Living Simply, West Papua & ZIS

In recent times I have been reflecting a great deal on the themes of living simply and of sustainable development. Yesterday at the J & P day Serile from West Papua gave an amazing account of fishing in his country. He told us that in West Papua there is a consensus among the people that when one goes fishing one only uses a simple fishing line. He said that fishing nets were available in West Papua but in order to ensure that people only fished to an extent whereby they could feed their own family all agreed to only fish in order to feed themselves and their families. If only this philosophy could be adopted across the world. Imagine a world where people only sort enough?!? There is so much that the world can learn from its poorest and most marginalised people. And yet it's the 'Western' countries that are called 'developed!'

This is this sort of community that we seek to create at the Zambezi International School. We envisage a school where all live in solidarity, with one another and the wider community. We envisage a school which is self sufficient and at one with its environment. We envisage a school which sustainable in its mission to empower its students and the people of its wider community through a range of outreach projects.

Outreach at ZIS

ZIS will not be cocooned from the wider community. ZICS will be a focal point for the empowerment of local people.
ZIS will provide considerable employment opportunities for local people and as the school develops will serve as a focal point for lifelong learning within it’s vicinity through outreach programmes and an extended school facility.
ZIS will work within the community to develop:
agricultural projects working alongside local farmers,
improve literacy and numeracy levels of the adult population,
develop an awareness of environmental and conservation issues,
promote the Arts and Culture,
develop an academy of sporting excellence.
ZIS ultimately will become a beacon school that will reach out beyond it’s perimeters to promote solidarity and sustainable development within the wider community.

Water pouring from their TV screens!

General Pervez Musharraf the President of Pakistan commented recently that the people of the developed world were touched by the Asian Tsunami of 2004 because they could see the water pouring out of their TV screens. I think that the President had a point.

The British media, and I suspect the media in many other so called 'develped countries', has not stopped reporting Tsunami related stories over the past week or so and no doubt they will continue to do so well into the NewYear.

Meanwhile...

40 000 people die daily because of poverty - most of these being children;
malaria claims hundreds of lives of a daily basis;
millions are affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic;
earthquake victims in the Kashmir are freezing to death;
the genocide continues in Daffur
the Common Agrcultural Policy and other farm sudsidies prevent the world's poorest farmers from competing with their richer neighbours

One or two newspapers in the UK do keep some of these issues in focus but on the whole they are not 'news-worthy'.

I pray for a new world order based upon justice, peace, solidarity and love.