By Alvaro Valdebenito Sanhueza, Chile 10 month Development Volunteer team The environmental struggle It has been a custom to think that the struggle about climate change is related with a couple of environmentalist hippies or a small groups of eccentric young people that want to get attention with their new style of life, as the vegetarianism or th...

During the last days, the people of Chile have mobilised in the face of the perceived injustices in the conditions that exist to live in the country, considering that the state is not guaranteeing their basic rights even when Chile is considered one of the richest country in Latin America. Last Friday, the underground subway increased its price by ...

By Juan Manuel (Pampa), Cristiana and Juan Arrellano, August 2018 Poverty Activist team About Mumena Child Aid and Agriculture production DAPP started the operation in Mumena in 1987, implementing a project related with youth development and production centre. Currently there are coexisting two different projects of DAPP: the agriculture production project and Child Aid Mumena. The project in Mumena is working in 8 of the 10 lines of the Child Aid projects. Some of the main activities that DAPP is developing are: supporting many families organised in Village Action Groups and youth clubs, working with 14 community preschools and 10...

From Oxana Morari, Paola Gomez, Solveig Niitra / Poverty Activist team February 2019 After a long travel, we finally set foot in Mozambique. We were taken to the ADPP (Humana People to People in Mozambique) Headquarters, where we received a warm welcome from the whole ADPP team. The two following days were spent participating in the building weekend, where our team of three worked together with EPF Maputo. It was then when we started to get a sense of what these next six months are going to be like for us. These were the days we spent with virtually no...

Our Poverty Activist team is about to leave to their 6 months service period in Mozambique !! It is a time of emotions and satisfaction feeling! In their 5 months of training they got to know better their team mates with whom they will go to the project. At this moment there are 3 teams, 1 trio and 2 duos, ready to start their service period with all the achievements they have got. One trio is going to work in DNS Macuze, North Mozambique in Zambezia province. DNS Macuze started its activities in 2001 with the...

Our Climate Activist Team has arrived in India and being introduced to the people and the work. Yessi, Bea, Pablo and their teacher Miguel, have started to visit different projects run by Humana People to People India (HPPI) to work hand in hand with this organization that is the partner of CICD and a very nice host for our volunteers. This organisation has been working in India for more than 20 years, creating development through the implementation of the projects that aim at transferring knowledge, skills and capacity to individuals who need assistance; integrated projects in...

  Speech from Chrystal Awards in Davos, January 2019 “ Thank you, Professor Klaus Schwab, Hilde Schwab and the World Economic Forum for this generous award and inviting me to Davos. I am quite literally from another age. I was born during the Holocene- the name given to the 12,000-year period of climatic stability that allowed humans to settle, farm and create civilisations. Those conditions fostered our unique minds, giving rise to international trade in ideas as well as goods making us the globally-connected species we are today. Much of what will be discussed here is the consequence of that...

On Monday, eight people from the previous Gaia team became Development Instructors. I am the youngest of those eight. I am Solveig from Estonia and I recently turned twenty. I arrived here in the end of September and am now a part of the February Poverty Activist team. All of us have contrasting aims for coming to England, but mine is probably a bit different from my teammates. I feel like I am not as accomplished as the people in my team. I only finished high school last year and have not really started my life as an adult yet...

By Zsolt Gyarmati, Hungary, Fighting with The Poor 21 months programme Earlier I had a decent job in the capital of Hungary, I rented an apartment, had a car, had friends and all the “normal” stuff. However I wasn’t satisfied with my life. So I decided to change my life maybe not permanently, but entirely. I wanted to do something meaningful in this rushing and money-centered world. My goal now is to make other people’s life better. If I can make only one single life better, I will be really happy. So I decided to go on a journey and...

Hello Beautiful people, I am writing to you to let you know what CATs are doing in India. I will start with the 1st group - Svenja, Letizia and Alexandra – volunteering at Biogas Project in Dausa (Rajasthan) . Beside participating in the daily routines of the project such as visiting biogas plants and participating in the meetings with local communities and facing the language barrier, this group is also in charge of creating a simple step-by-step illustrated guidebook. This guidebook contains instructions of how to build a biogas plant, as well as information about the benefits of biogas, common...

We recently introduced our new green energy project at CICD Environmental Centre, in order to promote renewable energy in the school and also in nearby communities. Our world is on the edge of turmoil due to the limitless usage of fossil fuel, pesticides, and all sort of chemicals and waste as the final “product” of vast production. What can be possibly done to help Mother Nature carry this burden? We do organic gardening for instance; we are composting, recycling, planting trees around and customising our consumption. Further more our new green energy project has been...

Introduction My name is Roser Maura and I am from Spain. In 2017, I decided to become a Development Instructor (DI) and I joined CICD England in order to do the preparation period. I arrived in Zambia in August. After being in the NHQ (Ndola), and in Nakambala Approved School (Mazabuka), the plan was to go to Mumena Child Aid (Slowezi). However, we received a call suggesting that we had to change to Child Aid Nampundwe. That was my first and biggest shock, but now is the best that could have happened. The project and its implementation Child Aid Nampundwe...

By Margarita Barbeiro, Colombia I have heard that if Life takes something from you, it is because it has something bigger prepared on your way… and it is true. One of the biggest challenges that I have experienced this year was to be separated of my family in Colombia and it was incredible the way that my feelings to be far away from home were compensated in CICD this Christmas with a new and amazing experience. The day started with the preparation of the event with only 12 people in total, considering that most of...

By J. Paola Gomez Garzon, Spain I never thought that at the age of 28 I would live the best New Year’s eve of my life. 31st of December 2018, it was three month and 9 days since I arrived to a very special place in the north of England, CICD (College for International Co-operation and Development). Leaving a life of comfort behind, I enlisted to a life changing project to Africa. Everything starts at CICD living in a community, getting to meet new people, new stories and new experiences and sharing mine with them too. So far the Gaia...

By Idoia Gaston, August team 2018 The man in front of the wall I wanted to spend the last morning before coming back to England taking more pictures inside the camp, going around and speaking with people in Aida Camp. I went one more time near the wall and while I was reading one of the stories written there, I turned my head and I saw one man sitting on his chair who invited me to sit next to him, in his small mechanical workshop. Mohammed was born in Bethlehem and his business was really good before the construction of...

By Diego Dusetti, from investigation trip with his team, October 2018 (picture credit: www.snipview.com ) This is the map of how Israel has been taking land from Palestine. As you can see from 1946 to 2000 the Palestinian area has been reducing a lot: everything started when a small group of Jewish people who went to Palestine for few days with the excuse to visit the country; they were staying in a Hotel that they never left. After them, soldiers started to come with the goal of colonizing the country. Since that moment until now, different conflicts have been happening...

3 of us from CICD went to Denmark to participate in the conference at DRH Lindersvold, our sister school. We arrived at Copenhagen Airport with high expectations and enthusiasm. As we (Alessia - 3 months Climate Activist Team (CAT), Vasile - 5 months Climate Activist Team, Tamas - Teacher of 3 months CAT) were picked up and taken to the school, it was clear we could look forward to a really busy and fruitful weekend. The program started on Saturday morning with Gert Tjoelker’s welcome speech. He greeted all the participants from CICD UK, Norway school, DNS Tvind, DRH Lindersvold,...

Melisa is from Argentina and before coming to CICD she has worked with an insurance company, has a degree in tourism and did temporary work at the weekends. Here is the interview we had with her after she returned with her team from India. About the start and the first steps in the programme: I joined CICD in November 2017 and was a Gaia student at first. In May 2018 my Climate Activist Programme (CAT) started. There have been three main reasons why I joined the programme: At first, I felt the need to change my routines. Secondly, the programme...

On the 24th of September we had the possibility to visit Siemens Gamesa at their training centre in Hull. All this was made possible by Allan and Britta who are working with the Tvind Wind Mill in the Danish town Ulfborg, which was built by volunteers in the 1970’s as the then world’s biggest wind mill . More about the Tvind Wind Mill and its’ relation to Siemens can be read here https://www.tvindkraft.dk/en/a-trailblazing-windmill/the-tvind-windmill-showed-the-way.html Also listen to this https://soundcloud.com/cicd/building-the-biggest-windmill-in-the-world podcast in which our Headmistress Karen who has been one of the volunteers building the Tvindmill speaks about it) While in the...

Hi!!! My name is Jorge Barriga and I’m from Portugal. A little more than 2 years ago I took a really new step in my life. I’m an outgoing person who always liked to meet new people, cultures, travel, teamwork, learn, do and experience new things, help others and making people around me happy… So when I finished my degree in International Relations I was looking for a job but the job interviews I was having were for things that I actually wouldn’t like to be doing and I also felt I didn’t want to take the “normal” path and...