Reflections upon returning to Scotland

Arriving home in Scotland in time for Live 8, marches in Edinburgh for trade justice, moves to make poverty history and final preparations for the G8 summit – this story adds a human face (or faces) to our own desire to be involved.

The answer for Likhubula will not be a flood of money from Scotland. We saw evidence of this in one area that had received foreign aid when the crops failed and where they hadn’t planted any seed since. In the end, answers for Malawi will come from within Malawi itself and in a range of creative and sustainable ways. But what we did see on this visit was just how intelligent, creative, compassionate, organised and hardworking the Malawian people are, even in the face of great adversity.

I do affirm the value of partnership. Between countries, as between communities. Valuable for Dunblane, as for Likhubula. I see the benefit of being connected beyond the reality of our small immediate worlds. Within this, I see value in helping where schemes are already in embryo, just as we do in our own families - help for a youngster as she sets off for college, assistance to a parent as he settles into retirement. A reciprocal relationship, on an equal footing, each party open to learn from the other.

What I hadn’t expected to find was just how ready the community at Likhubula would be for such a partnership, nor how high would be the quality of leadership.

And throughout – in Dunblane as in Likhubula – we are reminded that it is our young people who are the hope for the future.

They have a prime place in this partnership between Likhubula and Dunblane. May it aye be so.

Jenni Barr
3rd July 2005