An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure…
Many years of discovering, exporting and promoting the arts and crafts from some of the apparently poorest villages on the planet persuaded me these wonderful people, so used to living on the edge, had the potential for their own development lying all around them.
"Starving in the midst of plenty" David Bellamy called it during one of the trips he made with me to remote West Africa. This was certainly my view and David was able to confirm it and film the evidence with us.
The following notes and above films try to illustrate this "prevention" method we want to promote. This would empower whole villages and tribes to help themselves live sustainably, develop at their own pace, and particularly make their children proud and motivated to stay with the rich resources in their own communities.
The apparent wealth of the West and the lure of getting there, no matter what the cost in money and danger and even death, could be so easily obviated by wealth creation at home. It’s a scandal there is so much exploitation of the poor throughout the world when we have information and technical means to eradicate its effects.
In days when even the charities are often in competition for finance the following Project which is dependent on a free alliance between the work of three of them deserves merit and allow more partnerships to develop in the eradication of the injustice of needless poverty.
If this whole concept gains your understanding and approval please donate, sponsor, or give us written endorsements right now! More written and illustrated descriptions and history follow the films. See what a journey we have made!
Please help us by Donating a one off payment, Donating a regular monthly amount, Becoming an Ethical Business or Educational Establishment Sponsor
Simply endorse the concept, spread the word and send a link to your family, friends Church or Mosque or Work-Place so this important network builds and grows. Every penny will be used to grow this concept with the barest minimum administration expense. No-one is salaried!
Thank you. David A. Murden, Founder and Director.
A Gateway to Freedom and Justice
Words don't mean a lot unless they become real in practice. With the full cooperation of the people, we have "experimented" with what makes a difference for the better through projects which affect whole families and villages. We have learned together through success and mistakes what seems to be the way ahead to make sense of their world and environment. It means leaving behind a lot of our Western ideas of "charity".
It means bowing to their own ideas of both using and preserving their environments.
It means investing in a long term view of things not the instantaneous gratification of quick profits.
After over 20 years of involving ourselves in their lives, and promoting many thousands of their wonderful arts and crafts and creativity, we are ready to spell out a new programme. This is a way ahead to demonstrate new ideas and skills which preserve their African heritage.
Rocky Dawuni, the Ghanaian Ambassador of music and freedom, sings of a new day coming when old ways are gone, when the walls of indifference and injustice are torn down, when the walls between rich and poor come "tumblin down". The walls of a new Babylon we've created by our worship of money and power should not be imposed on Africa as though that is what is needed to bring peace, freedom and release from poverty. So, what will it require to accomplish this? Certainly a new attitude in the place of arrogance and greed.
When the power of love takes the place of the love of power we may get a taste of the peace we all crave - Jimi Hendrix
The footprints of humanity "walked" out of Africa. Now we must walk back but without the pride and superiority which gave both West and East the right to dominate and plunder and still even today consider her weak and poor and needy.
Here’s how we want to begin…
Has this little sad child a future made better by wisdom and work? If so it is not by knowledge and technology alone which still makes people poor at the expense of another. It could be by ethical partnerships where people matter more than things and profit does not dominate the agenda. Strong hands grasp and share each other's weaknesses and strengths and so the race is not to the swift but to the wise.
Help us promote conservation and community in all the world's villages beginning with those along a main slave route to demonstrate that cooperating with nature is wisdom's way to forge a new "chain" of freedom.
If you have wealth to invest, wisdom to solve the practical problems of people still living on the edge, or even work to give into a hard but rewarding place, then please get in touch.
The little girl looks to her future in Africa. Her place in the sun will be so much better by an education which strengthens her resolve and promotes the motivation to create a better world for her children to grow strong in.
The waves of Africa's freedom roll in, washing clean the past and redeeming the present.
Here's our projects we're asking help with to show how this could become a reality along just one main route the slaves took and lost their freedom in. The evidence of their faith, shown in music and song, gave birth to a new hope and a new vision which is still helping to redeem their peoples today. We can't hope to make adequate reparation but we can become allies and partners in making Africa strong and united.
Attempting to turn initially just one main slave route from tropical coast to the Sahara Desert into an ethical trade route. This time doing it with the resources which make Africa strong, skilled and worth investing in, for a fairer future for all of us! Please help to create the sustainable communities which are the life blood of any nation.
This Project is part of a programme David has been working on since beginning trading in West Africa for his "Fair Trade" shops in 1992, which began in Beverley, East Yorkshire, UK in 1987. The Project is comprehensive, threefold, and has been derived from many visits and interactions with the tribes, their elders and Chiefs and his own leaders’ analyses of their people’s needs…
First, where possible, to open up the "slave route" as a "trading route" between tribes and villages, mostly along river routes are roads are so sparse. This requires the need for trading boats adequate to cope with both passengers and goods between the villages. In the case of Ghana to link the main White Volta River with the Volta Lake traffic would ensure a mostly rural people can get the best consistent return on their horticultural and agricultural development which would almost certainly ensue from education and increased motivation. Right now, these type of purpose built, state of the art boats, are being madein kingston upon Hull with a Company already linked to AAF and about to provide superb new ferries for the Volta Lake. This of itself would save thousands of lives from drowning caused by dangerous crossings.
Second, to represent over ten million people being taken from their homeland and exported to Europe and the Americas, And Albert Foundation (AAF) and partners will undertake to plant 10 million indigenous fruit trees in 60 villages along this route, as well as in other areas, to give back economic and "health wealth" to the whole tribe. The planting has already begun in some poorer Northern villages.
Third, provide a method to ensure the children and adults in each village have a chance to learn as much as possible for their empowerment. Thus, in order to supply to supply the education and alternative technology to increase the care and developmen tof their environment, AAF proposes to put each main village a computer learning lab powered by Solar Voltaic. This Server fed system is the equivalent learning capacity of a huge "bookless" 600GB library answering most future information needs for both adults and children. Prototypes are already working successfully.
All this vision is partly the culmination of the inspiration derived from the March 25th, 2007 "Wilberforce" Freedom Festival the And Albert Foundation organised with many of the slave master tribes in Fort William in Anomabu, Ghana. This was the main British Fort our Queen dedicated to Africa’s Youth on her father’s death. It is still awaiting fulfilment! One of the main "computer labs" is proposed to be built here creating a huge paperless library thus being the first to be inaugerated along the "Freedom route". Seth Owosu, EVCO Africa.org and WorldPossible.org and Rocky Dawuni have filmed and endorsed this RACHEL Project in this Fort, Remote Areas Community Hotspots for Education and Learning.
This Project will take five years to complete and affect many tens of thousands of people for the better ensuring their sustainable development.
I’ve travelled around the world for many years, studied the effects of man on the planet, and the most extreme wildlife and plants that you can think of, and Africa remains the most awe inspiring destination bar none. It has touched my heart deeply.
I have been involved with And Albert Foundation since 1996. Having suffered so many set-backs over the many years of attempting to put this ethical model into practice AAF is now poised to put out their message to a wider audience. This should ensure their dream of proving the viability of village communities in the developing world is given a greater publicity and the necessary support and funding to carry out its plan. Will you help them please!
- Professor David Bellamy, Patron of And Albert Foundation
