I am putting my fingers to the keyboard a little ahead of schedule this month. I wanted to get this blog out before I travelled to South Africa at the end of April. Those plans changed, as I describe later. I’ve had an interesting couple of weeks and am writing while it is still fresh in my mind.

I am a member of the UK board of the organisation ForAfrika. Just over a week ago I was invited to a small gathering of board members in London. The CEO, Isak Pretorious, hosted a dinner in the Conduit Club. It is quite unique, its members are concerned with making a difference, and I think they do.

Going back to the main reason for my trip: I joined the UK board several years ago, and this dinner was an opportunity to meet people from other countries. So, what is ForAfrika? It was originally known as Joint Aid Management (JAM) International and

‘focused on providing emergency relief, health and nutrition, education and water, hygiene and sanitation interventions to vulnerable communities in Africa – in dignified and sustainable ways.’

I must be honest and say I still don’t fully understand all the operations and their links; it is big! I would urge readers to look at their website, something I do regularly.

JAM was started over 40 years ago by a South African, Peter Pretorius. He was one of the first people to respond to the Mozambican government’s plea to the international community for urgent humanitarian relief in the early 1980s. There was a severe drought which, combined with an insurrection in Mozambique, led to a desperate famine. There were millions of people starving and little support reached them. The government was fighting a war, and the international community did not seem to be paying attention.

I vividly remember the drought as we had moved to Durban in September 1983. There had been no rain for months. Crops failed, the major dams in the province were drying up and there was draconian water rationing. The slogan for toilet use, for those who had waterborne sanitation was: ‘If it is brown, flush it down, if it is yellow, let it mellow’. In January 1984 the drought in KwaZulu-Natal and Swaziland was broken in dramatic fashion by Cyclone Demoina. I well remember we drove up to Swaziland soon after this and had to pick our way gingerly over flood damaged roads, and across rickety, replacement bridges.

ForAfrika grew as an African founded and led organisation and today works across much of the continent. Their goal is to help people stay alive and then become self-sufficient. They have a concept of moving communities from crisis and emergency, where humanitarian support is essential, through to self-sufficiency, and finally to a point where they are commercially viable.

The website shows that they reach over 2 million people in emergencies and help with health and nutrition, sanitation, education, food security and livelihoods, and economic empowerment for millions more. It is quite complicated and I need to do more to get my head around the data and the reports.

Prior to the dinner there was a gathering in London organised by the Africa College Foundation, a UK based charity that primarily supports the Maharashi Invincibility Institute. The institute occupies the old Anglo-American company headquarters at 45 Main Street in downtown Johannesburg. This part of the city was a no-go area for some years, but is coming back to life. This looks like an amazing establishment. I felt privileged to be invited to the gathering and meet some interesting people.

To my amusement, one of the people I met was a young Canadian woman in the final years of her Ph.D. at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) in Waterloo, Ontario. I must have seen her at the school because we overlapped, and I may even have taught her, but I don’t remember. It was great to catch up on some of the goings on in Waterloo and at the school.

I also chatted to a couple of young South Africans who are just embarking on further education in London. They were self-assured, enthusiastic, and clearly exactly the sort of people we want as future leaders. I handed out a lot of my business cards and hope I might hear back from some of the individuals.

The one thing that was striking from these interactions is that there is comparatively little cross-over between the main cities of South Africa: Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and so on. I would love to see an index or directory. I think the Development Bank of Southern Africa used to take care of this, but I have not seen anything recently.

After the reception/networking, seven of us gathered in a private room at the club where we were served a magnificent meal, with excellent wines. Isak Pretorius, the CEO, guided the conversation, and it was wide ranging and interesting. A couple of days later there was another meeting organised by ForAfrika on how to develop straplines and information for the public and potential donors, and communicating messages. I’m not certain who was there as I was a few minutes late, but again it was most interesting. It strikes me that ForAfrika is an organisation on the cusp of doing even more than it does now. I hope this will include reflection, documentation and communication. There is much to be learnt from what they have done and could do. I hope I can be a part of it.

One of the main reasons for travelling is because I feel the need to get back to my flat and Durban for a while. However, on 22 May I am having a birthday party at St Clements restaurant in Musgrave Road in Durban. I promised myself that I would host a 70th birthday gathering in both England and South Africa to ensure that no one would be left out. The one in Norwich was on the 21st of March, and I really enjoyed it. So, if you are reading this blog and haven’t been invited, would have liked to have been, and can come to the event in Durban, please drop me a note to be added to the list.

Unfortunately, my flight had to be delayed by a couple of weeks as I developed a painful ingrowing toenail. I was supposed to fly on the 28th April but went to a podiatrist on 25th March. He spent nearly an hour with a scalpel sorting it out. I ended up with a huge dressing, it was very painful for a couple of days. Thank goodness for the flexibility of KLM who allowed me to change my ticket and travel in May.

Now to end off with a few interesting little snippets that I’ve come across recently. The Guardian of 20th April has an article entitled ‘Loss of Public Toilets endangering Public Health, report warns’. It said,

‘the number of public toilets in England has fallen by 14% in a decade, creating vast swathes of lavatory ‘deserts’ and unpleasant environments’.

Apparently, there is one public toilet for every 15,481 people in England as compared to one per 8,500 people in Scotland and one for every 6,748 in Wales. There are no data for Northern Ireland.

These data come from the Royal Society for Public Health, and it is something that is close to my heart as I get older. I am going to bowdlerise the last paragraph of the article:

‘the ministry responsible has announced that they are going to help councils provide public services and have made £78 billion available to council finances with local leaders free to decide themselves how best to spend every penny’.

The original text actually read ‘how best to spend the money’!

I came across an article that talks about the design of Waterford School in Mbabane and is worth looking at. There is a longer article in Portuguese if you follow the various links, and when I have a chance, I will run it through Google Translate. People who know Swaziland and Waterford may find it interesting.

I have not paid attention to my memoir for quite some weeks, so the article was most encouraging. It gives me added incentive to continue. I suppose the one piece of progress on the memoir is that I have printed out hard copies. The editor has gone through the whole document, and I need to give it a final rewrite before I start submitting to publishers again.