SRI LANKA - STREET CHILDREN

Katie Schenk and Judy Sender have just visited Tzedek’s newest project in Sri Lanka where we are working with street children and their families.

Although Tzedek’s Overseas Project Group establishes close contacts with all Tzedek-funded projects, it’s not often that Group members get the opportunity to visit and experience at first hand the work that we support.

While travelling through Sri Lanka, we paid a visit to the Borella Day Centre which had been set up to assist Colombo’s street children and their families.

Tzedek is funding this project in partnership with the UK based charity HOPE for Children and, at a local level, with Sarvodaya - the largest Non-Governmental People’s Development Movement in Sri Lanka.

We were taken to the Centre by Sarvodaya’s staff Tyrell Cooray and Cyril Ratnasekere.

The Centre offers a range of services and facilities for up to 50 families who live on the streets.

The Centre has a pre-school, women’s income-generation programme and a teenage education and skills project. In addition the Centre manages a housing scheme. All the Centre’s members are provided with a full and nutritious meal each day and those who need have their travel expenses met.


The Pre-School

The pre-school has 36 children, although attendance on the day of our visit was low due to the heavy monsoon rains. It is staffed by one teacher who has 2 assistants.

The children, aged from 3 months to 5 years, were engaged in various activities including drawing on blackboards, singing and playing with rattles and beanbags. Toys and wall displays had been provided by donor organisations including the Women’s Institute (UK) and a Canadian NGO.

The atmosphere was lively, the children were playful and the staff were skilled and enthusiastic.

Women’s income-generation

The women’s income-generation programme provides members with a small interest-free loan of 3000-6000 Rs (approximately £20-40) to enable them to purchase raw materials. It also provides them with the use of equipment such as a sewing machine.

Of the three women that we met, one was sewing children’s clothes, another was embroidering children’s clothes, and a third was making wicks for oil lamps using a spinning wheel. Finished goods can then be sold for a small profit in nearby street markets, enabling the women to repay their loans and attain a degree of independence.

Teenage skills project

We were also shown the teenage skills project. Eight boys were enrolled on a one year course and when we visited were occupied in welding, sawing, drilling and other metalwork activities under the supervision of an instructor.

These boys had had various educational backgrounds but all shared the common story of living on the streets. The class showed us some of the finished goods that they had made, including newspaper racks and crockery stands.

The aim of the course is to provide the students with appropriate skills to set up their own businesses or to find employment. Tyrell acknowledged that this remains the Centre’s challenge and said that the boys needed training in business administration to complement their practical skills.

Housing Scheme

The centre also manages a housing scheme under which street families are housed for one year in small one-room slum houses.

With their rent paid up for the year the families have an opportunity to find employment and save money. After the initial assistance, the families are then responsible for covering their own rent.
The houses have access to basic sanitation and represent a huge improvement on life on the streets.

We had an informative and enjoyable visit to the centre and were very impressed by the good work of the Borella Centre.

We are both pleased that Tzedek will continue to work with HOPE for Children supporting their valuable work with street children and their families.

Judy Sender is a former Tzedek volunteer in Zimbabwe (1996) and has just returned from New Zealand where she has been working as a doctor.

Katie Schenk is a former Tzedek volunteer in Zimbabwe (1995 & 1996) and a Trustee of Tzedek. She is currently working for an international HIV/AIDS NGO in Washington DC.

Sri Lanka
Stats File

Total population: 19 million
Infant mortality: 17 per 1000
GNI per Capita: $820
Adult literacy: male 94%, women 89%

Source: http://www.unicef.org/statis/Country_1Page157.html



HIGHEST FORM OF CHARITY!

Ed Ross provides an update on Tzedek’s work in Nepal.

The programmes and activities of the Nepalese Small Farmers Co-operative Limited (SFCL), which Tzedek supports through its grant making programme, have been described as a ‘model for national replication’ by the General Manager of the Agricultural Development Bank in Kathmandu in Nepal, Mr D P Shah.

Working in partnership with the UK based development agency Ashram International the programme aimed to secure employment opportunities, improve housing conditions and empower women.

The capital components of the programme were a milk-chilling plant and a community hall. The milk-chilling plant now employs 10 permanent and 20 seasonal staff while the community hall provides both for income-generating training activities and educational, especially women’s literacy, programmes.

The housing aspect of the programme was based on a self-build paradigm linked to a micro-finance savings and credit scheme which enabled builders to secure materials and, where required, expertise. It also allowed some occupants to extend their premises to accommodate income-generating activities. Programme participants have manufactured sun-dried bricks, grown vegetables and set up a doughnut bakery. In this first phase 30 houses have been refurbished.

SFCL are responsible for the recovery of loans. In the first phase there was a zero default rate in repayment.

The project’s viability and success was in part dependent on local infrastructure. This was to ensure milk could be collected and distributed and that housing materials could be transported economically. Members of the SFCL committed themselves to ensuring the principal access routes were in a serviceable condition and they raised the funds, and contributed labour, in order to achieve this.

The success of this project assures Tzedek that its joint agency approach to support for grass-roots organisations can prove most productive. The achievements of the SFCL have been against a backdrop of growing national instability. Oxfam report that Maoist insurgents pose a threat to the country’s constitutional monarchy and its associated feudal order. At the same time the Department for International Development attributes the country’s poverty (over half the population live on less than $1 per day) to poor governance.

Tzedek will continue to work with Ashram International in Nepal. SFCL have proposed the extension of the micro-financed self-build housing scheme in addition to the establishment of a programme to train local women in tailoring skills and Tzedek will assist these programmes.

Sources:

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/publish/profiles.htm

http://www.dfid.gov.uk/

Ed Ross is an internationally-based systems consultant and member of Tzedek’s Overseas Projects Group.


NAIROBI SLUMS - LIVING NIGHTMARE
Natalie Marx gives an account of her experiences as a Tzedek volunteer in Nairobi’s slums.

The Kibera slums in Nairobi are home to some of Kenya’s desperate victims. Victims of the third world, desperate to sample clean water, a rooftop or some shoes...desperate to awaken from a living nightmare.

No amount of research could have prepared me for the next seven weeks. I was entering a ghetto that stretched as far as the eye could see - corrugated iron roofs, mud houses and the unbearable smell of human faeces. But this was home to 1.7 million people and I could not bring myself to watch every step I took or spend all day pinching my nose. By the end of my first day I was filthy.

I was introduced to a girl named Mercy and her small son Vincent. She was twenty one (like me), lived in the slums and worked at its small medical centre to earn enough for a bag of rice each week. I was instructed to stay with Mercy for my safety as I would no doubt be the only white person there, except for a foreign TV crew or some radio journalists.

My relationship with Mercy quickly stumbled as she straight away begged me for money. She needed clothes for Vincent and said they had not eaten for three days. For my own safety I had to refuse and deny that I was carrying any money. She was desperate and her appeal highly emotional. Mercy said that she had to beg to survive and that when this failed she was forced to steal. She was uneducated, barely literate and if I reported her she would face the sack and starvation. Her pleas were impossible to ignore. I gave her what emotional support I could and offered her literacy lessons.

I was working in one of the slum’s two medical centres. This ‘centre’ is one room with a curtain dividing the treatment area from the reception. Slum residents can work here after taking a short course which enables them to carry out the important AIDS test. The struggle to emphasise the importance of an AIDS test is a battle in itself, so those that did come to the centre were often in the later stages of the disease.

I took the course and began the testing. The test is quick, low-tech and cheap. Blood drawn from the forefinger is tested for the HIV virus and results are available in 15 minutes. But the test is only 67% reliable and, despite repeating the test, sceptical patients would sometimes leave unconvinced that they had the HIV virus. The centre issued me with a sheet of paper that had five check points to discuss about essential precautions patients were to take if the test result was positive.

There was a treatment, given free of charge, for positive patients. They were given a drug called Tai Bow - donated by the USA being trialed for two years in Kenya to determine its effectiveness. It was the only medicine they could take as the anti retro viral drugs were prohibitively expensive. But Tai Bow has serious side effects including severe diarrhoea, loss of appetite, terrible itching all over the body and aching joints.

But many of the centre’s patients were too sick to leave their homes. Mine and Mercy’s afternoons involved four or five home visits treating the infected and affected. While the morning testing was challenging, my afternoons were shocking.

Navigating our way through the filth and faeces deep into the slum we met Miriam. There she beckoned us to enter her windowless, corrugated roofed, four by four mud room. In the dark I could make out a frail figure shifting uneasily to a cardboard box in order to offer me her only chair. Mercy interpreted and explained for me. Miriam was a member of PLWA -People Living With AIDS - those that had publicly admitted to having AIDS. Mercy told me that this was rare as most wanted to keep their status quiet, fearing the community’s ignorance and prejudice.

Despite Miriam’s coughing and itching, she told us of her experience. She had had seven children, her husband died a year ago and three of her children had AIDS. None of her children attended school as it was too expensive and her main worry was how she was going to pay the rent.

Miriam had a small business. She sat at the busiest stretch of track in the slums and sold corn. Her children collected corn in the morning and Miram roasted it with a home made coal burning stove. But her business was suffering. Ever since she joined PLWA the community had stopped buying from her - falsely believing they could catch the virus this way.

Miram had enough tea for breakfast and dinner, but only if her children missed lunch, and not enough for the rest of the week. She begged me for a solution. She told Mercy that ‘white girl must help, I am so very worried’.

I was grateful for the dark as tears welled up in my eyes. Miriam told us of her eldest daughter. She was deaf and dumb and had AIDS. She had just run away. Miriam was worried for her daughter and for the people she might be infecting. I tried to compose myself, attempted to console Miriam and realised that any effort to comfort her would not help. I massaged her aching joints, kindly declined the scarce tea she insisted I share and told her of my admiration for such an exceptional person placed in such desolate and devastating circumstances. We left Miriam and went to the next home to talk, listen, share tea and witness another unforgettable nightmare. For some we were the only visitors for days.

You might wonder why anyone would choose to work in such a living nightmare. How could my lack of experience, training or money make any difference to the desperate poverty and disease in Kibera?

This is what Tzedek believes in, that every little bit counts. I may have taught forty youngsters about safe sex, spoken to a handful of expectant women concerning AIDS and breastfeeding, helped a dying man live for an extra week. Each of these counts.
For every one of the lives I was able to touch, there were hundreds more who taught me so much. Perhaps this experience was in part a selfish one - because the images I have and lessons learnt, are ones that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

In every single victim I met was an unbelievable fight, a faith in God and a determination to live. I would counsel everyone that can to do as I have - give to, and learn from, all those whom I was so privileged to have met. They should not have to continue their struggle alone.

Natalie Marx is studying Complementary Medicine at the University of Manchester. Natalie has recently researched the feasibility of a volunteer programme in Ghana.


AIDS ORPHANS AND SONY PLAYSTATIONS
At the current rate a third of all African children will be orphaned by 2010.
Simon Brill considers the issue of AIDS orphans.

AIDS has become the greatest killer epidemic in modern history, and it may be the worst ever by the time it is brought under control.

The epidemic has had its most devastating effects in Southern Africa, disrupting the whole fabric of many countries’ societies by killing so many people of working age. For example, in Zimbabwe, six ministers of the 22 member cabinet are receiving treatment for AIDS, and President Mugabe has divulged that in the past few years at least three of his cabinet and several community leaders have died of AIDS related illnesses. In Zimbabwe alone, 2,000 people per week die of these diseases, and one in four adults is thought to be HIV positive (1).

There are currently fierce debates about the best strategy for coping with the epidemic. Until now this has been thought to be prevention of the disease by targeting poverty and education. Recently however, cheap Brazilian manufactured versions of anti retro viral drugs have, in a legal violation of patent laws sanctioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO), been endorsed (by the WHO) as effective therapy (2), although South Africa’s president Mbeki currently refuses to provide any government funding for treatment (3).

But one of the most pressing and difficult problems emerging from the crisis is the growing number of orphans.

This was originally viewed as a short term humanitarian disaster - a problem of re housing children who had lost their parents. However, the epidemic has been on such a scale that there simply is not the infrastructure to cope. 95% of all children orphaned by AIDS are in Africa and at the current rate a third of all African children will be orphaned by 2010.

The current view is that the psycho social needs of these children will not be met as they are deprived of the love and support offered by a family environment. There is a growing body of evidence that African orphans suffer horrendous psychological trauma, often stemming from seeing their parents succumb to disease, followed by cycles of isolation, poverty, and often sexual abuse. A whole generation growing up in these conditions is likely to create a hardened and bitter adult population which may further destabilise already weakened countries.

So what has been the response to the orphans? Originally there was a rush by non governmental organisations to build orphanages. But this was never going to be enough and the cost of maintaining a child in this form of care is far higher than in many others. In Zimbabwe, for example, fewer than 4,000 of the country’s estimated 800,000 orphans are accommodated in 45 registered institutions. Also, in African cultures, the construction of orphanages has been seen to undermine traditional models of care and spiritual connection to the family.
For these reasons, most of the orphans have so far been absorbed into extended family networks. Current aid work is now targeted at supporting these family networks so that this care can be continued.

However, resources are already scarce, and extra children are often an unsustainable burden for many of these adopting families.

Another problem is that school fees were introduced in many places at the end of the 1980’s recession when the World Bank restructured its loans to many Third World countries. This has placed a further burden on the extended families. Many children and particularly the orphans, have no access to schooling.

This is obviously devastating, as an education is an invaluable asset to escaping the cycle of poverty. A particularly shocking statistic released by UNICEF estimates that the money spent in the developed world on Sony Playstations, around $1.9bn per year, would be the annual cost of extending primary education to all children in Africa (4).

Sources:

1 From an article in the Irish Times: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/1123/wor14.htm

2 From a Guardian article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4345681,00.html

3 From a BBC News article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1807000/1807103.stm

4 Most of the material about orphans comes from a BMJ editorial by Neddy Rita Matshalaga: http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7331/185


Simon Brill is a third year medical student at Emmanuel College Cambridge.


AIDS: National information

Zambia has the second highest proportion of children orphaned by AIDS in the world (after Uganda). There were 500,000 AIDS orphans in 1999. The number of orphans is expected to double by the year 2010.

South Africa: the number of children orphaned by AIDS will reach 1 million by 2004. However, since almost one third of infants born to HIV positive mothers are infected many infants who are destined to be orphans will also be diagnosed with AIDS themselves.

In Zimbabwe over a third of a million children were orphaned by AIDS by the end of 1997 (7 per cent of all children under 15). By the year 2005 the government estimates there will be over 900,000 children under 15 who have been orphaned.

Source: http://orphans.fxb.org/inform/reports.html#factsheet

World AIDS/HIV stats 2001

Adult AIDS deaths 2.4 million

Child AIDS deaths 0.58 million

HIV/AIDS infected adults 37.2 million

HIV/AIDS infected children 2.7 million

AIDS orphans to date 13.2 million (to 2000)

Source: UNAIDS Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, "AIDS Epidemic Update December 2001" and "Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic June 2000" viewed at:
http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm



ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE?

Professor Jeremy Phillips takes an intergenerational look at Tzedek’s Tikkun Olam programmes

Children of the 1960s are special. We joke that, if you can actually remember the 60s, you couldn’t have been there. Be that as it may, we children of the 60s are not slow to share our memories of that celebrated era of love and peace, of flower power and the gradual emergence of a world in which the generation gap became a yawning chasm.

To children of the 21st century the 60s appear to be little more than a world of song titles turned emotive slogans, of the dubious parody of Austin Powers and England’s sole World Cup triumph. But those songs and catchphrases were signs that we cared deeply about our world and our place within it. “Can’t Buy Me Love” was our rejection of materialism for its own sake “All You Need is Love” was our anthem of collective tolerance and respect “Universal Soldier” was our rejection of militarism, “Easy Rider” our call to experience individual freedom and “Woodstock” our credo that the dissolution of social bonds did not result so much in the destruction of society as in an exciting new rebirth. When we visited San Francisco, we were of course sure to wear flowers in our hair — but what of our attitudes to the developing world? Many former colonies had recently become independent in our vocabulary they were “free” to do their own thing, despite their often tragically low standards of living. Since we had renounced our own coarse materialism, we had no difficulty identifying with the poverty of others which, many felt, was the source of spiritual strength. Indeed, it was easy to glamorise it.
India, in particular, was viewed as a vast reservoir of aids to heightened awareness and the achievement of ultimate power through personal control: meditation, asceticism and “instant karma” for the western visitor. There was however one major difference between the poverty embraced by the sixties lifestyle and that of the bulk of the Indian population: the one was voluntarily embraced while the other was not.

In retrospect, it seems that the 60s was a very western phenomenon. It changed, in particular, the lifestyle of Western Europe and the United States, but its impact on most of the world was superficial and ephemeral. Could this have been because, despite our idealism, we had so much to take, so little to give?

Some of us, as parents of recent Tzedek overseas volunteers, recognise that the best way to reach out to others is not merely through love, but through actually doing something. A theme that runs through the Ethics of the Fathers is that it is not what one knows, but what one does, that really counts. Tzedek’s programme of Tikkun Olam (repair of the world) demonstrates that, in terms of Jewish commitment, action speaks louder than words. We can be proud of the fact that our children’s ideals so clearly bear this out.

Jeremy Phillips is an Intellectual Property Consultant to solicitors Slaughter and May and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Laws of University College London.

Jeremy’s daughter, Chavi, is studying Law at Trinity Hall Cambridge and was a Tzedek overseas volunteer in Calcutta and West Bengal.



SUPPER QUIZ GUEST OF HONOUR

Tzedek’s third annual supper quiz was a sell out. Held once again at the North Western Reform Synagogue, quiz organiser Maralyn Fraser said that all 18 tables sold within days of announcing the event and that half as many more tables could have been filled.

Guest of honour was Madhu Basu. Madhu is the General Secretary of the Economic Rural Development Society in West Bengal with whom Tzedek has been working for over two years. Madhu expressed his personal gratitude to Tzedek’s supporters and spoke about the success of the micro-credit and nursery education programmes currently being funded by Tzedek.


UNITED IN THEIR SUPPORT FOR TZEDEK

Both Ealing and Stanmore and Canons Park United Synagogues have chosen to support Tzedek’s activities. Ealing and Stanmore’s morning minyanim selected Tzedek to benefit from their Tzedakah collections.


LET THE HUNGRY FEED THEMSELVES!

Now it’s possible - you can celebrate a family simcha and do some good at the same time! Tzedek has teamed up with UKJAid to develop a fund raising project called Manna. By donating a small proportion of the costs of your simcha, Manna recommends 3% (but you can give more if you want!), the project will help to relieve hunger among some of the world’s most impoverished communities.

Clive Lawton, Tzedek’s Chair of Trustees, was upbeat about supporting Manna, ‘Knowing that we were supporting some of the world’s poorest only added to the pleasure of celebrating my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.’


PUTTING THEIR TRUST IN TZEDEK

Tzedek has made a successful appeal to private grant making trusts. Tzedek approached only those Trusts that had previously supported Jewish causes. Grants included sponsorship of Tzedek News and our overseas volunteer programme. Tzedek aims to maximise its direct charitable work and is grateful to two Trusts, that have chosen to remain anonymous, for their support of the appeal’s costs.



FUND RAISING GROUP - NEW MEMBERS WANTED

Tzedek’s Fund Raising Group secures Tzedek’s income.

The Group arranges up to five events each year to raise vital funds for our overseas projects.

If you would like to join Tzedek’s Fund Raising Group please call Maralyn Fraser on 020 8444 8971.

COMEDY FOR DEVELOPMENT

Tzedek supporters packed the Hampstead Comedy Club to raise funds for Tzedek’s overseas development projects. The night was compered by Ivor Dembina and the lineup included Milton Jones and Steve Gribbin. Comedy night organiser, Adrienne Banks, said that the evening had been enjoyed by Tzedek’s supporters and was a real benefit to its development projects.


TZEDEK - UPBEAT YEAR
Clive Lawton presents his annual review.

Tzedek has had an upbeat year.

Our overseas volunteer programme, now in its seventh year, was able to offer placements on two continents. We have appointed a new Volunteer Programmes Group to manage these and they are planning their expansion to new regions. We have funded poverty relief self-help development projects in new countries and new projects in regions where Tzedek has worked for many years. Tzedek has a new Trustee and our activities have been featured in a third school’s text book. Income for the year is above average and a considerable improvement on last year.

Many of these achievements are due to the dedicated work of our volunteers, organised into three sub-committees of the Trustees.

The Overseas Projects Group (OPG), under the excellent leadership of Claire Nacamuli, has blossomed, and continues to receive and evaluate applications for grant aid and monitor projects we have selected to support. The OPG is rigorous in both the identification of projects and in monitoring their progress. The OPG’s diligence ensures that donors can be fully confident that their money is efficiently and effectively spent.

The Income Generation Group (IGG), under Maralyn Fraser’s enthusiastic leadership, has continued to organise special fund-raising events and their efforts have borne important fruit. However, given the ever increasing demands for support, the responsibility shouldered by this small group is onerous. We are very eager to expand our base of fundraising groups by replicating the IGG, on a local basis, across the UK.

The third of our sub-committees represents perhaps the most exciting development of this last year. The new Volunteer Programmes Group, under the marvellous leadership of Bronya Gorney, has successfully organised placements with development projects in two regions for more volunteers than ever before. They are a responsible, dedicated and ambitious Group with plans to expand the programme to a third region in summer 2003. Their innovative Shabbaton orientation was a triumph and signalled a new creativity and resourcefulness.

Once again though, while I applaud the work of our activists, I am grateful for the support of a fine band of Trustees, particularly those who work so hard as link Trustee to our sub-committees, or who assume a specific field of responsibility for the charity. None of our work could, however, be achieved without Steve Derby, our Development Officer, who has been and continues to be perhaps the greatest asset that Tzedek can claim.

I make no apology for returning, at the end of my review, to fundraising - as I did last year. We need to raise more funds so that we can address just a few more of the obvious needs that our activists know so intimately. We are our brother’s, and our sister’s, keepers and, while we must not neglect our own needy in the Jewish world, as Jews we cannot ignore the very real needs among non-Jews. Our work is life-changing and our very title, Tzedek (Justice), makes it imperative that the work is done, and gives us no excuse not to do so.



Clive Lawton is Tzedek’s Chair of Trustees.


TZEDEK AT LIMMUD

Past Tzedek overseas volunteers were among those making presentations at Limmud, the community’s largest annual cultural and educational conference. Tzedek’s founder and current Trustee, Steve Miller, spoke about the values and aims of the volunteer programme while stressing how past participants had graduated to occupy key educational and overseas project evaluation roles. Past overseas volunteers Karin Shmueli and Fiona Hurst both spoke about the personal challenges they had faced, and the rewards they experienced, while working in Zimbabwe and India.

Tzedek also organised its annual rabbinic panel debate in which Rabbis Levi Lauer and Brian Fox participated. Chaired by Clive Lawton, the debate considered Jewish responsibilities to non-Jews and located the discussion in the context of Tzedek’s overseas development work.

Rabbi Lauer teaches at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and Rabbi Fox is the communal rabbi of the Menorah Reform Synagogue in Manchester.


COMMUNAL AWARD FOR TZEDEK NEWS

Tzedek News was runner up in the Best Non-Synagogue Newsletter category of the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ (BoD) communal magazine awards. First prize went to Essex Jewish News and third to Hamodia.

Prizes were awarded at the BoD annual Editors’ Seminar for Communal Magazines.

The seminar was opened with a keynote address by Ned Temko, the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, speaking on ‘Community Publications - Responsibilities and Opportunities’, who also taught a masterclass on editing magazines.
The BoD’s director of Community Issues, Marlena Schmool commented, ‘We are fortunate as a community to be served by such a high standard of publications and we congratulate all who maintain this regular effort.’

Clive Lawton, Tzedek’s Chair of Trustees, added ‘Our newsletter represents our commitment to communal education and maintaining links with our supporters - we are delighted to have had its value recognised.’



FROM TAMIL NADU TO LONDON
Tzedek’s Overseas Projects Group held a meeting with Jothi Ramalingam, Secretary of the Centre for Rural Systems and Development (CRSD), with whom Tzedek has worked in India for over five years. Jothi spoke about CRSD’s plans to expand the number of women’s self-help groups from 250 to 500 and the success of their micro-credit schemes. However, Jothi stressed how low levels of literacy still pose one of the greatest impediments to development especially among the dalit (formerly the untouchable) class.

FROM NEPAL TO LONDON

Members of both Tzedek and UKJAid were invited to meet and lunch with the Nepalese Ambassador to London, His Excellency Ambassador Dr Bahadur Basnyat. His Excellency spoke of his country’s poverty and the need for major investment including military training. He reflected on the limited achievements of the many aid agencies that had sponsored projects in Nepal and of the instability currently faced as a result of the ongoing Maoist insurgency. The lunch had been arranged by Sir Sigmund Sternberg.


NEW TRUSTEE

Tzedek has appointed Karin Shmueli as a Trustee. Karin took part in Tzedek’s volunteer programme in Zimbabwe in 1998. Since her return she has been a member of Tzedek’s Overseas Projects and Volunteer Programmes Groups. Karin, who is currently studying for a PhD at University College London, said, ‘I have been committed to Tzedek for several years and look forward to supporting its development as a Trustee’.


MIND THE GAP

Tzedek’s founder and current Trustee, Steve Miller, joined sixth form students of King Solomon High at their annual Gap Year Seminar where he made a presentation on Tzedek’s overseas volunteer programme. Steve explained that it was often what students did in their gap year that qualified and equipped them to take part in Tzedek’s programme that requires volunteers accept a great deal of responsibility with only the minimum of support.



WEB DEVELOPMENT GROUP

Tzedek has appointed a new Web Development Group to redesign Tzedek’s internet site. The site will include an electronic edition of Tzedek News and schools’ section. Peter Scholl, Tzedek’s Trustee advising the Group, commented, ‘This is an ambitious development that will support our educational activities and our overseas projects work. For some our website is the only means by which they will see our organisation.’


THE SCIENCE OF LEADERSHIP

Tzedek was invited to make a presentation about its work, and the roles for volunteers within its organisation, to graduates of the Adam Science Foundation Leadership Programme.

The Adam Science Foundation was established in 1992 to honour the memory of Adam Science, a young Jewish leader who died tragically in a car accident at the age of 27, with the aim of nurturing young Jewish leaders for the community. The course is currently managed by the UJIA Lifelong Learning Unit

Tzedek’s Development Officer, Steven Derby, joined representatives of Limmud, Jewish Care, Young UJIA and the United Synagogue describing the work and responsibilities of Tzedek’s Trustees, Overseas Projects Group, Volunteer Programmes Group, Income Generation Group and new Web Development Group.

Steven argued that Tzedek’s work was driven by volunteers and that the organisation’s culture and structure supported their activists ensuring that each volunteer could contribute directly to Tzedek’s achievements.


TZEDEK IN THE NEWS

Tzedek’s volunteer programme was news at http://www.jewishfamily.com and included quotes from Steve Miller (Tzedek’s founder and current Trustee) and Rabbi Jeremy Rosen of Yakar in Hendon. The article, by Lisa Alcalay Klug, included quotes from former volunteers Tamara Glassman, Bracha Zornberg and Lisa Coren.

The programme also got a mention in the Jerusalem Post of 5th November 2001in a column on ‘World Wide Repair’.

London Jewish News (LJN) of 25th January 2002 published a photograph of Bronya Gorney and Chavi Phillips wearing saris while working in Calcutta and West Bengal as Tzedek overseas volunteers.
The Jewish Chronicle (JC) of 24th May covered Tzedek’s presentation at Oxford University’s J-Soc’s Social Action Shabbaton. Former volunteers Jon Daniels and Bronya Gorney spoke alongside the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev Richard Harries. Nathan Lyons of Mansfield College said that he had been ‘inspired by the idea of taking part in Tzedek.’

The JC of June 7th included a short item on Edgware Reform Synagogue’s annual lecture in memory of Michael Leigh, its late Rabbi, which was given by Clive Lawton, described as Tzedek’s Director (sic).

The JC of 21st June covered the cancellation of Tzedek’s volunteer programme in India, following the UK Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice to British Nationals not to travel there, under the heading ‘Passage From India’.

Between June and August LJN hosted an exchange of views on the merits of Aish’s trek in Africa as compared to Tzedek’s volunteer programme. Aish asked whether trips to the continent rendered Africa into a post-colonial ‘white man’s playground’.

LJN (July 19th) also covered the volunteer programme taking place in Nairobi quoting Clive Lawton as saying, ‘participants often find themselves working in very difficult circumstances. Volunteers have to accept a great deal of responsibility with the minimum of support.’

LETTERS


IN PRAISE OF TZEDEK NEWS

Congratulations on your Board of Deputies Communal Magazine award .

I thought you might like to know why I nominated Tzedek News and was supported by the rest of the panel of judges. Of course I thought I knew what Tzedek was all about (vaguely), but how wrong I was!

When I read Tzedek News, as I did from cover to cover, I realised that what you had done for me was to explain, very succinctly and very clearly, just what Tzedek was all about.

That is exactly what such a newsletter sets out to do, and seldom succeeds in, in my experience.

I am sure you will continue the excellent work.

With best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

Larry Ross
Chair of Communal Magazine Awards Committee
Board of Deputies


MORE PRAISE OF
TZEDEK NEWS!

I received your newsletter. It’s better than most (if not all) of the genre.

Yours sincerely

Gerald Rothman
Non-executive director
Canary Wharf Group plc


GONE GLOBAL

I just wanted to say wow. It’s amazing to see Tzedek web-ized with pages on the volunteer programme! It looks great. Well done.

Jonny Persey
APT Film and Television, London


PUTTING THE FUN IN FUNDRAISING

The comedy night was a great evening and thoroughly enjoyable...a credit to Tzedek’s Income Generation Group. Well done once again. I look forward to more such events.

Mark Rothfield
London


INCREDIBLE!

We have just returned from Tzedek’s Volunteer Programme in Africa. It was an incredible experience which we both enjoyed and will never forget.

Leonora Weil (London)
Talya Finn (Cheadle, Cheshire)


THE SCIENCE OF LEADERSHIP

I just wanted to write to say thank you for addressing the Adam Science Foundation Leadership Programme. We are very pleased with the outcome of the day and I believe that Tzedek’s session played an invaluable part in helping us achieve our aims.

The feedback we received from the participants for the session was tremendously positive. Your contribution was both valuable and interesting and enabled the participants to start trying to find their places in the community now that the course is coming to an end for them.

I think you’ll agree that the questions that came out of your presentation made for an interesting discussion and I understand that some of the group have already taken steps towards becoming involved in the community.

Thank you once again. I hope that you will agree to work with the Adam Science Foundation again in the future.

Yours sincerely

Lisa Capelouto
Director, Lifelong Learning


SUPPORTING VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Thank you very much for all the materials on Tzedek’s volunteer programme. I have heard many good things about Tzedek and we would like to learn from your experience and
knowledge.

Nicole Fleischer
World Jewish Peace Corps
Carmel Institute, Israel


HIMALAYAN DEVELOPMENT

We are very indebted and grateful for Tzedek’s help for a very long time. Our much needed projects like the dining hall, toilets, water connection, bathrooms and most recently the solar water heating system have all been possible because of Tzedek. The children really enjoy these facilities and are now learning with pleasure.

At the school in Yol the boys and girls have to live together in one hostel and girls are under represented there. To increase the number of girls we hope to build a separate hostel for girls. This is called the Spiti Girls Project and we hope you and your organisation will consider supporting this.

At the moment I can’t go to Spiti as the road is badly blocked by a landside it will take 2 or 3 weeks to repair. In Spiti, they had more snow than last year and this also hampers access. I hope you are having nice weather over there in your country.

I thank you for your kind and generous support.

Ven Tashi Namgyal
General Secretary, Rinchen Zangpo Society for Spiti Development

THANK YOU TZEDEK - II

I will always remember your hospitality and kindness during my stay in London. I cordially invite you to pay a visit to our projects at your convenience.

Yours sincerely

Madhu Basu
ERDS, General Secretary


THANK YOU TZEDEK - II

We are very grateful to Tzedek for your continued support of the Centre for Rural Systems and Development with Action Village India.

Yours sincerely

Jothi Ramalingam
CRSD, Secretary


LETTER FROM UGANDA

As a result of Tzedek’s support the Modern Preparatory Community School in Kamuli has gained momentum.

Our members are working diligently in each one’s areas of responsibility. This will ensure the project will be a success. Everyone is enthusiastic and this is in appreciation of the kind support from our Tzedek. Even the children in the school have participated in each of the project’s activities.

My main worry now is to construct the administration block and to put the finish on the existing structure.

We have not been so fine in our group as we have lost two of our members. Sarah Nabriye and Namayanda have died. For this I have been busy arranging funerals for the deceased and making plans for how to relocate the orphans to new homes.

I will send you copies of the school’s annual inspection reports as soon as I have received them.

I hope the Tzedek family is well.

Rebecca Naiga Ereemye
Chairperson
Ebukya Women’s Group


TZEDEK AT A GLANCE

What is Tzedek?

Tzedek is a Jewish overseas development and educational charity. It is based in the United Kingdom and was founded in 1990. Tzedek has two principal aims:

Firstly, to provide direct support to the developing world working towards the relief and elimination of poverty regardless of race or religion.

Secondly, to educate people, particularly in the Jewish community, as to the causes and effects of poverty and the Jewish obligation to respond.

In addition Tzedek organises an Overseas Volunteer Programme in which Jewish volunteers work for up to eight weeks during the summer at development projects in Africa and Asia.


Where is Tzedek currently working?

In Asia Tzedek has supported the construction of a school in the Himalayas, in West Bengal we are providing women with income-generating start up grants and training programmes, in Tamil Nadu we provide start-up finance to women’s self-help micro-credit schemes. In Nepal we have supported the construction of a milk-chilling and packing plant. In Bangla Desh Tzedek is supporting a women’s vocational training programme. In Sri Lanka we are working with street children and their families.

In Zimbabwe Tzedek is sponsoring a vocational training scheme for unemployed squatter camp dwellers. In Uganda Tzedek is funding the construction of a school.


What makes Tzedek a Jewish organisation?

In addition to drawing our support from within the Jewish community, Tzedek’s work is guided by and expresses vital Jewish values.

Tzedek understands tzedakah (charity) to be a form of tzedek (justice). Our work enables us to express the Jewish imperative of acting as an or lagoyim (a light to the world) and our responsibility to pursue tikkun olam (repair of the world). Maimonides said that ‘the highest form of charity is to take a poor man into partnership’. It is in this tradition that Tzedek works among some of the world’s poorest communities.

How is Tzedek organised?

Tzedek is a registered charity and a Company Limited by Guarantee. There is an eight member Board of Trustees, chaired by Clive Lawton, and it takes overall responsibility for all of Tzedek’s activities. The Board has three subcommittees. The Overseas Projects Group receives and evaluates applications for grant aid, and monitors projects we have chosen to support. The Income Generation Group is responsible for securing Tzedek’s income. The Overseas Volunteer Programmes Group manages Tzedek’s volunteer opportunities in Africa and Asia. A consultant Development Officer works with Tzedek (for one and a half days each week). The Development Officer’s role supports and co-ordinates the activities of the three subcommittees while liaising between them and the Board.

How can I help?

Make a donation or organise a fund raising event. We would also welcome the support of those who are able to research and present our educational material. If you are studying or have a background in development our Overseas Projects Group would welcome your experience.

Tzedek’s Trustees:
Clive Lawton (Chair), Steve Miller, Justin Philips, Ian Rosmarin,
Neville Sassienie, Katie Schenk, Peter Scholl, Karin Shmueli
Newsletter Editor: Steven Derby

How to contact TZEDEK:
Steven Derby
Development Officer
TZEDEK
25 Kings Close,
London NW4 2JU
Telephone: 020 8202 4744
e-mail: tzedekuk@aol.com website: www.tzedek.org.uk

TZEDEK
Jewish Action For a Just World
Registered Charity Number 1016767
A Company Limited by Guarantee.
Registered in England No: 2781146
Registered Office: 1 Regent Street,
London SW1Y 4NW


(Source: http://www.tzedek.org.uk/downloads/Tzedek%20Newsletter%20Autumn%202002.doc)