Wednesday 26 July 2017

Reflecting on 2 Great Years in Zambia

As we come to the end of our two years in Zambia, we find ourselves reflecting on our time here. Overall, it’s been an amazing experience and we are both in no doubt that we made a good decision to come here and to work with Beyond Ourselves. There have been challenges of course, but more of those later. Let’s start with all the great experiences that we have had.

Living in a different country has been invigorating. Waking up every morning to beautiful blue skies and knowing that the sun will shine is amazing to those of us from the UK. We’ve loved being so close to nature, being able to live outside more often and learning about the wildlife. A highlight for us has to be having so many different birds, including eagles and owls in our garden at Cherry Farm, where we lived for most of the time, being able to watch them every day. Mike has taken so many pictures it will take another lifetime just to sort them out. Our plan is to make a photo book of best animal pictures that we have.

Some photos from our “home” at Cherry Farm

Woodland Kingfisher
                         
Schallow's Turaco

Food on plate so 3 dogs appear

Spotted Eagle Owl
Jan walking the dogs on the farm

Best dog spot when braal is on
Roasting marshmallows
We loved having friends round
We’ve also taken every opportunity to travel whenever we have had a holiday. Since we’ve been here we have been to Malawi, Botswana and Namibia as well as South Africa. The travel has been great, but initially taking our car across borders with the typical African bureaucracy was a challenge. However, although it is still never easy, we now feel so much more able to deal with these situations. Just having the opportunity to learn these new skills has kept our minds active.

We’ve spent a lot of time in Game parks, including our favourite Zambian ones of South Luangwa and Kafue. It’s always amazing seeing predators in the wild, but getting to know individual animals over time, going back and see the young ones growing up, has been better than we could ever have imagined. We’ve loved seeing the bush change from the lush, dense green in the wet season, to the dusty parched brown of the dry season. We’ve learned to identify so many of the birds, reptiles and animals, even the different antelope, which initially all looked fairly similar. These are memories which will never leave us.

                                         

Mike is often found on the ground taking photos

Mikes photo of the wild dog from the ground

Jan helps Mike by holding the tail end
To get this shot of the snake
Jan with a Chameleon
Through Dan, Melissa, Emily and Malcolm, we quickly felt at home in Zambia. As we started to meet more and more people we really felt part of this great community. There are different groups here and we feel lucky enough to have know people who, although originally from Europe, call themselves Zambian, local Zambian people who have never travelled outside of their country and other ‘expats’ from all around the world who are here on a temporary basis. Each group has taught us something different about living in such a great county.
With Mary at Kawama School
Our friends at Kawama
We both feel that we have a much better understanding now of what it’s like to live in Zambia, particularly for those in difficult situations. We have also gained a greater understanding of how charity workers from overseas can both help and hurt the communities here. Before coming to Zambia, we had travelled in Africa and understood the dangers that people can do by indiscriminately giving out money or sweets to children or adults that they meet. We have now seen that where people work in partnership with local communities, keeping an open mind to the impact that they are having, much good can be done. We know that none of our schools would be providing such a good education without the support of BOZ. However, we have also seen the dangers of being too quick to try and solve other people’s problems for them. I’m sure as children, we were all told countless times that it’s OK to make mistakes, as that is how we learn. As parents we all had to learn to resist doing everything for our children to help them become independent adults. It can be hard to be in a position here where we could so easily give money or our time to help people, but have to think constantly about the bigger picture. People are so grateful when they are helped or given things that it can be hard to take a step back and think of the bigger picture. Although we want to help, we don’t want people to become dependent on us. This has been one of the harder lessons for us to learn.

Much as we have loved living here, some of the differences have tested our patience to its limits. Trying and eventually succeeding in importing our car is a story in itself, and one we have told many times. To us in the UK it seems obvious that when you are “fined” 5% of the import duty to be paid due to some customs official filling in the incorrect form, the “fine” is ridiculous. When you try to pay the duty and they will not tell you what it is because you have not paid the fine makes you wonder how anyone can succeed here. However, through the experience we gained a better understanding of the differences in our cultures and how people work in such different ways. We often comment that although English is the official language, it doesn’t always make it easy to communicate. We’ve learned how important it is to ask the right questions, otherwise you may never find the right answer. A friend recently recounted a story, which resounded with us. She had been to immigration to ask how much in advance of her work permit running out could she apply for a new one. The answer was simple; one month. However, it took some time and lots of patience before she found out that actually you can apply three months before it runs out. We’ve learned to keep asking questions rather than making assumptions. This is frustrating at times, but I love the fact that we are constantly having to learn and adapt to this different culture. Hopefully these experiences have helped us to grow as people and become more tolerant in our lives.

Many people have asked what will we miss about being here and to us that is a really easy question to answer…….

It is without a doubt the people….. The friends at Beyond Ourselves…. The friends we work with in the schools…. The friends we socialise with…. The friends we just meet. Yes it is The Friends as everyone has come to be.

Now a slightly harder question with more answers in what won’t we miss.

Well number one has to be the roads and the driving as they are both atrocious and after that it is probably dealing with the bureaucracy. It will be nice to go back and find a good restaurant with a good choice of dishes and perhaps a selection of wines and not to look out and see a grand view of…… The car park.

Before get back home to The UK we start a 4 month road trip covering much of East and Southern Africa that finishes early December and then we will leave to have Christmas in the UK with our family.

If you would like to follow our travels please take a look at http://mikejangreatescape.blogspot.co.uk We hope to update as often as we can.

Just a few of our friends here
It is difficult to say thank you without naming any names but it is a huge thanks from both of us to the Beyond Ourselves Family, Mechanics For Africa Family, Greater Joy, Janna and Kawama Communities for helping us when we knew very little about Zambian ways and most of all for being our fantastic friends.

Jan and Mike

Thursday 20 July 2017

Beyond ‘Beyond Ourselves’!

Most people know Beyond Ourselves for the way we partner with community schools in Zambia, working alongside the local teachers and leaders to offer education to children who might not otherwise be in school; for how we support and develop the schools to a point when we will no longer be needed; or for the heart we have to see the communities and people we work with in Zambia flourishing.

But another large part of Beyond Ourselves’ work is here in the UK, where we also partner with schools. It might look very different, but the heart is the same - to see the students flourish.

The majority of primary and secondary schools across the UK raise money for at least one charity, more than likely they fundraise for several different charities at various points in the year. As a charitable organisation, we didn’t want to be just another charity that the students raise money for on the odd day in the year. We wanted there to be a meaningful engagement, an opportunity for the students to learn, to be inspired, to be challenged, to make a difference, now and in their years to come…

Because of that, we made the decision early on that we when we partnered with schools in the UK, it wouldn’t be about us, our name or the promotion of our charity. Yes, we need people to raise funds for us, but that wouldn’t be the focus of our school partnerships, it would be a by-product, an overflow out of a committed heart and culture of them going beyond themselves.

Rather than raising money for ‘Beyond Ourselves’, the schools develop an ethos of going ‘Beyond their School’, beyond their classrooms, in to their communities and far wider (including Zambia).

Many of you will be aware of the significant partnership we have with Cranleigh School, where since 2011 ‘Beyond Cranleigh’ has become embedded in the school family and culture. But they are not the only school who are going beyond themselves...



A few weeks ago we launched ‘Beyond Davenant’ at Davenant Foundation School. And just last week Roding Valley High School visited Zambia with a small team of students (You can read their blog here – well worth a read!).

From this coming September, we will also be embarking on a new partnership with St Paul’s School.

Like on the recent Roding Valley High School trip, some of the students at our UK partner schools are selected to go on a trip to Zambia. This isn’t like any other school trip. (We’re not a tour operator - if people want to visit a developing nation and volunteer to ‘do good’ there are options for that – we’re not it!)


 Trip after trip we see students challenged and changed by their visit. We continue to see how their experiences go on to impact decisions they make on their return to the UK and how they choose to go on living their lives. No longer purely centred on themselves but on living a life that goes beyond them.


 
That’s why we partner with UK schools. That’s why we do the trips. That’s the hope every time we welcome a team of students. The dream. The legacy. That we might influence beyond ‘Beyond Ourselves’.

Wednesday 5 July 2017

FUNdraising!

June was the month of two UK fundraisers:

On 16th June we held our annual Golf Day at Bush Hill Park Golf Club.

It was our biggest golf day yet with 27 teams – 108 golfers! And the sun shone J We were a bit concerned that it would make for a very slow game with so many players, but Lee Fickling, our friend and wonderful golf pro, positioned the teams perfectly so that all went very smoothly.

Jodie and I placed ourselves in the Pimms marquee, by the 13th tee, ready to welcome the golfers with much needed refreshments. We had a great time! This is always a nice opportunity to have a chat and catch up with our supporters face to face which we love to do. The 13th is also precariously near the lake, and if we were smart and ‘fined’ people for hitting balls into the lake, BO would be very rich indeed!!



In the evening, we welcomed extra guests to the BBQ/Party. As it was a nice evening the band, Milo Max, were able to play outside on the terrace which was so nice, and they were SO good. This year’s cocktail was the Mojito which seemed to go down very well indeed!


We had our raffle, and Ben ran our auction, which he does with great expertise. Overall, the day raised just over £13,000 which is fantastic, and we thank everyone so much for coming and supporting us so well. We have such faithful friends and we are so grateful to all of them for their generosity and making this such a great day.

Next year’s golf day will be on Friday 15th June – so if you’d like to play, put the date in your phone now!

Two weeks later we had two teams of 10, mainly staff from Stephen James BMW/MINI, taking part in the Gauntlet Games in Trent Park – a 10K run with many obstacles along the way – monkey bars, inflatable obstacles with gladiator like giants seemingly beating them. Again the sun shone. I was very impressed at how quickly they did this. Over £600 was raised for Beyond Ourselves by the participants. There was a great atmosphere in the park and it is an event we shall definitely do next year. Our thanks to Stephen James for sponsoring this event.



Apart from the child sponsorship funding which goes direct to Zambia, our fundraising is key to keeping Beyond Ourselves operational from the UK. If you would like to put on an event, however large or small, it would be much appreciated – from a coffee morning, to a sponsored event. If we can help in any way, just give me a call on 020 8344 0984 or email Karen@beyondourselves.co.uk

Apart from raising money, fundraising is fun! We love meeting up with people who support and partner with us in the work of Beyond Ourselves. Thank you!

Written by Karen of Beyond Ourselves