is needed to fund those projects which are sustainable and having a great impact in the process of eradicating poverty. Loans which are given to women to set up their own self-controlled businesses is not an indication that money is going to solve their problems but that money is invested in helping them by empowering. Empowering them to make their own choices and so on.

The anecdote: 'Don't give a man a fish, teach him how to fish'. I don't believe in the West going over and dictating how to do things and teaching people the wrongs and rights because those value judgements are one thing here and different in different parts of this county and then the rest of the world more so. Others have a lot to teach is also. However, this phrase shows that it is about sharing different ideas, opening them to different views and prespectives and being an example that there are different ways of doing things that can help offer solutions to poverty. 

It was a very interesting debate and a good space for us to be able to share with people what challenges we are doing this week and we were also able to raise some cash for Oxfam which was a double bonus.

People were really interested and it made the challenges that more rewarding.

CARE-CHALLENGE-CHANGE