Global Citizenship Day - 12/11/11

As part of the programme every Wednesday a counterpart pair must hold a 'Global Citizenship Day' (GCD) with the aim to educate the team and maybe others about big global issues. Without conferring with me, AM nominated us to take the first one giving us just a week to prepare. Not having much time to research any areas we spoke to our host family to see what issue was a problem in Rundu – poverty was chosen with the theme "Collective action to combat poverty in our surroundings".

Accommodating for 400 students and a part of the only university in Namibia, Rundu campus was the host to our 'Global Citizenship Day' (GCD). I took the morning session with the GX team defining poverty and discussing causes of it. A lot of in depth discussions took place which made my job easier as all I had to do was listen. As a final activity I got the team to choose specific parts of the morning's session that we'd want to bring up on the evening panel we had organised.

Gareth and AM represented us on the panel along with several chairpersons from societies from the university. A concept paper on the topic and theme was given to each panellist who researched the topic. The panel discussion took place in the evening and members of the university as well as the GX team were in the audience. Starting late (in Namibia it is fashionable to turn up to events, no matter how formal, around an hour late) and with the first rain and thunder/lightning of the rainy season smashing on the roof the discussion began. A lot was drowned out by rain but the majority was ok. One topic that kept arising for some strange reason was whether China was impoverished or not despite being over populated. The assumption by most panellists, who knew nothing of China, was there is no poverty in China, much to the annoyance to a particular UK volunteer with Asian roots.

Finally a social worker who we managed to talk into coming the day before gave a speech on the topic. My favourite cause of poverty she gave was along the lines of Namibian men having five girlfriends then getting them all pregnant and being unable to provide for them.
This post is just to inform you of some of the work we are doing outside of the Mehozetu Project. Since we have had a GCD on alcohol and drug abuse and we have health, crime, unemployment and several other topics to be covered.