end of challenge for Positive Women

On Saturday I finished the Live Below the Line challenge, and so far managed to raise £100! The donation page is still up, and any help would be appreciated: http://my.livebelowtheline.co.uk/martalucysummer

It was pretty tough to stick to mostly rice and porridge + a carrot & apple a day, especially that lots of people offered me free stuff (I was not supposed to accept anything for free, and offer to accept a donation instead - that was the spirit of the challenge). I went to a departmental end-of-year party at university (with a huge load of free drinks and food), a gig, a friend's birthday, another friend's end-of-exams drinks, two BBQs, and even to a restaurant with a couple of friends (where I was just drinking tap water). That was probably the hardest: not being able to participate in something people around me were freely doing, but I imagine the experience of poverty must be that x1000, constantly being reminded of all kinds of stuff you'd be able to buy/consume if only you had money. Another hard thing was that I needed to carry food and water around with me all the time, and also that it was getting very boring to eat the same thing every day. So rather than being hungry, I was a bit bored and frustrated. I'm so glad I've done it though, and I'd definitely recommend the experience! I was very proud of myself for sticking to it, and also now am appreciating being able to eat various things a lot more, plus my awareness of how much money I spend on just about everything is heightened, knowing that one fiver (which wouldn't be enough for two pints of beer in a pub) lasted me for almost a whole week. It's not too late to give it a go; the full list of organizations you can raise money for is here.

I chose to do it for Positive Women, an organization running programmes in Africa that support women and children to access education, legal support and funds and training on how to generate resources for themselves and their families. They actually also work with communities in the UK, in particular Wales, to use their skills and knowledge in a productive way. All this is meant to create lasting changes throughout the communities, and ultimately give some of the most vulnerable and disempowered the confidence and skills to make educated and productive changes to their lives, the lives of their communities and eventually to their countries. So the organization's work is not so much donating goods or money, but creating sustainable solutions: supporting communities to help them change their own lives and circumstances, to alleviate poverty and make significant social progress. To achieve this, they must have their basic needs met, choices in their lives and an understanding of their rights.

Positive Women's main focus is Swaziland, the last absolute monarchy in Africa, where the king lives like a king, and the rest of the country (over a million people) is in poverty. It is also critically affected by HIV/AIDS. As reported in the 2009 CIA World Factbook, Swaziland has the highest HIV infection rate in the world (26% of all adults; more in other reports) and also the lowest life expectancy at 32 years, which is 6 years lower than the next lowest average of Angola. From another perspective, the last available World Health Organization data in 2002 shows that 61% of all deaths in the country were caused by HIV/AIDS. With a record crude death rate of 30 per 1000, this means that about 2% of the Swazi population dies from HIV every year.

Positive Women was founded by Siphiwe Hlophe and Kathryn Llewellyn, and it was a project thought out to reach all of the eight Millennium Development Goals. In 1999, as a married 40-year-old looking to continue her education in agricultural economics, Siphiwe Hlophe discovered she was HIV positive. As a result, her husband left her and she lost an academic scholarship, but she reacted by co-founding an organization in 2001 called Swazis for Positive Living (Swapol), which aims to fight gender discrimination related to HIV/Aids and help other HIV/Aids victims.  In 2007 Siphiwe was nominated for and won the Index on Censorship award by RT Hon David Blunkett. Kathryn Llewellyn has been involved in campaigning and development management for nine years, including being the CEO of Pump Aid, a water and sanitation NGO working in Zimbabwe, Liberia and Malawi, running the Live Below the Line campaign for the Global Poverty Project, leading campaigning NGO Action for southern Africa and most recently International Development Director for Global Ethics. Kathryn has one a number of awards including: the Sheila McKechnie conflict resolution award for her campaigning work on democracy in Zimbabwe and an UNTLD award for Social entrepreneurs. She is also an advisor to the Channel four Battlefront show, mentoring young campaigners and a number other International NGO’s on both Fundraising and programme development.

The achievements of Positive Women involve:

• Giving 500 orphans and vulnerable children access to education
• Supplying 500 orphans and vulnerable children with memory books
• Establishing 45 women-led income generation projects
• Taking 5 cases to court and educated 500 women in their basic legal rights
• Raising over a million pounds in three years

I met Kathryn at activist training for Tea Time For Change earlier in May, when she had just finished her Live Below the Line challenge, and was very inspired by her and entirely in awe at what she was doing with the organization. At a panel called 'Why campaigning matters?' she recounted two experiences: one of success and one of failure. First concerned the invitations Robert Mugabe keeps getting for international summits and occasions, despite being banned from travelling in the EU and US (apart from UN events). I can't recall which invitation it was about, most likely the EU-Africa summit in Portugal in 2007. Llewellyn was involved in organizing a lobby against that invitation, managed to get a lot of people involved and even Gordon Brown to put his foot down, and succeeded in keeping him away from defying his ban and attending the summit, and enforcing the sanctions put on the dictator. A more recent story concerned the invitation of the king of Swaziland to the Royal Wedding, which was particularly distasteful as peaceful protests in Manzini were crushed by the police and the army just a few weeks before the wedding, in the beginning of April, and the invitation for the king was still valid. Police have used tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters calling for democratic elections. Many people were arrested and threatened, there was also a number of pre-emptive arrests before the demonstration even started. Meanwhile, King Mswati III, his 14 wives and a whole entourage were to attend the Royal Wedding. Llewellyn told us how she'd call up anti-royalist journalists perpetually to raise awareness of this and have mainstream media address the issue, but that in the end it didn't work out, people didn't want to listen, and the king and his court still made a show of how much money they are prepared to spend on glamorous international presence rather than their people.

Positive Women are currently running a number of campaigns: a petition for democracy in Swaziland, income generating projects (candle making, knitting uniforms or work on agricultural projects), workshops on basic business skills for women, legal advice, educational initiatives linking Swaziland and South Wales, supporting social welfare and transparency. All this also takes into the account the difficulties and stigma attached to HIV/AIDS, whose victims are the organization's main target. Over 60 people participated in Global Poverty Project's Live Below the Line challenge so far, raising over £15,000 for Positive Women. The organization is always looking for sponsors, private or businesses, and also currently for office space in London for 6 months. Read more about their activity and how to get involved:

website / facebook / twitter

Meanwhile, the Global Poverty Project has a next campaign planned out: it seeks to catalyse the global movement to take effective concerted action on poverty through the presentation 1.4 Billion Reasons. This is what they're said about it in an email I got this morning following the completion of my Live Below The Line challenge: "Every year we provide tens of thousands of people with the knowledge and resources they need to become agents for change within their communities through our presentations and campaigning work. Through the money raised for the Global Poverty Project, we will be training up new ambassadors to bring our message to even more people over the next year. You have already shown yourself to be committed to supporting this movement by participating in Live Below the Line, and now we'd like to invite you to journey with us in fighting poverty all year round."

You can register to either attend or hold the multimedia presentation developed by GPP which is travelling the globe engaging and inspiring audiences to understand and get involved in the movement to end extreme poverty. It's built around five sections:

• What is extreme poverty?
• Can we do anything about it?
• What are the barriers to ending extreme poverty?
• Why should we care?
• What can I do?

1.4 Billion Reasons has been tailored to specific audience groups and delivered in workplaces, schools, universities, faith groups, community groups and at conferences.

At the GPP website you can also commit to various ways in which you can personally tackle poverty, such as talking to your friends and family and speaking up in your community, learning more about it, buying more fair trade products, volunteering your time. They are currently running a campaign on bribery and corruption, calling on Ken Clarke to create an anti-corruption strategy. One year ago, he was announced as the UK’s International Anti-Corruption Champion. Personally appointed by David Cameron, he promised to develop a plan to combat corruption. To date, this has not occurred. GPP's petition on this is here.

But enough clicktivism; tomorrow I'm going to an actual lobby in the Parliament called Tea Time For Change. It's a chance to meet your MP (about 150 confirmed they're coming, though mine, Kate Hoey MP, has only said 'maybe attending') and talk to them about three crucial matters: international aid, tax dodging, and alternative funding strategies such as the Robin Hood Tax. It should be fun + useful. A blog post will follow.