THE valuable work in Africa which the generosity of people in Okehampton has helped support was outlined to members of the Okehampton Rotary Club recently. Members heard at their meeting last week how the money they had raised was helping improve lives in Uganda and Malawi. Gordon Marvin, brother of Rotarian John Marvin, who has worked on humanitarian projects in many different parts of the world, including Russia, Iraq and Uganda, talked about a recent project in the latter country. Mr Marvin carried out the work under the auspices of the Salvation Army. He travelled to a town called Lira in Northern Uganda to try to improve education for internally displaced people living in camps. Mr Marvin explained the scale of the problem: ?The 19-year rebellion being waged by the Lords Resistance Army has resulted in something like 1.6-million having to flee their homes in Northern Uganda alone, there are more internally displaced people in Northern Uganda than in the Darfur camp in Sudan,? he said. During his three months in Uganda, Mr Marvin had been working to try and provide more vocational training for young people in the camps. The young people were dependent on learning basic skills to enable them to earn a living. He described his first experience of visiting an existing vocational training base in Uganda. ?As we drove into the institution we were faced with a mango tree with 20 young men sitting under it around a bench, and that was the carpentry and joinery class, they had one plane and two saws and they had to take it in turns to use them. Later we saw a sewing class with just three sewing machines between them.? Mr Marvin thanked the members of Rotary for the money they had made available to support the project to provide more teaching materials and new training opportunities. ?When I see projects where people are determined to help themselves that impresses me,? he said. ?What I saw in some of those camps I went into will stick with me until the end of my days. Bearing in mind they weren?t emergency camps, they were long-term camps, some of the conditions were horrendous and disease was rife.? The club?s next guest was a long-standing friend of Rotarian Mike Macklin who introduced Stephen Carr who lives in rural Malawi. Mr Carr has worked in Africa for 50 years where he has focused on trying to help smallholding farmers in the region to be more productive. He said he had recently welcomed two 18-year-old relatives from Britain who had spent time helping out at the local school. And he said they too had been struck by the fact the children without shoes and with second hand clothes were actually a lot happier than youngsters of the same age in Britain. He said: ?The hallmark of rural Africa is laughter. In my 53 years of being there, I would say poverty doesn?t equate with misery. I don?t romanticise poverty but I would like to highlight the resilience, courage and cheerfulness which Africans use to deal with the kind of life they have to live.? Mr Carr said education was crucially important but schools were very overcrowded with classes with as many as 120 children to one teacher. That was why he said he was channeling Rotary charitable funds to help give children ?a better start in life?. He said: ?We are trying to get small kindergartens going, to get children a bit further ahead before they get plunged into massive classes at school.? Mr Carr said thanks to Okehampton Rotary Club?s financial support, six kindergartens had been built and were up and running. He said the other big problem facing Africa was HIV/Aids. Hundreds of thousands of orphans had lost their parents to the virus and funds were now being earmarked to provide bursaries to allow orphaned children to continue to go to school. In Uganda Mr Carr said primary school education was free, but there were fees to attend secondary school. He said money from Rotary funds had allowed 21 boys and girls to go to secondary school where otherwise they would have to drop out. There was still some money left over to be able to help the same number again next year. Mr Carr said he had recently finished writing a book entitled ?Good News About Africa? which set out to highlight the zest for life and laughter of the people in rural Africa which he felt those in the West rarely got to hear about. Ian Bailey, president of the Rotary Club, said: ?I am very proud of the fact all the money we raise is spent directly on the projects we support. The money goes 100 per cent to the intended cause.? Mr Bailey thanked the two speakers for coming to address the meeting and share with members details of which projects they had helped to support.
