what do you think about?

 

A Palestinian friends showed me a cartoon. 4 men are in a class L to R from Arabia, America, Europe and Africa   Interestingly there is no-one from Asia, or maybe the teacher is Asian!   

In Arabic you read from right to left so the cartoon reads: 'What is your opinion about shortage of food around the world?'

the African asks: 'What is food?

The European:  'what is shortage?

the American enquires: 'what is the rest of the world?'

the Arab says: 'what is an opinion?' 

Yes, they are stereotypes. But they make a point and suggest global perspectives in the same problem  It all depends on where you are coming from.....

There are lots of TED talk about food shortage. Here's one:

http://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal.html

"a flea can bite the bottom of the Pope in Rome"

You will probably have heard of the 9 year old schoolgirl who started a blog about school dinners called 'NeverSeconds: One primary school pupil's daily dose of school dinners'. . It was very simply comments and a photo about her daily intake at midday. and a very fair assessment 




Then Jamie Oliver commented and people started sending in photos of their school dinners and she started raising funds for a school feeding programme, Mary's Meals in Malawi  and so it grew.....

But then she was banned from taking photos of her school meals and the Twittersphere and Blogosphere took on the council. The council backed down and it was all reported in the National press.  At the time of writing her blog has had nearly 5 million hits and rising fast.  Its a real demonstration of the power of social media (and of course local and national press)


All I could think of was the words from the musical 'Les Miserables' sung by little Gavroche:  "a flea can bite the bottom of the Pope in Rome"






you can read all the words to the song here

GAVROCHE
They laugh at me, these fellas,
Just because I am small
They laugh at me because I'm not hundred feet tall!
I tell 'em there's a lot to learn down here on the ground
The world is big, but little people turn it around!

A worm can roll a stone
A bee can sting a bear
A fly can fly around Versailles
'Cos flies don't care!
A sparrow in a hut
Can make a happy home
A flea can bite the bottom
Of the Pope in Rome!

Goliath was a bruiser who was tall as the sky.
But David threw a right and gave him one in the eye.
I never read the Bible but I know that it's true
It only goes to show what little people can do!

ALL
A worm can roll a stone
A bee can sting a bear
A fly can fly around Versailles
'Cos flies don't care!
A sparrow in a hut
Can make a happy home
A flea can bite the bottom
Of the Pope in Rome!

GAVROCHE
So listen here professor,
With your head in the cloud.
It's often kind of useful
To get lost in the crowd.
So keep your universities
I don't give a damn
For better or for worse it is
The way that I am!

Be careful where you go
'Cos little people grow...

And little people know
When little people fight
We may look easy pickings but we got some bite!
So never kick a dog because he's just a pup
You better run for cover when the pup grows up!

And we'll fight like twenty armies
And we won't give up

ALL
A worm can roll a stone
A bee can sting a bear
A fly can fly around Versailles
'Cos flies don't care!
A sparrow in a hut
Can make a happy home
A flea can bite the bottom
Of the Pope in Rome!

well done little one.....  don't lose your bite.....
 

Birmingham Balti: 'we're all in the same bucket'

A good friend of mine, Colin, ran a Balti evening in Birmingham to raise funds for Pakistan Flood relief. Unfortunately I was unable to attend but it sounded a great event. But I'll let Colin describe it himself ......

It went well.... David said grace in Urdu and prayed for blessing on the restaurant staff and the people affected by the floods - the staff and owner were really touched by the whole thing. We had 36 sat down at table and and a few who donated but couldn't come.

The final result - unless more gifts come in: We all paid £10 per person for our meal and on top of that raised £661.18 [ £554 plus we estimate DEC can expect to receive an estimated gift aid top up of 107.18 ]

It is a version of what I talked about in CMS as balti church - there was an enormous buzz of conversation - so much so, it was hard to be heard reading the poems, cos people did not want to stop talking lol.... (but little formal religious expression) and we had folk from about seven churches as well as some members of my family. We did a little quiz about Pakistan at the beginning ... and the level of that was about right....

Balti church / balti gathering cos in the end we're all in the same bucket!

A great effort if you ask me. If anyone else is inspired to do something similar then maybe you could send funds through CMS to help our response. I've written up some bits about it on this blog. Just click away on the CMS website: Give Now

Pakistan: ‘flood relief needs massive boost’