Challenges from Ramallah

Israeli boycotts, sanctions and divestments – is a corporate Quaker stand possible?

“It never rains but it pours” is an expression that we grew up with. In the context of this article it refers to the fact we have recently returned from a 10-day trip to Ramallah in Palestine, during that time hearing and seeing a variety of disturbing events and happenings, and are now suddenly faced with a request for action. As if that wasn’t enough, the request mirrors the repeated requests that we heard whilst we were in Palestine. It could even be interpreted as a test of one’s newly forming convictions – especially as at the time of writing provocative actions on the part of Israel and insults to US policy and international peacemaking efforts are threatening a third intifada (uprising) from the Palestinians.

But before going into detail about the request, a word or two needs to be said about why we were in Ramallah in early March 2010 and some indication given of what we saw and heard. We were there partly because we were representing Quaker Service Sweden on a visit to the Am’ari Play Centre, supported by a number of European Yearly Meetings and currently under the auspices of the European and Middle East Section (EMES) of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), and partly to attend the Ramallah Meeting House Centenary celebrations. As a bonus we were invited to attend a three-day Consultation on the future of the Friends International Centre in Ramallah (FICR), organised by the FICR Steering Committee, to assess the work of the Centre since its inception in 2005 and discuss possible future directions.

In terms of what we saw during our time there, the extent of the enormous concrete Wall and its criss-cross carving up of the landscape was a shocking sight. It also seemed incomprehensible why the military-controlled Qalandia checkpoint, blocking the route from Jerusalem to Ramallah, divided two Arab communities. The planned light railway system, designed to facilitate travel to and from the various settlements in and around Jerusalem, will necessitate yet another systematic carve-up of the already disputed territory. We saw Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah occupied area of East Jerusalem that had been forcibly taken over by Israelis and met and talked to one of the owners – houses draped over with Israeli flags and decorated with a Menorah (the Jewish candelabra with nine arms) to signal changed ownership and eventual clearance demolition.
It is estimated that there are more than 1,500 pending demolition orders in East Jerusalem alone, potentially affecting several thousand Palestinian residents. Even while we were in Ramallah the Israeli Government announced the building of 1,600 new settlements in the sensitive East Jerusalem area in connection with US Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit.

Local people we met – including Quakers – told us about having to have different kinds of ID in order to move around. A lack of the correct kind of ID often means exclusion from health care and other rights. The taxi driver taking us to the airport told us something of his own everyday experiences. such as checking his mobile phone for text messages in a parking area (for which he had paid) at a checkpoint and being fined by Israeli soldiers for not turning off his engine, and on another occasion being asked to get out of his taxi at a checkpoint and promptly being fined for not wearing his seatbelt (which he’d had to remove to get out of the car!). The woman from Bethlehem who provided breakfast at the guest house apologised profusely for being late and keeping us waiting, but explained that she had been delayed in the checkpoints en route to work: “the soldiers take their time and often finish their smokes before dealing with us and then we have to pass individually through the security gate.”

During the FICR Consultation we heard other local and more politically engaged voices, such as that of Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative and an advocate of non-violent resistance. He was in no doubt whatsoever that the general situation in Palestine was one where the worst kind of human rights violations were taking place, and was of the opinion that Israel was being allowed, by the international community, to be above international law and international norms. His view was that the term peace process was “a misleading concept, a time-wasting nonsense and a cover for Israeli de facto measures on the ground.” He also said that it was the longest occupation in modern history and that Israel was creating the worst system of apartheid. “The Israelis”, Barghouti said, “will only negotiate on the 2005 Sharon Plan.” He maintained too that the only thing that would lead to change would be if Palestinians and the international community spoke out strongly for justice and took strong positions, such as had happened in South Africa. He encouraged us to press for divestment and a boycott of Israeli products. His final message was that the Palestinian’s worst enemy was depression, and that “Hope is most important”.

An Israeli journalist, critical of Israel’s hard policies, also said that Palestinians have had much less freedom since 1994 and that the so-called peace process actually amounts to hypocrisy. The view was that some people on both sides of the Wall, which serves as an effective barrier to change and peace, profit from the occupation and are granted certain privileges and that there is even apartheid in Israel as well as in the occupied territories. There was no longer any belief in a two-state solution. Other local voices indicated that the only solution was one democratic country in which everyone could live regardless of identity and that all those who have been forced to leave had the right to return. “It is a problem for 10.6 million Palestinians around the world, not just those living in the West Bank and Gaza”, one person said. Another indicated that the Palestinian civil society was starting to play a more central role to stop the cycle of occupation – colonisation – apartheid. We heard too about the situation in the South Hebron hills, where people’s land and livelihoods were being forcibly removed by the Israeli military – and that any documentation of this was strictly forbidden. Despite all these injustices, the Palestinians were committed to nonviolent resistance.

We heard from young graduates from the Friends Schools in Ramallah who had completed their education at prestigious universities in the US and were now working for an international programme of Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions – actions that were seen as the only way of bringing due pressure to bear on the Israeli Government to end the occupation. Indeed, the Epistle that resulted from the FICR Consultation, and addressed to Friends everywhere, called Quakers to international solidarity with Palestinian and Israeli efforts “to end the occupation, lift the siege on Gaza and restore human and civil rights through a nonviolent program of boycott, divestment and sanctions” [...] and “consider adopting boycott, divestment and sanctions as we may be led to do, individually or corporately.”

We heard, too, that the Israeli Government controls the distribution of water and electricity in the occupied territories. Some areas find themselves without both for up to three days at a time. The price of water and electricity is also controlled by Israel, with Palestinians having to pay double the price or more for these products and services.

Back, now, to the above-mentioned request, for boycotting and protest action, sent to us via the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) in Brussels, which was in turn sent to them by a Palestinian NGO visited by members of the QCEA Study Tour in 2009. In short, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) is calling for a boycott of the Swedish fashion company H&M, particularly in the Arab World, in response to the opening of its second store in Israel, this time in Jerusalem’s “Malha Mall”, at a time when Israel is intensifying its illegal colonisation of the occupied eastern part of the city.[1] By way of explanation, Malha is one of the Palestinian villages that was ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba and whose original Palestinian inhabitants are refugees who have been denied their UN-sanctioned right to return to their lands.

Besides opening stores in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, H&M has announced plans to open additional stores in Haifa, Petah Tikva, Netanya, and Rehovot and thereby invest substantially in Israel – in the midst of its continued aggression towards Gaza and an intensified colonisation of Jerusalem. This, states the BDS National Committee, “can only be understood by Palestinians and supporters of just peace around the world as a form of support for Israel’s abhorrent violations of international law and human rights.” In turn, H&M claims to adhere to the UN Global Compact[2], a corporate social responsibility initiative that obliges it to ensure it has nothing to do with human rights abuses. Indeed, the UN’s Goldstone report has recently condemned Israel for not only committing grave human rights abuses but also war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during its Gaza massacre. By ignoring this and investing heavily in Israel's economy, H&M is regarded as violating its own commitments to the UN’s principles of ethical investment.

In the information sent to us the call was for solidarity organisations and people of conscience around the world, particularly in Arab states, to escalate their civil protests against H&M and achieve a total boycott of the chain until it has ended its complicity in Israel's system of occupation, colonisation and apartheid against the Palestinian people. One of the arguments used is that that conducting business as usual with Israel is not only unethical; it is also detrimental to the pursuit of a just peace based on international law.

In enlightening us about this issue, QCEA asked whether this was something that Quakers in Sweden Yearly Meeting could pick up on. Initial approaches have led to somewhat negative responses – which in effect has led to the writing of this article and a deeper exploration of the issues. It also begs the question of whether boycotting and sanctions are futile actions for a small group of Friends and whether other ways of ‘speaking truth to power’ are more appropriate – and if so, what these might be.

With the local Palestinian voices encouraging boycott action still ringing in our ears, we decided to explore the matter of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel further and see what the global BDS movement has achieved so far. Starting with Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, it appears that serious measures have been taken in recent years to exclude companies implicated in Israel’s occupation and illegal building of colonies and the Wall from their pension funds. For example, according to The Ethical Council’s 2009 Annual Report, the four Swedish AP Funds divested from the Israeli company Elbit Systems Ltd in the first quarter of 2010. The large Danske Bank also divested from Elbit Systems Ltd and other Israeli companies involved in systematic human rights violations. In September 2009 the Norwegian Government excluded Elbit Systems Ltd from the Government Pension Fund, Global, on the basis of recommendations from the Council on Ethics’ following their discovery that investment in Elbit constituted a serious risk of contributing to violations of fundamental ethical norms as a result of Israel’s construction of a separate barrier on occupied territory.

Outside Scandinavia, in countries like Britain, France and Canada, trades unions have actively calling for a commitment to a boycott of Israeli goods and divestment and sanctions against Israel. Pension funds in the Netherlands and the USA have followed Norway’s move to divest. The Church of England also announced its divestment from Caterpillar in 2009 – a company whose bulldozers and heavy plant equipment have been used to destroy Palestinian homes by the Israeli military. Important initiatives for academic boycotts have also been launched, e.g. by universities in the US, Spain, the UK, Norway, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France and South Africa, to name but a few. Cultural boycott actions have also been encouraged, such as Amnesty International’s withdrawal of support for a Leonard Cohen concert held in Israel and the campaign and protest against the Toronto International Film Festival’s special tribute to Tel Aviv in an attempt to rebrand Israel in a positive light following the atrocities committed in the 2008-2009 war on Gaza. More information about individual campaigns can be accessed on the Global BDS Movement website: http://bdsmovement.net/

To return to the question posed by QCEA as to whether some kind of action against H&M could be taken by Swedish Quakers as a corporate body, it is clear that Friends in Sweden need to grapple with the issues involved and arrive at some kind of decision. In this, one very big challenge will be whether or not to ignore the calls made by the Palestinian civil society to people of conscience all over the world to put pressure on states and companies to impose boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa during the apartheid era. There seems to be no doubt that Israel has created a complicated system of apartheid in the occupied territories – something we saw with our own eyes and heard about with our own ears when there in March. Israel is also continuing to evict Palestinians from their homes, replace them with Jewish colonial settlers and construct tens of thousands of housing units for those settlers in the occupied Palestinian territory. Indeed, all Israeli colonies are regarded as war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

It is not only a question of boycotting H&M, though. Many other companies are also involved and expanding in Israel. The thing is, do we ignore the local Palestinian calls for such action and instead seek other ways of ‘speaking truth to power’? If the latter, what are these ways and how do we go about it? How have other Quaker groups tackled similar questions and, if so, what actions have they agreed on? Turning our corporate back and doing nothing does not seem to be a viable option.
© Sue Glover Frykman

[1] See H&M Whitewashing Israel's Colonization of Jerusalem on http://bdsmovement.net/
[2] See http://www.unglobalcompact.org/ for more detailed information about this.

Visit to Netrakona, Jan 2010

"We’re poor, what are we supposed to do? We need help so that our voices are heard!” This is what one of the adolescent girls attending the SUS Health Circle said to us during a recent visit to the slums of Mymensingh. From 19-30 January 2010 two members of the Kväkarhjälpen Committee visited Sabalamby Unnanyan Samity (SUS) in Netrakona, a four hour drive to the north of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka. Our brief was to visit the projects that Kväkarhjälpen supports in Mymensingh and Purbodhala.

SUS works with underprivileged and marginalised people, in particular women, children, adolescents and the disabled. It provides education, comprehensive health services, human rights and legal services, micro finance/enterprise and other social services to very poor people in the Netrakona area. SUS believes in community participation and integration and collaborates with governmental and other relevant organisations.

In addition to visiting Mymensingh and Purbodhala we went to Barhatta and Durgapur to see the activities supported by other SUS donors/partners. These visits were useful in providing an all-round view of the work that SUS is involved in. We also visited the Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh, and talked to some of the professors there about their views on rural development and the situation of the poor in the country as a whole.

We made three separate visits to the Mymensingh Integrated Project. On our first visit we went to an ECD school in the slum area known as 36 Bari, where some of the children sang and danced for us. We then visited a rural area and had a discussion with the head-teacher of the Digarkanda Government School and observed SUS phase out students attending the school. As the Mymensingh project is still in its start-up phase, and the number of SUS schools is limited, SUS encourages the children to continue their education in the government schools. The SUS students tend to be much better prepared and have a higher standard of education than the other students at the school. SUS schools are also limited to 30 students to 1 teacher. The downside with the government schools is that they are grossly overcrowded, with between 50-100 students in any one class (with one teacher), which naturally affects the quality of the education provided there.
We attended an UP SVAW (Regional Stop Violence Against Women) committee meeting. All the committee members are volunteers and are well-known in their own communities. They have been elected to the committee and mainly gather information by knocking on doors and giving ‘awareness-raising’ information to

people in the area. If the identified problems cannot be negotiated or mediated locally the committee members discuss cases with a view to taking alternative and appropriate action at a higher level. The membership of the committee seemed mostly to be made up of men (17) although some women (4) were also involved. During our visit the committee members had a lively discussion about the need for identity cards for house-to-house visits, so that they could display authorisation for their work. We then observed a Health Community Meeting at the Bashbari slum and afterwards enjoyed watching a street theatre performance by adolescents from the same slum on the subject of HIV/AIDS and drug addiction – which was well attended by people of all ages from the local area.

On our second visit to Mymensingh we attended a courtyard meeting of pregnant mothers and their mother-in-laws in the Khagdaher area, and had a brief discussion with the mother of a disabled child born with Down’s syndrome. During the meeting the responsible SUS Community Worker talked about disability, displayed picture cards relating to how women could help to prevent problems in their pregnancies and asked the women questions about their own situations.

Some men and many children stood on the sidelines, listening to what was being said. In this context SUS also trains Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA’s), who visit the mothers-to-be to advise on nutrition, vaccinations, contraception etc and attend the actual births and ensure safe and hygienic conditions. Interestingly, we learned that the Government was also showing TV programmes about similar issues, which helped to consolidate the work. We were told that seven new women had attended today’s courtyard meeting.

Next on our agenda was the District SVAW committee meeting held at the SUS offices in Mymensingh. This 15-strong committee, again made up of volunteers – this time a more representative mixture of men and women – consisted of lawyers, teachers, a journalist, a professional singer, the secretary of a large agricultural concern etc. In June 2009 the committee had produced and finalised its constitutional document. Their activities included a celebration of the International Women’s Day, the celebration of four other special international days as well as visits to schools and colleges to talk about human rights. Part of the committee’s function was to discuss cases of violence against women that came to their notice; six of which had so far been resolved by local mediation and six of which had been referred to the national government legal aid fund. The committee was also in the process of investigating a murder case. The committee’s functions included discussing lawyer support for victims, establishing how to activate the local government aid fund in Mymensingh, offering an advocacy support service twice a month, discussing how to organise the work in the future and how to attract new committee members. The journalist on the committee had also written article in the local and national press to promote the work being undertaken and offered.

After a morning visit to a women’s market in Netrakona (see the description below), our third visit to Mymensingh, consisted of a visit to the Kumar Opendra Bidyapith High School and a discussion with teachers and adolescent students. Some of these students were former dropouts identified by the efforts of the SUS Mymensingh staff. The encouragement they received had made them proud and ambitious students and many have now become ambassadors for SUS work. The headmaster was very enthusiastic about the school’s association with SUS. Some of the children had also tried to make a garden area, but a combination of extremely dry weather and vandalism had put paid to the attempts. Despite this the children were determined to try again.

We visited Mohima’s house in another slum area (an ultra poor girl subjected to early marriage whom SUS was helping with education), had a discussion with adolescent girl sewing trainees and attended a final debriefing with all SUS staff at the office in Mymensingh. SUS is currently running 5 adolescent groups in the slum areas of Mymensingh, with 20 girls in each group. Training in sewing skills has been running for 3 months. At the time of our visit the current group of girls had come to the end of their training and were taking a sewing skills examination. In the groups the girls use the REFLECT-graphics method to identify, reflect on and discuss specific issues (e.g. early marriage, dowry, health). The group of girls in focus here had identified the need for skills training in order to generate income – which had then been provided by SUS. During our visit the girls discussed the problem of not having access to sewing machines now that the training had finished and how this might be solved. We asked them for their suggestions to how the problem might be resolved and they came up with the following possibilities: purchase one machine for a cluster of girls; continue the training but make different things; ask the community to contribute 50% of the cost of a sewing machine and SUS provide the other 50%; develop other income-generating skills such as jam making, setting up a beauty parlour etc; try to sell their products abroad.

In the final debriefing session the SUS staff at Mymensingh outlined a number of problems, including the lack of suitable places to hold meetings and classes and the fact that the aim of providing latrines in each home and the encouragement of vegetable and poultry rearing was not possible due to the lack of land in the slum areas and associated problems with land ownership. The staff also indicated their findings that in terms of the proposed health education on HIV/AIDS, it was actually more appropriate to instruct and highlight Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD) instead. One problem here, however, was that SUS staff had no technical training in basic health skills such as taking people’s blood pressure, pregnancy testing, testing for arsenic etc., and that training in such practices was essential. Similarly there was a lack of technical training/support in the field of disability and the provision of peripatetic physiotherapy sessions for sufferers. It was pointed out that as government hospitals don’t cater for disabled people/children the need for such services is great. In terms of community policing we heard from the SUS worker that good relations had been established with the local police with a view to ensuring greater security, law and order. SUS was a member of the Community Policing Forum, which facilitated the work in this field. Work on the formal establishment of the Village Code (a code established in 1976 to ensure law and order and to be operated by local government) in the area was also underway and SUS was putting pressure on the UP to ensure that this was done.

The Mymensingh staff also expressed their hopes and visions for the future of the work, e.g. more therapy for disabled children; the need to produce garments and develop a market outlet; more check-ups for pregnant mothers; the need to expand ECD and NFPE education programmes; the need to involve the mothers of adolescents and encourage income-generating activities and the need for health-related education in schools. Activities were also planned with children’s parents/guardians with a view to reducing the school drop-out rate. Periodical meetings with government school teachers in the slum areas and SUS were also to be developed in an attempt to safeguard the quality of education provided. They also emphasised the need to maintain the quality of SUS services. The aim was also to establish a friendly environment so that deprived girls and boys or those affected by problems related to drugs or corruption would benefit from proper information and training.

Our observations and impressions of the work we had seen was that in only one year the SUS staff have made marvellous efforts to set up and establish an integrated programme of work and are flexible enough to change course to meet the demands of the target groups. They are also a young, dynamic, flexible and very enthusiastic team! From our observations of different meetings we had attended we encouraged the staff to think about providing ‘assertiveness training’ for the women and ‘listening-skills training’ for the men in the various SVAW committees so that the women felt more able to express their views and the men would listen to what the women had to say!

We visited the Purbodhala Integrated Project, now in its phase-out stages. Our first stop was to the SUS primary school in Noapara village. This was followed by a visit to the Khapara Government School and discussion with teachers and SUS phase out students. We observed a courtyard meeting on disability at Kurpar village and had a discussion with different stakeholders involved in the health project. We also visited a Health Group at Khalishaur village, met the Stop Violence Against Women/Human Rights committee a and had a final debriefing with the SUS staff in Purbodhala.

We were naturally keen to find out how the project phase-out was progressing and whether the local community were taking over various aspects of it as is the aim. In this respect we were particularly pleased to see that the SVAW/Human Rights group was determined to ‘go it alone’ and was in the process of applying for a change of name so that the activities were really ‘theirs’. We were told that the programme in Purbodhala is now more or less 70 percent self-sustainable. SUS is continuing to provide support and is committed to helping to change lifestyles through business innovation and income generation. Community people are taking more responsibility for the work and the aim is for SUS to eventually pull out completely and hand over to local people. Health programme beneficiaries are continuing to receive information and help with family planning methods etc. ECD and NFPE activities still need financial support, however, for an estimated period of 3-5 years. Many of the ECD students are now attending government schools. With regard to the disability project, many people are still unaware of the issues involved. Although links with government resources are being made, this part of the programme would benefit from longer-term support, particularly as the physiotherapy services offered are long- rather than short-term.

On our return from Purbodhala we were invited to attend a meeting of the advocacy panel in Rokeya’s office in Netrakona. Local lawyers provide their services free of charge and meet to decide on action in cases like murder, acid throwing etc. During our attendance the group was hearing evidence from a young girl who had witnessed the death of her mother by her father. We learned that bribery had led to the case being regarded by the authorities as suicide, which was clearly not the truth of the matter. A demonstration in the streets of Netrakona was being planned by the lawyers as a show of strength that the case be properly investigated and tried in a court of law. A further case of acid-throwing and subsequent death was also heard during our attendance at the meeting.

We visited Barhatta, an Integrated Project previously supported by another Swedish group for 4 years, as ‘visitors’ rather than ‘donors’. We went to see the Kandrapara Government School and had a discussion with teachers and SUS phase out students there. We also visited a SUS primary school at Premnagor, met with Government Health Department officials, attended a meeting with Human Rights Committee members, attended a women’s micro-finance group meeting and enjoyed a very well-attended public Community Drama performance on the subject of Stop Violence Against Women (with its anti-corruption sub-plot). With regard to micro-finance/enterprise we were told that some 50-60 villages in the area are involved in the scheme, with 1 group per village. The group we visited now had 27 members (originally 15 members). The groups met once a week and had an issue-based discussion on a subject initiated by themselves.

The women were able to borrow between 6,000-12,000 taka to start up e.g. a rickshaw business, a grocery shop, cow rearing etc. Our overall impression was that donor/partner support for a period of only 3 or 4 years is not at all sufficient. In this period of time the project is still establishing itself. Ideally support is recommended for two 3 or 4 year periods (constituting establishment and consolidation) and a further phase-out period. While the SUS personnel at Barhatta were enthusiastic about their work, they were very obviously disappointed by the lack of continuation and stability that a long-term commitment provides.

We also had a day trip north (to the Indian border) to visit the Integrated Food Security for Ultra Poor (IFSUP) Project at Durgapur, supported by a German NGO – the aim being to visit staff at the SUS Area Office in Durgapur and the ethnic Adibashi Cultural Academy/Museum at Birisiri. This museum had been started by the indigenous people of the region with a view to preserving their ethnic cultures. Still in its early stages the museum is involved in the research, recovery and recording of the Atchi language in conjunction with a local cultural anthropologist.

We then travelled by boat and rickshaw to visit the IFSUP Nothobia Group in Kullagara and have discussions with group members. This society is matriarchal: in general the women work in the fields and the men stay at home. SUS has used the REFLECT discussion method to highlight different issues and has provided training in management skills, livestock and poultry rearing and husbandry, homestead gardening and sustainability. Group members are able to purchase a specific asset (e.g. a pig, rabbits, poultry, cow, coconuts etc) and learn how to manage and look after it. On the day we visited one of the women’s pigs had died and she was very sad. We were told that an inbuilt ‘insurance policy’ meant that woman would receive a new pig and in this way continue her ‘farming’ activities.

At the Bangladesh Agricultural University at Mymensingh we had frank discussions with some of the professors with specialist interests in farm resource management about some of the problems facing Bangladesh as a whole, mainly due to restrictive World Bank and IMF policies. We were shown round the fruit growing research area at the university. SUS maintains close contacts with the university, with a view to planting resistant fruit tree varieties in the areas in which it works.

As mentioned earlier, we visited a Women’s Market on the outskirts of Netrakona. SUS (with the former help of Action Aid Bangladesh) has provided training for the women in the form of gender awareness, financial and leadership skills. The Market Committee for this area, made up of men, is now supportive of the women’s activities and is helping them get properly established. SUS supports 8 ‘women’s markets’ in the Netrakona area and has successfully lobbied for the women’s ‘safe passage’ home when they close their shops at 7pm (they open at 8am). SUS is hoping to train a woman ‘market manager’ if and when funds for this become available. The women (many of whom are young adolescent girls) sell material and make clothes, primarily local school uniforms. One of the shops serves as a general grocery store and seems to be very popular.

On the car journey to and from the Women’s Market the SUS Coordinator for Community Response in Education (CBE), explained that in 2008 SUS designed a flexible school calendar to take account of the different times that school-aged children are expected to help their parents with the rice harvest and the different periods of flooding when travel to school is limited. They submitted the idea to the Bangladeshi Government. The calendar was adopted by the government in September 2009 and a new education policy declared. CBE also offers regular advocacy training workshops with 20-25 participants at a time. Issues discussed in the workshops include: the definition of advocacy, the definition of lobbying, defining the issues, sharing with the community and the design of a mobilisation programme.

To conclude, besides having a favourable impression of SUS work and the Integrated Projects we visited, it was good to see that information boards (in English) detailing the areas of SUS work had been erected in the entrance area of the main office complex in Netrakona and that the courtyard walls had been painted and decorated with relevant ‘quotations’ (in the local language). SUS has also produced a wide selection of information posters that help to draw attention to the interest areas covered. Many of the recommendations listed in the comprehensive evaluation of the organisation, completed last year, have also been adopted. In short, it was clear to us that the SUS core values of quality service, holism/integration, sustainability, people’s participation, human dignity, secularism and gender equality are very visible indeed and that SUS work is highly valued by the local people it serves. Through SUS the poor people of the area really do gain strength to make their voices heard.

A new Bangladesh trip...

... is about to begin in mid January 2010. This time Sue will be travelling with Lisa Ann, another Quaker Service Committee member. Watch this space for a full account of our travels.

Home

Written on 7th May, in a spontaneous writing workshop at Charney Manor, Oxfordshire, in which we were asked to write about ‘home’....

Home. I’m fortunate to have a home. Some people do not. In Croatia, when I was there in 1994 after the War, many were living in garden huts with all their belongings in a cardboard box. Their homes had been blown apart. Blown into heaps of rubble. Now, people in Gaza, Iraq, you name it, are homeless and we are helpless. In Bangladesh, during our visit to projects supported by Quaker Service Sweden, we were invited into people’s homes in the poorer parts of town. They had no polished wooden floors, wall-to-wall carpeting and all mod cons. Their floors were of stamped earth and their cons were very far from modern. Many cooked on an open wood fire in the middle of the room and crouched over their tasks. And yet, the welcome in these Croatian and Bangladeshi homes was warm, sincere, generous. Without expecting anything in return people gave of the little they had. Simple food and drink in abundance as though we were the prodigal children.

It was as though their homes – and the bodies that house their souls – were warm and loving. With few material goods to worry about they had both time and capacity for friendship and generosity. In many cases their families were large, extended and caring, each helping to provide for the pot. Strange. If someone gives without asking for anything in return I too feel more inclined to be open and generous.

Sometimes it takes a totally contrasting experience to make me realise what I have, want, need, do not have, do not want or do not need.

Perhaps home, then, is really the solid base, the secure ground and the loving space – within. Where the spirit dwells in peace and the Light readily turned on.

Bangladesh...

Tofte and Sue Frykman visited Bangladesh between 28th Jan – 7th Feb 2008 on behalf of Quaker Service Sweden. Sue recounts something of the trip below, in diary form. It’s impossible to tell you about everything we saw, but we hope that the following account gives a flavour of our adventure in the poverty-stricken rice growing areas of Netrakona, Purbadhala and Mymensingh, in north-eastern Bangladesh.

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Tuesday 29th January 2008 The four hour drive north to Netrakona, from Dacca’s Zia International Airport, begins at snail’s pace. It’s 8 o’clock in the morning and the streets are already teeming with tricycle-rickshaws, bicycles, cars, motorbikes, buses and lorries, all loaded to the brim and vying for space. To say nothing of people waiting to dart across the road as soon as they spot a gap in the traffic stream! The sound of honking horns is deafening – and the car windows are firmly shut! But the landscape changes as we venture north and the multitude of half-completed blocks of flats, with antennae-like construction wires protruding from their heads, gives way to paddy fields, haystacks, fishponds and small rural settlements.

We are in Bangladesh to visit Sambalamby Unnyan Samity (SUS), the self-help organisation that Quaker Service Sweden has been supporting in various ways since 1994. Rokeya Begum, the Executive Director of SUS, and her staff greet us at the SUS Health Centre in Netrakona – our home for the week - and order us to rest and catch our breath before lunch – and a week-long intensive programme of visits, meetings and encounters.

The Programme Support Unit Manager asks us to accompany him to the Model Farm, just down the lane from the SUS Health Centre. The farm was the first SUS project that Quaker Service Sweden supported, in the mid-1990s. We wander along the rough track, dodging the ever-present bicycles and rickshaws with their tinkling bells, and absorb the scenery and smells. In one direction paddy fields stretch as far as they eye can see, and in the other, palm and banana trees form the forest’s fringe. People living in nearby bamboo huts burn straw, wood, leaves or dried cow dung and cook their suppers. Children race up to us eager to shake our hands, practice saying “Hello”, “How are you?” “What is your name?” and “Goodbye”, and stare wide-eyed at these two white foreigners. As we walk S. tells us about the jute industry that is now on the decline and the difficulties that local people face from unemployment and regular flooding. This area was flooded three times in 2007 and homes, shops and farms were destroyed. So was the rice harvest, which accounts for why rice has now doubled in price. We pass a local mosque, its loud-speakers calling people to prayer.

Wednesday 30th January Today we go to Purbadhala, accompanied by M. one of the SUS staff members responsible for this particular project – a project that Quaker Service Sweden has been supporting for the last seven years. Our agenda includes a visit to a REFLECT (Regenerated Freirian Literacy through Empowering Community Technique) women’s circle, a pre-school, or ECD class (Early Childhood Development), a micro-finance group and a meeting with a woman’s Human Rights Group. A. is our driver and negotiates the potholed roads and village tracks with skill! He is a hero!!

Many of the women attending the REFLECT literacy circle (were nursing small children M. interprets for us. The circle facilitator tells us about the short-term (3-month), medium-term (6-months) and long-term (6-months +) goals the group had been working with. The short-term goals included installing fresh water supplies that are free from arsenic, creating sanitary latrines, practising family planning and health care strategies and creating a vegetable garden for home consumption to improve vitamin and mineral intake. Medium and long-term goals are related to early marriage and dowry issues and problems connected with health. Many of the women were shy and not used to meeting white strangers, but they warmed to us and expressed their pleasure that we had come to see how they lived and worked. The whole village turned out for a photo-call outside the dimly lit hut, complete with attendant ducks and hens!

We make our way – in the rain – to the next village to attend the pre-school class session. At this early stage the children learn through song, rhyme and dance. Each child is provided with a slate and chalk, paperback text books (bought from BRAC, another NGO), a pencil and ruler. Their parents make bundles of little sticks that the children then use as counters. They learn how to count up to 50 and learn the alphabet. Not only that, even at this early age they learn about democracy, health and human rights. Many of these children come from families that are too poor to afford any other form of schooling. The target group is mainly girls (some boys attend as well) as traditionally they are regarded as second-class citizens. This attitude is slowly changing thanks to organisations like SUS.

The class teacher often either originates from the same village in which she teaches or has married into a family that has influence there and can provide “premises” (a bamboo hut). Qualified teachers attend SUS teacher training courses to be schooled in SUS’ “holistic approach” methods. The classrooms are simple bamboo huts with sacking placed on the earth floor. Like the REFLECT circle women the children sit in a U-shape – regarded as being the best format for communication. A disabled child or slow leaner child (cerebral palsy) is included in this class – which consists of 30 pupils. Although he’d only been attending the class for a short time he was already showing signs of improvement as a result of the help he was receiving from the teacher and from his peers. The overall aim is that, in addition to working on their own, the children work in groups of three; the stronger and cleverer pupils helping the less able.

In the third village we visit a micro-finance group of women. Various members act as President, Secretary and Treasurer; the aim being to help the women to take responsibility and feel empowered to do something to change the circumstances of their own lives. The group meets weekly to pay off their loans (administered by a SUS staff member) and discuss problems and successes. Some of the women had borrowed money to buy a milking cow, a rickshaw (driven by their husbands), a rice-cooking machine or open a clothes shop – all activities in which they were able to make money to feed and clothe their families. Here i is important to add here that SUS doesn’t act as a bank to loan out money and charge interest on it, but instead operates a micro-finance “integrated and holistic package” that consists of a business opportunity, health education, human rights advice and literacy education.

Thursday 31st January We are given a guided tour of the SUS Health Centre in Netrakona (our home for the week being a room on the top floor of the building). Thursdays and Sundays are vaccination days, and pre- and post-natal clinics, counselling and health care for pregnant mothers are also available. The Bangladeshi Government provides the vaccines free of charge and SUS provide the staff and facilities and administer the vaccines. In other words it’s a collaborative project. Other medicines have to be paid for, however, or obtained at the local hospital. SUS emphasises the importance of safe home deliveries and as well as training people in home delivery techniques they also provide special safe and clean delivery packs and iron tablets for the pregnant mothers. One of the centre’s two doctors showed us the initial development stages of the operating theatre cum delivery room – which Quaker Service Sweden has also supported. An ECG and an ultra-sound machine have also been purchased to improve the Health Centre’s services. We also looked in on a physiotherapy session, where the physiotherapist was instructing a mother on how best to exercise her child’s limbs after his accident.

S. and Sh. accompany us to the Model Farm, this time for an “official” visit. The farm’s organically managed garden plots are now mainly for demonstration, with seed-saving forming an integral part of the work. Few training sessions are held at the Model Farm these days; energy instead being put into introducing organic methods and techniques in the villages through “on-the-spot” training. So far the farm has hosted training courses for over a hundred local farmers, although Sh. has plans to extend the farm-based training programme, especially as the farm is now making a profit from new-style rice-cum-fish farming combinations. SUS provides local farmers with seeds and on-site training courses – all of which are free for the participants.
Seed preservation of the different traditional varieties of rice is important, especially as the government is keen to promote the use of hybrid seeds. Using hybrid seeds is not regarded as sustainable, because it leads to more fertilisers being pumped onto the land in an attempt to achieve so-called bigger and better harvests. SUS is instead encouraging organic cultivation with traditionally resistant seed varieties, especially as this matches the sustainable approach they promote. We marvelled at the 46 types of rice seeds being preserved and distributed to local farmers – the seeds being kept in perfect condition in pottery jars lined on shelves in a cool and dark shed. Non-hybrid vegetable and fruit seeds are also preserved in the same way.

A bio-gas system is in operation at the farm, although at the time of our visit gas production was limited because the system needed cleaning out. It’s a very simple system – manure from the farm’s cows is shovelled into a concrete walled pit and pushed down a hole connected to a pipe. Rigged up to a simple gas stove the workers sleeping on the premises then use the gas to cook their meals. This technology was S’s speciality and he proudly told us that he’d given a lecture about the subject in Sweden in connection with a visit there.

Keeping cows for milk production and duck and poultry rearing are also practised on the farm – again the techniques and methods being transferred to local villagers in their own habitats. Homestead organic vegetable cultivation for nutritional benefits is organised in a 5-bed system for all-the-year-round cultivation – an effective system developed by the Agricultural University in Dacca. Cultivation like this, together with seed collection, cow and poultry rearing and fish cultivation are sustainable and transferable skills.

We inspect the new pond area taking shape next to the big paddy field behind the farm. Labourers are digging out the new fish pond behind the Model Farm - different levels being excavated to accommodate both rice and fish cultivation – known as “paddy-cum-fish-culture” – in reciprocal combination. Fish excrement fertilises the land and the fish eat the weeds in the paddy field area. Fish culture is being increasingly promoted in the area as it has proved to be profitable and requires little labour. The labourers – all men – hack out clods of earth and dump them in baskets. Two men then heave the full basket onto the other’s head (wearing a flat-topped straw “hat” on which the basket is accommodated), who then transports it to a growing heap of earth at the side of the pond area. But each carrier can only go so far and the loads are carried in relays to the dump. Each basket is extremely heavy and especially taxing for those having to negotiate the hill from the depth of the pond to field level. Each labourer is employed on a daily basis and earns 100 taka each day (the equivalent of 10 Swedish crowns).

Saturday 2nd February We pay another visit to Purbadhala, this time to visit a Non-Formal Primary Education (NFPE) class for children between 7-11 years of age and a private home where a peripatetic SUS physiotherapist is helping a mother to exercise her 3-year-old child suffering from cerebral palsy. The child, a girl, was lying on a mat outside in the sun and her mother was massaging and moving her limbs. These exercises have to be done 3 times a day for 20 minutes at a time. After only 3 months of physiotherapy the child is showing signs of considerable improvement and when the exercises were over the child started to move her arms on her own and tried to sit up and crawl. A bamboo walking frame has been constructed so that the child can practice walking with support. The mother was so happy to learn that QSS was supporting this work and that we’d taken the trouble to come and see for ourselves. It’s really quite amazing that so very little of our western wealth can make such an enormous difference to someone’s life....

On the way back to the car we pass a little bamboo hut “shop-cum-tea stall”, selling rice, potatoes, chillies, shallots, biscuits and sweets. The wife has been able to get a micro-finance loan from SUS to start the business and hubby helps out by making tea. This is only one example of how poor people are able to put their toes on the economic ladder, feed themselves and their families and gradually expand their activities.

We visit the static clinic, based at the SUS offices in Purbadhala. A physiotherapist helps severely disabled children with various exercises. M. explains that SUS try to teach people that disability isn’t a curse from Allah but a disease that can be managed and cured – a radical approach to many of these people. Each mother is taught how to help her child and they then practice the exercises together at home. One young woman came up to us with a big smile on her face. Her young son (whom she was holding in her arms) had been born with a cleft palate (a common problem resulting from malnutrition) and SUS had organised an operation. He was on the way to a full recovery and a normal appearance, and was able to feed properly. His mother was so proud of him. Just looking at her and absorbing her radiating happiness made my eyes water. Another much younger child was waiting for similar surgery, but would have to gain a few more pounds before an operation was possible.

We attend a Human Rights Group meeting, in progress as the SUS offices. These people (mainly men but an increasing number of women) ensure that conflict issues in the various villages relating to land, dowry, violence of all kinds, early marriage, polygamy, etc., are dealt with in the best way possible. They also organise regular Legal Camps in the different villages, where trained legal advisers (always a man and a woman working together) give advice to those needing help to solve their problems. The Human Rights Group reported that thanks to SUS’ initiative in this area they were able to develop the work further to reach more people and that it wouldn’t be long before they could organise and support themselves in these activities.
We are taken to a Legal Camp – way out in the countryside. These gatherings usually happen on Saturdays as the legal advisers are free from other official duties on that day. The local Human Rights Group Secretary is also present and ensures that everyone who needs help gets it. In the short time we are there people recount their stories of polygamy, torture and problems with land to the legal advisers who then give them the relevant guidance.

Sunday 3rd February D. SUS’ Finance Manager, accompanies us to Mymensingh. Mymensingh is a big city and quite different to rural Netrakona. Problems here include prostitution, drugs, AIDS, and so on. We are taken to a slum area where SUS has set up two REFLECT circles for poor adolescent girls. Their activities have only been in operation for a few months but already the girls (aged between 13-16 years of age) have discussed nutrition, adolescent problems, reproductive health, dowry, early marriage, etc. Some of the girls perform a spontaneous play for us about the early marriage issue. They also sing, dance and bring their embroidery to show us. A sewing teacher is available to help the girls, who then try to sell the garments they make in the local market. The materials often cost more than the price they are able to get for them, however. SUS activity in this area is low-key at present and they are looking for donor support to help develop the work here. Working in a city environment is a new venture for SUS, and will pose considerable challenges. As Quaker Service Sweden is due to phase out of Purbadhala soon we wonder whether this new direction might be something to recommend to Friends for consideration.

Tuesday 5th February A light and cool breeze fingers through our hair as we sit on the terrace overlooking the paddy fields. Netrakona is waking up to another day. We are scheduled to meet the SUS Management Group this morning and discuss their visions for the future, or at least up to 2015. All kinds of things up at this meeting, which is both vibrant and energising, and include: how to develop sustainable programmes with very little outside donor support, how to work towards a gender-balanced society, how to continue to provide a community-friendly service, accountability and transparency, how to make use of natural resources and not damage the environment, capacity building of SUS staff and management, IT development, etc. They tell us that they don’t regard Quaker Service Sweden as a mere donor agency, but as a development partner. R. emphasises that Quaker Service Sweden and SUS share similar values and visions, especially when it comes to peace and justice. Time and time again during this trip I have been strongly reminded that Quakers in Sweden are very much involved in peace and justice work in the world –through Quaker Service Sweden’s engagement and commitment in Bangladesh, Burundi, Ramallah and St. Petersburg.

We meet the SUS Human Rights and Legal Services staff in the afternoon. It is clear that the SUS human rights work has been catalytic in empowering local officials and citizens to take an active interest in what is happening at the local political level and ask pertinent questions. The staff are keen to point out that they are aiming towards justice and fairness at family, society and state levels, and are trying to both inform people of their rights as well as provide human rights services. Despite local opposition and threats – mainly from officials who are afraid of losing power and favours – the SUS staff are committed to continuing to create open dialogue for change.

We go for a walk with H. later in the afternoon. The SUS staff won’t let us go anywhere on our own “for security reasons”. We walk along the wide brown River Mogra and across to the more rural and residential part of town. When it gets too dark to see where we are going we decide to take a rickshaw home. H. waves one down and negotiates both the price and the possibility of taking three passengers instead of the more usual one or two. He is successful and we all climb in; H. perches at the back and T. and I squeeze onto the narrow seat. H. envelopes us in his arms so we don’t fall out, and off we trundle; our thin and sinewy driver negotiating both the bridge and the potholes. There are no headlights on a rickshaw, only a little oil lamp underneath to indicate its presence. It’s really quite amazing how the drivers manage to see where they are going and avoid other rickshaws! Needless to say the ride home is something of an adventure. On arrival at the Health Centre H. pays and I look on and wonder how on earth he can distinguish which notes to give the driver in the pitch black of night.

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But night turns to day and it is time for us to leave SUS and Netrakona and return home. Apart from smiling faces amidst hardship, unceasing generosity and open friendliness something that will remain in our memories is the unwillingness of the SUS staff to say “goodbye”. No, they say, we won’t say goodbye because it’s too “final”. Here we say AbAr dacha habe; “we’ll meet again”.

Helping hands across the world...

Quaker Service Sweden (Kväkarhjälpen) http://www.kvakare.se/kvakarhjalpen.shtml is a small, conscientious and effective service organisation where every single Swedish crown donated is sent to those in need. Everyone involved in Quaker Service Sweden’s fund-raising and project administration activities are volunteers. The organisation comes under the auspices of the Religious Society of Friends in Sweden and its financial accounts are audited by a qualified chartered accountant. As far as possible we try to secure support from SIDA (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), which enables us to send up to ten times the money collected from donors to the projects.

Bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest countries. Quaker Service Sweden (QSS) has been supporting Sabalamby Unnayan Samity (the Bengali equivalent of “organisation for self-help”) since 1994. SUS http://www.sabalamby.org/was founded in 1985 by a local teacher who, together with ten other like-minded people, was determined to create a better future for the country’s women and children. SUS is based in north-east Bangladesh, in the district of Netrakona, a rural area of around 2.4 million inhabitants. To date SUS been able to establish self-help projects in about 45 % of the district.

One of Quaker Service Sweden’s first initiatives was to help SUS to build a Model Farm to provide local training in organic cultivation, compost-making and the production of domestic gas from manure. A heritage seed bank has also been created for the collection of hardy rice varieties and other crops for demonstration and distribution purposes. The project has now expanded to include training in aquaculture (‘paddy-cum-fish’ farming).

QSS has continued to support SUS’ work with extremely poor people in the different villages. This work is based on an integrated approach that includes the provision of basic education, helping the poor to become economically self-supporting by means of micro-finance, organising training courses to prevent violence against women and to create better relations between the sexes, providing training to help combat disease, providing pre-natal and post-natal care, educating women about health issues, and organising human rights groups and training. SUS has also built a hospital for the very poor and a sheltered home for vulnerable and battered women.

At the beginning of 2008 Tofte and I visited SUS in Netrakona and the projects that QSS supports. The following diary extracts posted above some of our experiences.