Few weeks ago, during our travel period, I faced difficulties which potentially could mean a disaster, but because of a huge support from my school, my colleagues and African people, everything resulted into just a bit spicy trip. I'd love to share this story with you.     Everything begun with a stupid stupid idea in Namibia. We have traveled from Johannesburg, South Africa, by bus to Windhoek, Namibia. By my birth outside the EU, I happen to have two nationalities, Czech and Russian, and I decided to use my Czech passport in South Africa, then switch to Russian passport...

During the last 20 days we have been in Children’s Town in Costa do Sol, Mozambique. Many things have happened during this time. We had Christmas celebration, New Year’s celebration and a Peace Boat visit. I will tell you more about our time here and about Children’s Town itself… Children's Town has almost 40 children from 8 to 18 years old who live there. Most of them are orphans. In Children’s Town there is a school for the Children’s Town kids and also for the children from the community around. The school is from 1st to 7th grade. The 24th...

Today we spoke with one of our good friends, Boyd Basuti, who is an entrepreneur, drama director and leader of a youth artistic group in Phikwe, Botswana. He and another friend from Phikwe were telling us about the safety situation in Botswana. Botswana is one of the safest countries in southern Africa. The firearms are mainly allowed only for the military; even the police uses guns very rarely. And even though there is no armed police, the crime rates are really low. Boyd explains that it's because of the culture of the people – when they hear shots, the first...

The “Zamfam Project” (Zambian Family Project) is a recent project being implemented by Development Aid from People to People  (DAPP), together with "Creative", "Kafhi" and "NZPT", with funds and technical support from the American People through USAID.    The aim of this project is to improve the quality of the people's life, in the villages, in communities ….and especially for the children. For example by supporting, protecting and reinforcing the importance of basic hygiene and health conditions for a better and more dignified life. In this project several points are fundamental: To make communities aware of the importance of latrines,...

This is a very weird feeling that we are having, returning to CICD. It’s like nothing changed since we left in May but, at the same time, it’s completely different. There are new people, new students, new teams, same spirit, same habits and same routine and same people also. Since the moment we came back we felt comfortable here, we know all the spaces and all the responsibilities and tasks that came with CICD life. We also feel that we are different, something as changed during our period in Namibia. We still don’t know exactly what but, in fact, there...

It took us 49 hours to arrive to DAPP school in Outapi from Johannesburg. Now, 8 days later, we depart from Oshakati, in a 2 days travel to Botswana. It was not a long time but it was enough to have strong impressions and some conclusions for our “Woman and Children conditions and status” investigation. Here in the North we could see a bit of the Namibian reality. We saw the colors of the country, the smiles, the open arms and also the poverty, the sad side of all, the darkness. It is a quite desert area, here in the...

On the 9 th of October 2014, I stepped into the unknown as I arrived in CICD. I had my ideas of what the experience would bring, my doubts, hesitations and hopes. During my stay here, all those things I brought with me in my mind were turned upside down and sideways for good measure. Today is the 11 th of November 2016 so I have spent here just over 2 years, in the midst of the Yorkshire fields and strange but wonderful international people. When I first stepped foot into CICD I was honestly quite terrified. I had left...

When your study & preparation period begins, you will start to study some interesting subject like the Contemporary World, Health, The Rich and the Poor, Expressive Arts, and more. Most of this knowledge that you will receive you will put in practise during the 6 months project-period in Africa or India. As a DI (Development Instructor) I was working in a SAARAI PROJECT – a project for family planning. Here I needed to be able to talk about the importance of planning your family, able to talk about contraceptive methods and some of the diseases that you can get if...

Hello! I’m Ryma, a DI from the 18 months program.  The project that I chose was Child Aid Chibombo. I chose this project because we can work in many areas like pre-schools, clinics, agriculture, Women’s club, Youth club…there is always something to do in the communities. Me and my team felt really welcome in the communities and in the projects,  we felt like with family. We learned a lot from them, especially things from daily life that we never realized - for example how to repair a bicycle in a very easy way. How simple things can become so important...

Humana People to People India NeTT Ujjain Report of Climate Activist Team College for International Co-operation and Development, UK   From 17 to 21 of September of 2016 We arrive around midday in New Delhi, after we took a taxi to NHQ where we receive a good welcome from Cristina (Project Leader), Louise and some workers from HPPI. After Cristina invited us to her house to take some food and rest a little bit. After we take a walk around and we met IDIs from Norway School who guide us to the IDIs apartment where we stayed a couple of...

Hello from Danail . After six months Gaia period , (in which I had many unforgettable moments) I was super excited. The feeling was strange, but in the best sense. In the upcoming five months in which I will enrich my knowledge about issues which are interesting for me: -where the problems in modern society come from; -how to solve them; -how to overcome poverty; -how to protect our planet and the wildlife in it. All these issues need addressing. I cannot tell you everything that happened in those five days, as I fear that might be boring for you,...

Hi everyone, Marje and Kevin here again. If you haven’t yet, check out our experience in Zambia, where we were for 6 months, working in the National Headquarters of DAPP. You can also read our complete report for the entire project period. Anyway, to get back on track. We recently travelled to Italy for the first part of our journal period a.k.a, bringing it to the public. During the journal period your aim is to take your experience at the projects to as many interested people as possible. To do that we decided to travel to Italy and hold 3...

  My story and I at CICD My name is David Christian, from Rochdale near Manchester. I was a DI at CICD – the 14 months DI programme in March 2011. My project was at One World University in Mozambique, where my main tasks were the library, promotion and teaching English. My first experience in a developing country; the challenges were motivating the students, communicating in Portuguese, plus coping with the lack of running water, electricity and the comfort of my old life. This is what I wanted, to change myself in this aspect; no longer remaining in my comfort...

My name is Maryssol and to talk about the six months in Zambia is a challenging thing to do, both the bad and good things that happened are going to stay with me forever. I think going to Zambia as a volunteer it was one of my best experiences until now and I just loved it. I thought that as I was born in a poor African country (Cape Verde) I was ready for anything when it comes to the challenges of Africa. But for sure I was wrong. I confess that in the beginning it was hard to be...

The 7th-8th May we had the monthly Gaia Study Weekend in our school. During this period, the subject that all the Gaia’s were working with was: “Why can’t people just agree to make a better world?”. To work with this question we split the class in 5 groups and we tried to focus our presentations on “What are the most important factors that are the hindrances for people to joining hands? ”. After sharing our opinion with the rest of the students, we established 5 factors as the most influencial factors in our society: Money Greed Comfort Education Fear In...

Peace Conference was a 3 day event, which took place from 29th of April till 1st of May in Tvind campus, nearby a town called Ulfborg, Denmark. Around 50 volunteers from various countries in Europe gathered to make it happen during a 3-day long Preparation Camp. Around 350 people attended the event as both participants and guests. Tvind is a place where a windmill (Tvindkraft) was built by students and teachers between 1974 – 1978 as a sign of protest against nuclear power. Students and volunteers from CICD had the pleasure and responsability to take part in the Preparation Camp...

2 years ago I was starting the journey that changed my life! 2 years ago I left my house, my hometown, my country, my family, my first Love, my very first tribe... 2 years ago I started to choose my own path, in my own way... During 7 months I met extraordinary people, inspiring, strong, crazy international volunteers. During that time I met community life and adapted myself to it. was not very easy, I have always been very stuborn, but my new tribe made me grab The Dream so so strongly that the next 6 months were with Africa...

Building a team is much like building a house. You need good support for the house/team to stand strong, strong walls/companions to help you stay warm in even the coldest situations, windows for light/fun and many other things. That is why a team has to be built slowly and with great care. If you just throw all of these things together you will not get a house, but a pile of rubble. A house/ team built too fast and carelessly will fall and collapse. But if you go slow and put the pieces together brick by brick, you can build...

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land. The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine. If you add together all the people who gathered over the past weekend to demand justice in Israel and Palestine – in Cape Town, Washington, D.C., New York, New Delhi, London, Dublin...

The world today is facing a deep crisis. Yet at the same time, the neo liberal growth model is still presented as the only possible option. The Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos exposes the myth and made it his life’s mission to build an epistemology of alternatives. "It’s time to open the doors and windows of our universities and let the wind of alternative knowledge blow through", says de Sousa. Boaventura de Sousa Santosis is a monument in the social sciences. He is head of department of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, but spends most of the...