Davos#7: Business.un.org

5 years in the making. But the UN-Business website launched in style. Jeffrey Sachs (author of the “End Of Poverty”, CEOs, UN representatives and the GH president announce the arrival of this website designed to create partnering between businesses and the UN.

Behind it a greater purpose to push partnering proposals to the greater charitable community. It seeks to create a “global common” between interfacing intermediaries, such as this UN system and others like it, for business and charities serving to hook up resources available in one system to the plethora of needs across the world.

Each representative mentioned a tribute to the determination, despite elongated processes and bureaucracies for those behind the scenes.

I recall sitting in the Foreign & Commonwealth office, just after the tsunami, with many businesses in a meeting that was hosted by the UK’s Business in the Community screaming out for a need of a system that can facilitate offers and requests from humanitarian and business communities. Their template brief document looked strangely familiar.

I recall Bill Clinton hailing out for the need of a “humanitarian” eBay around the tsunami time too. He's here, at Davos, appealing for 100 trucks for Haiti.

It was an awesome moment to hear the words of the Global Compact (the UN body for business) to proudly announce this tool.

After the panellists took part in the Refugee Run with some humbling outcomes, insights and suggestions.

My friend the Popped Kernel puts it way better than me in his blog: http://thepoppedkernel.blogspot.com/2010/01/davos-business-meets-goodwill.html

Davos#6: refugee run quotes

"Reading 1000 books would not teach me what I learned in the past hour"

Lord Malloch Brown, former UN Deputy Secretary General and senior execuitves took part in the refugee run yesterday. A "very humbling" experience and "a compelling way to remind one what it's like" for refugees around the world.

Director Francesca Martonffy, Global Change Makers said, of the session, "It was a really powerful experience and one we won't forget!".

“Very humbling”

Davos#5: refugee run photos

Davos#4: The hills are alive

Today was a day of rest and we took a walks in the hills. A truly glorious place.

Davos#3: Low Flying

Continuing with David L. I heard when a few people visited him several year ago he drives fast. So fast that it’s referred to as “low flying”. He laughs when I tell him this and I laugh with him. He replies: “Yes it’s true. But the reason is I don't want the rebels to take us...” and finishes “...not like they took me.”

Davos#2: “Women are giving birth at the side of the roads like animals because there are no hospitals”

Kitgum is a city in northern Uganda. Bordering a war weary Sudan whose Comprehensive Peace Agreement hangs on threads. Near to Rwanda which had a fierce civil war. Kitgum, itself a place that has hosted a war and is seemingly coming through trying to rebuild.

I sat in car chatting to man, David L, who will be involved at the Refugee Run that we are together involved in at the World Economic Forum’s Davos conference. A gathering of the world’s elite. He is telling me of his home in Kitgum. He has great vision for the place and so desperately wants transformation. He talks of a need for a hospital and utters the words as we approach the prestigious ski resort town: “Women are giving birth at the side of the roads like animals because there are no hospitals”

Davos#1: Flüchtlings-lauf

The refugee run is back on. We're in Davos, Switzerland. It's beautiful. It's cold. It's also this year about about a Business-UN platform and a new GH website.

It's exciting.

UK Satellite picture

peace in pieces

i was invited to a debate on sudan today at the house of lords.

i must confess i knew little about the place other than the news feeds and stories form some of the agencies that i work with.

my colleague briefed me in some its history, challenges and operations that are being carried out.

i went further and saw some of the pictures. in particuar the famous shot of a thin scrambling child, probably about one of my children's age, with what little energy they had struggling to get to a feeding UN station and quietly in the background a vulture sat. the photographer, kevin carter, won a pulizer prize for the shot in april 1994. 3 months later he killed himself.

this coming saturday marks the 5 year anniversay of a peace agreement that hangs on thread again as reports show.

140 people lost their lives in an ethnic clash in the tonj region only this past weekend. just under half the population do not have access to clean water. elections are due to start this april. aid agencies are calling this a "lethal cocktail" of rising violence, chronic poverty and political tensions.

Christmas Picture

leaving you mark

made me smile

noughties

it was really the eighties end of decade that first brought the concept of a decade to me and put before all a feast of what was consumed both media wise and from the dwindling of memory lane. i was 14 then. i didn't know that i'd be in for a feast of indie music, teen freedom & paranoia, parental control struggles, GCSE and A-levels, travelling and University in & out.

i guess it was nostalgic looking back and it is now. thoughts come flooding back of where i was when the twin towers fell, saying farewell to bachelordom, holding all of my children for the first time... all these won't happen again.

for me, the noughties, have been a privilege to been part of.

snow stories#2

rock n roll

so caleb came in saying he was rock n roll today.

angie asked him why. he replied i like to listen to loud music.

it was a proud moment.

snow stories#1

thursday night football is a bit of an institution. used to be 9 to 10pm of intense footy fun. followed by a beer and unwind usually in the chequers pub. now it's 9.30 kick off. but still just enough time for a post footy brew. all these things have turned into institutions that are more than just routines. they are memories. call it a tradition. i recall the time when the police held me at the pub. ironic. but it turned out i had parked my car where they had found a suspected gunman. the land lord served up some extra special brews.

this thursday. we had heard the weather warnings. heard the street stories of a "storms-a-coming". took pride in ignoring them all. even angie pleaded for me to reconsider my evening of sweat and goal scoring celebrations (i hope). i brushed her comments aside like the silky foot skills that i had been crafting in my imagination. don't mess with my traditions i thought as i walked out into the thin precipitation of snow.

football was great. a little bit cold. but enjoyed my hat trick immensely. then as i walked out. wow. where did all that snow come from.

the journey home started. i didn't know it would be of star trek 4 magnitude.

the roads were ungritted and very skiddy. going down hills with my feet slammed on the brakes yet still picking up speed. managed to slide around past a few cars. my hope was in the main bypass road (the A21) which surely must be ok. it wasn't.

managed to slither to the tonbridge turnoff and past the abandoned cars to an utter stand still. i watched the bmw's rear wheels spinning yet the car remaining still. some were innovative to place blankets in front of those rear wheels and grab the trodden blankets and move them to the front again. it was slow but managed to gain several feet advantage.

we had been stuck for an hour. i popped out to see what was happening. a jackknifed lorry. cars stranded little space to manoeuvre. everyone was talking to each other. i borrowed the guy behind me's phone to text my wife to tell her not to worry. two girls ran down to exclaim "you will never guess who's in the car over there?" (this could indeed be a long night i thought)... "it's only davina mccall!" her friend produced a camera with a shot of the tv celeb.

another hour i managed to get to the lorry. the police helped push my car up the hill. it took me 4 hours to get home for what should usually be a 20 minute journey.

you'd think i would have learnt my lessons about hills and snow and generally not being good to add a "car" into the equation. i live on a hill. i thought should i attempt this or park and walk. instinct kicked in. i managed to get up the hill. game on. got to the top and no parking. tapped the brakes and now i was a potential abandoned car statistic. still i was a stone throw from my house. two drunken guys strolled passed said something about how his mum being screwed in this weather to pick her up. i was stuck. dang.

eventually, a man turned up and offered to help. and no joy. i hopped out to thank him nonetheless. as i was midway through my speech my car started to roll past us. darting back with it. opening the door a-la-goldeneye style jumping in and attempting to slam my foot down on the brakes as hard as i could and steering towards the pavement. it was double yellows and i thought it's reasonably out the way- i'm off home.

angie was still asleep. it was nearly 3am and the text i sent through unread.

raging against the machine

i've been loving this recent campaign to oust the x-factor from the christmas no 1 slot through virally campaigning about getting rage against the machine's "killing in the name of".

i like it for 3 reasons:

1. it reminds me of a campaign i tried to lead at our college to obtain a minimum library fine and refuse to pay it upon graduating. they withhold your degree from all those that have outstanding monies owed to the college. i was angry with the system at the time. i needed an outlet. this was my campaign.

they overlooked my fine.

2. music has become more about tv than music. whilst this particular campaign, ironically, spawned from a reaction to tv and maybe, in my mind a little misguided, it still retains a feeling of being grassroots.

i remember going to friends houses just to listen to bands like to stone roses, house of love, the wonder stuff or happy mondays. one of my good friends tells how when the day sgt pepper came out he was supposed to be revising for an exam and in the end he was so blown away by the music he stopped, with his friends, just to listen to it all weekend.

3. it's fun.

climate change march 05.12.09

"it's not living... just surviving"

Kosova is not recognised as a sovereign land by Serbia.

Nearly 1 million people were displaced through the conlict in 1999.

They can not return to the life they had. Many are still scattered. The life they had will not be there even if they were to go back. The social landscape has changed.

Some are in designated places for such displaced people. Those in Serbia are not refugees as their "country" is not recognised

Nikoleta is staying in "non" refugee camp, in Serbia. She invited 2 of my colleagues into her small 3 x 3m house. She offered them drinks. She uttered these words: "it's not living... just surviving".

My colleagues left after their drink.

joshua's 2nd birthday

some shots from joshie's b'day :)

"people won't do anything because they are stupid"

at university i recall very clearly somebody saying these words to me. so much so that i never forgot. i find myself meditating on his words this past weekend. we were talking about changing the planet and other global issues.

one of my housemates, at the time, even eloborated, people have all this freedom and hardly anyone will use it. most people don't want to use it and are scared of it, very few will and even those with the ability to- will waiver. he cited some fairly intellectual works to back his argument up too.

whilst i was impressed with the intellect and the argument i refused to buy into this mentality. i refused then and i refuse it now. more than this i didn't beleive it. or perhaps i should re-phrase i didn't believe in it.

however, over the years i have been wondering why the changes that i dreamt of weren't happening. firstly, i found myself blaming the powers that be, the government, our political leaders. then it was corruption, war, terrorism, propaganda and then it was the world of consumers that became the blame for me... now... i find it hard to find a global, or macro reason... the problem or blame is legion. one thing that has changed in my thoughts: i don't believe that i'm here to change the world at large as i may have done back then, but rather i am here to change my world and my participation in it.

"man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains"- Rousseau