An unexpected summer experience! By Sara Simson, Poverty Activist teacher at CICD My first experience as a Development Instructor (DI) teacher in CICD has been unusual; due to the pandemic my team and I, as all the rest of the world, were really affected by it. Our program had to change and we needed to readapt our life and activities to it. It wasn`t easy for any of us, but together we organised a new routine. Adapting to another daily life As everything else in the program, even the date of the travel to Africa had to change. The start...

Hey! My name is Tomás Cunha, I’m 25 years old and come from Portugal. I’m the current responsible for the garden here at CICD. I first arrived at this college almost 9 months ago. I had just finished my masters in Evolutionary Biology back in Lisbon. After several years of studies, I knew I wanted to experience something different from my reality until then. Something that pushed me a bit away from the course of actions I was taking. I needed to learn more about the world and also about me and what I want. I lived a quite privileged...

  Introducing: Humana People to People progress report 2019! Humana People to People is a network of development organisations on 5 continents, in 45 countries and involving 12 million people on a daily basis – working together to create better health, education and living conditions. Humana People to People has been in action for more than 40 years and in spite of the Covid pandemic, they are certainly not “on hold” - but are providing communities and schools with Covid19 support: information, advice, food, access to water and soap, production of face masks - in their work all over the...

The PeaceJustice Conference This conference is organised every spring in Denmark, by our sister schools DNS Tvind and DRH Lindersvold. This year, it was of course online....and we were around 100 people participating – small groups in several schools in Norway, Denmark and England and also participants in many other parts of the world. It was a very inspiring event – and the high light was a lecture: "The new world rises in the East" by Jan Oberg - author, peace researcher and photographer. He held an exciting lecture, presenting his visions for what we can expect to happen in...

Solidarity - not charity! Joe Solo is an award-winning musician, writer, poet, activist, broadcaster and washing machine engineer from Scarborough in north-east England. Together with Pauline Town and many other activists and musicians, Joe Solo runs the We Shall Overcome (WSO) movement. He uses his skills as a musician and song writer to raise much needed funds as well as spirits, all around the country. The aim is to support people living in poverty, who ended up homeless and need a helping hand to get back on their feet. “The Station Hotel”, a pub in Ashton under Lyne in Manchester run...

About the course “The Effects of Industrial Farming” This course is part of the curriculum for the Development Instructor teams, so they can gain a better understanding of the reasons for the huge economic inequality in the world today and why billions of people are living in such poverty – in spite of all the existing resources. After studying The Effects of Industrial Farming it was clear to us that some of the effects of industrial farming are: Rupture of the generational transmission of knowledge of uses and customs of natural resources and good practices. This makes us lose the...

About the course “Wars and Pollution” The consequences of the military on our environment are significant. How come that the huge military complex, that use a big part of state budgets and consume enormous amounts of oil and other resources, are not made to take their responsibility in cutting down to fight the Climate Crisis? To learn about this is one part of understanding the reasons for the Climate Crisis and the imbalance of our world.... My comments to the course “Wars and Pollution” By Iasmin Maionchi from Brazil, Development Volunteer 10 month February team 2020 Today we have studied...

Studies and workshops in our lock down CICD Hello, my name is Mel and I am a teacher at CICD. Today I write to tell you a bit about the past weeks and how we managed to continue with the programmes even in times of Covid-19. Let me tell you about how we rearranged the daily life in the safest way possible. At CICD we were around 30 people a month ago. We changed the whole set up of the school by dividing into 3 groups. 9 Development Instructors (DI-s) plus + 2 teachers are now living in Malawi building...

By Alvaro Valdebenito Sanhueza, Development Volunteer August team 2020 As well explained by the philosopher from Spain, Paul B. Preciado, in his last article about the relation between Coronavirus and bio-politics: “The politics of one country can be defined by the way that they confront a pandemic” - and we can see the real face of many governments: the sacrifice of the working class. The sacrifice has existed since many years and though it has been in connection with the religion, it has always been a political decision. To decide who dies and who lives facing a threat is political....

From Vasile Nutescu, garden farming responsible: Hi, my name is Vasile and I am from Romania and I want to talk about gardening, organic gardening. Why organic? Because it’s healthy. Because in order to have good and healthy food we DON’T need chemicals. I come from a small village in north of Romania. It’s an area where even now days most of the agriculture and gardening are made organically and traditionally. I grew up with gardening and I learned what I know that way. Throughout the years I also worked in industrial agriculture so I also have an understanding of...

In this time of the Covid 19 pandemic, we feel privileged here at CICD. We live as a small community in a safe and rural place with lots of space, indoors as well as outdoors. The park surrounding the school is big enough for all to spread out in. To minimize infection risk, we have organised ourselves into 3 separate groups that don't interact with each other and always keep the social distance: 1) The DI group (Volunteers in training + teachers) 2) The Gaia group (the scholarship team + teacher) and 3) The Others (us who are not in...

Dear friend.     In the time of this Covid19 pandemic, we are healthy and safe here at the College in rural East Riding of Yorkshire. We are doing all we can to adapt to the situation, to keep safe and take good care of each other and the people around us. While dealing with the situation here in England and how the virus affects our lives in this part of the world, it is also important to keep the perspective. We need to remember that while it is problematic and causes interruptions for us, we actually have good possibilities...

I remember the first day they told me that I would have to drive on the different side in the car. A challenge was presented and I overcame. And then came the next challenge: driving the van. Same as the car but with a few more meters of metal sheets. I was accompanied during the first few days and then I did it by myself. Satisfactorily I finished my four months of driving in the clothes collection. Good days and bad days! As I highlight freedom, enjoying your own company, being able to leave...

In the end of January our Poverty Activist team is travelling to join DAPP Zambia for 6 months as volunteers - in the ZAMFAM (Zambian Families) projects run by our partner DAPP (Development Aid for People to People) and prevention of malaria and diarrhoea, and in a boarding school for young adults in Nakambala. Before they left they wrote down some thoughts and expectations - and some advice! -  to share with you, while getting ready to continue on this new and fantastic experience....   Carla Barrado, Spain Hello World. I am Spanish and I am 24 years old. I...

Alvaro from Chile , volunteer in CICD-s 10 month August team 2019, shares his first impressions from living and volunteering in Amalika Teachers Training college & Pre-school project, run by DAPP Malawi - in "the Warm Heart of Africa"....and he reflects on the new perspective he got on his life until now. My first Impressions of Malawi We have ...

By Alvaro Valdebenito Sanhueza, Chile 10 month Development Volunteer team, August 2019 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 vegeta...

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...