The Besom helps people make a difference. It provides a bridge between those who want to give money, time, skills or things, and those who are in need. It ensures that what is given is used effectively. The service it provides is free. Issue No. 42
Introducing Ebenezer
Ebenezer is an Agricultural Training Centre that exists to equip young people in rural Zimbabwe with the practical skills needed to run their own small-scale agricultural businesses, and the maturity to be able to contribute to their communities.
THE BESOM
Spreading Wings
It enables young people to live as a role model in their communities by equipping them with appropriate business, agricultural and life skills.
Like any of the 300,000 young people leaving school each year in rural Zimbabwe, most of the Ebenezer apprentices arrive with very few prospects. When they begin, most have an ambition to help feed their families. Often they leave with a much larger vision than that!
Apprentices at Ebenezer receive instruction in basic business principles and in small-scale agriculture. The training combines classroom teaching and discussion with practical outworking. Therefore, each apprentice at Ebenezer not only learns about small-scale agriculture, they actually start to run their own agricultural business. Time is split between conservation agriculture training, work in the classroom, and work on the apprentices’ individual plots. During the two year residential programme, apprentices are able to make enough money to recover their input costs and buy the inputs and equipment necessary to continue their businesses outside of Ebenezer. The hope is that this approach will produce men and women who can provide for their families and be mature leaders in their rural communities.
In addition to the training, apprentices are encouraged to do voluntary community service in their villages each week. For probably the first time they start to see other people’s needs! Some of the guys have paid school fees for local aids orphans. Someone else wanted to help former classmates who now spent their time drinking ‘But when our own children start to look after aids local beer and hanging about. orphans and give freely to the widows, then the village takes note. Even those who are used to asking Not long after the first for help are challenged and start to do some work for set of graduates themselves.’ finished, a local chief approached Ebenezer and asked if he could bring all the local young men in his ward to Ebenezer. ‘For many years I have been approached by outsiders wanting to implement one project or another. Our people have become used to this, and some have even come to expect such assistance. But when our own children start to look after aids orphans and give freely to the widows, then the village takes note. Even those who are used to asking for help are challenged and start to do some work for themselves.’ Over the last three years, money given through The Besom has funded a range of items at Ebenezer, including the building materials for the accommodation blocks and a diesel pump to help irrigate the plots. Last month, work began on new chicken houses with money given through The Besom. The plan is to expand the training options available to the apprentices, to allow them to expand their businesses into more holistic farming techniques and away from a reliance on maize.
Reflections from the Besom in Runnymede
This morning we had our Monday morning meeting and as quite often happens, we had a visitor, someone thinking about setting up a new Before I started helping at the Besom in Besom. One of the wonderful Runnymede I was completely unaware of the blessings of supporting and number of vulnerable and needy people who encouraging new Besoms is that live right on my doorstep. with each visit we go back and H.C. - Time Giver remember when we started our Besom - in Runnymede. Each time we share with visitors where we started (in a shed) and where we are now, our little warehouse, we can’t help but smile and thank and praise God for all He has done. For me I’ve spent most of my Christian life at Besom and what an exciting adventure it’s been! I’ve been brought up on a diet of prayer and expectation, and as I look around our churches, I can see that it’s not the ‘norm’. I remember a time when I thought I had been made for Besom because I seemed to fit so well. It was as though all the jobs I had done until then had only used a small part of me, whereas here, I felt useful and fulfilled in a way I never had before. But that is such a huge, valuable part of this amazing charity, enabling and releasing Christians to find what they are good at and do it, and for many - in helping their confidence to grow. It has never been easy to explain that Besom is about releasing and helping the giver, but, as time and again we re-tell our stories, and stories of time givers whose lives have been transformed through the love in this place, it’s become so much easier. I don’t think there can have been many that
haven’t been changed as a result of being part of our team! And it’s hard not to smile as we show off our photo wall of time givers from over the years. It’s hard not to ‘boast in the Lord’ as we remember the special part each of them has played. There is something really special about building relationships with people and seeing them enjoying and for many, like me, discovering the gifts that have been placed within them. It’s always sad to see time givers move on, but like parents we’ve had to let many of them go! We were sharing this morning the importance of getting the core team right. It’s so easy to be able to reassure others that they don't need to worry about the core team, as the right people (with gifts that will complement each other) will come, and yes, there will be tough times but these will help them realize each other’s strengths and weaknesses and their need of each other and firm foundations.
We tell our guests stories of when we have strayed and got it wrong so that they may not have to go through the same pain and confusion that we did. But so often it’s been those times that have taught us and grown us more than ever. The thought just occurred to me that sometimes it feels as though our team are an orchestra, each a different instrument complementing the others and making beautiful music together. But quite often we just make a racket! Sally Thompson
CHALLENGES, CHANGE AND AMAZING ABUNDANCE One of the beauties of our Besom (Runnymede) is that it’s always changing. There isn’t a single day when it looks or feels the same: furniture comes and goes, time givers vary daily, the sorting pile mounts and then dissipates, sometimes we eat in, sometimes out! It’s wonderful, to some it can be ch a l l e n g i n g … Change is one of those things — love it or loathe it—it happens! We’ve learned to love it and relish the constant challenges it brings. Me, I have an appalling memory; with over 40 lovely willing time givers, it’s really not on to forget their names! So, we have a system… A couple of strategically placed family trees (photos and names) dotted around the warehouse are helpful. Not just to me, everyone has a ‘prompt’ available when they need it! We even have a ‘fun and fellowship’ board where we display funny pictures. (My favorites are the ‘Paris Hilton’s, New Best Friend Wigs’. After a busy day of urban gleaning with ITV props we couldn't resist a photo shoot!) And Barry testing the new reclining chairs, in the sunshine in the garden!
desks, a land line, internet access, desktop and laptop computers, printer and copier, filing cabinets, plus music whilst we work. How wonderfully God provides and expands our territories! Sometimes from the most unexpected source we are blessed and challenged to update and improve our facilities. Last year we received a shiny new kitchen. Our 1970’s mish mash of units have been replaced. We were given money (unexpectedly but just after praying about the kitchen) to purchase new units (IKEA), then we were given a cooker, a replacement sink, and new wall tiles. Our small kitchen started the year with broken units, leaks and damp, dark walls and a broken cooker. After some hard work from a gifted team it is now gleaming, light and wellorganized with a cooker which the whole team enjoys using, especially during the winter months to prepare a hearty lunch for all. A stunning project that has blessed many! We are even contemplating (by request), producing a ‘Besom Soups’ recipe book, such is the appreciation for that which comes out of our super duper new kitchen!!
And, one last tale of ‘abundance’. …. A new recipient was keen to receive a green sofa. We prayed, and waited in eager anticipation. Imagine our Initially, when we moved into ‘The Hut’ there wasn’t an office area, just a complete delight when we received not one, not two but five green sofas small kitchen, boys’ toilet facilities and a hall (it was a scout hut!). Skilled that week...Our recipient was overwhelmed with choice and we were yet time givers came, envisioned and converted the bathroom into office again amazed and humbled. space. We started with one desk and a mobile phone; today we have two
The Christmas Kitchen, Easter Kitchen and now presenting....The Kitchen
As a result of seeing many people in our community experiencing hunger, loneliness and isolation, we at the Besom Runnymede were led to instigate a giant ‘moonlighting’ time givers project.
The ‘Christmas Kitchen’ is a high street café that’s open and available to everyone in our community to be involved in. This year (our 3rd) over 120 time givers participated during 3 weeks over the Christmas period. Utilising a donated shop (fantastic urban gleaning, thank you Lord) we equipped, fitted, decorated and stocked a community café with minimal spend (£120 for table cloths and fabric) Its aim is to offer a warm welcome, home made meals, excellent cakes and drinks (all without charge) to every guest, without exception or restrictions. God took students, the retired, men, women, interior designers, HR consultants, musicians, chefs, the creative and practical and brought all their assorted gifts together in a massive gesture of love to the community. The initiative was so well received and supported in our first year that it expanded to open during the Easter period (year two) and this year, from February 9th, it will continue to be open once a week. Enabling us to provide ongoing opportunities for service, relationships, community meeting area and a place full of love and encouragement. We have board games, books, puzzles, literacy helpers, victim support staff, massage and manicures, pastoral teams and very real and meaningful friendships developing.
Looking back on the project’s growth it is amazing to see how this came together, the people He used and the impact it makes. One of the most moving stories happened just before Christmas this year. A gentleman was guided to ‘The Kitchen’ in a confused and hungry state. He was homeless, wore an old medical alert badge and was in need of both assistance and sustenance! After a meal, many conversations and lots of phone calls he was secured a bed in a council provided B&B. A taxi was booked to collect him the following morning and take him to meet with the housing department in order to sort his future sleeping arrangement. It was discovered during this meeting that this gentleman was registered as a missing person and he was reunited with his family (in Somerset) the same day. Wow, how awesome is that, the prodigal son returns at Christmas time. ‘To be part of this project that welcomes everyone (ASBOs included) to come, eat and meet with Jesus in a very real way has been a life transforming experience for me.’ A quote from a time giver who goes on to say ‘being part of this tiny bit of ‘transforming our community’ is so humbling. To see otherwise excluded men (addicts and the homeless) sitting down with anticipation to ice gingerbread men and make Christmas decorations was ‘heart breaking’ in every sense of the phrase. My hard heart was softened and broken, I was filled with love and joy and such freedom all in the same instant. An experience that has changed me and will never be forgotten.’
From Hub to Spirograph What a range of gifts and skills God has provided.
successful Besom!
Hub
So we finally decided at the end of last year to close down HQ altogether (except that we continue to help those who give money through us as we in London have built up an astonishing number of strong relationships with grassroots charities doing the most amazing things across over 70 countries). And the overall shape has changed from the hub to the spirograph. Proof of the pudding is already more than apparent as local Besoms are helping other groups to get going in their areas and the first annual Besom conference that is to take place outside London is happening on 19th March in Sheffield and being organised by the Besoms in Sheffield and York. There is to be another conference in the South West in the Autumn too.
It was two years after The Besom started, at a trustees’ meeting in 1989, that one of the trustees said to me that she thought The Besom should soon be able to fly on its own and that I should work towards the goal of letting it do so. As it grew over the years and began to assist those who wanted to give time, skills and things as well as money, and as other Besoms began across the country, I never forgot her words. But it has taken slightly So The Besom has grown from a fledgling in my basement flat in longer than I anticipated – well, 21 years longer to be exact! Shepherds Bush in 1987 to something more like a flock of 30 starlings in It had always been clear from the outset that every new Besom should be 2011. And I am sure the next bit of their journey together will be equally autonomous and that the only link between them should be a relational exciting. one, coupled with the right to use the name and to draw on the collective experience of all of us at HQ and of the increasing number of other James Odgers Besoms – many of whom know far better than I these days how to run a Founder
TALKING ISSUES Another World Economic Forum met in Davos in January with the usual heady mix of public statements, private meetings and soul-searching about the less fortunate (perhaps best expressed as pro Bono publico) amongst the leading politicians, businessmen, bankers and economists of the day. They stand at the pinnacle of global wealth, global trade, global power and global influence. This, surely, should disqualify them from any public platform if nothing else does, given the moral (still more, the spiritual) bankruptcy of the ideas they collectively represent. The global poor are desperate; yet the bottom 50% of the world’s population own a mere 2% of the world’s wealth, while the top 10% own 83%.
I wrote in the last newsletter (www.besom.com, No. 41) that the Big Society cannot possibly work in the UK without a clear moral consensus; the same applies, surely, to the ideas emanating from the likes of Davos, the Millenium Development Goals, Basel 3, Doha and Copenhagen. I would have described Davos as an unholy alliance until I read (in the FT) that 20 world (institutional) religious leaders attended as well, and that there was a ‘Global Agenda Council on Values’ chaired by Jim Wallis. ‘What do you do’, he is said to have asked, ‘when the invisible hand lets go of the common good?’ And that is exactly the issue. The problem, simply put, is that these leaders are not, cannot be, the people to listen to if we want to see change. Change rarely, if ever, comes from the top down – that would threaten the very survival of those who claim the right or the authority to lead us. So all that we the people will ever be offered are the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s (or the autocrat’s) table. Trickle down has never worked; the rising tide only ever lifts the yachts; Eastern dirigisme will still lead to wealth only for a few; Ayn Rand remains triumphant; the status quo will not be rocked. So, although social inequality was the issue Davos participants most wanted to debate according to a survey on the eve of the summit, only those at one end of the spectrum were asked for their views! Tolstoy surely comes to mind (again): ‘I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible....except by getting off his back’. Who will be the first to say: ‘I’m happy to be CEO for half that’? And it is no answer to hide the issue of systemic injustice behind an ever more publiclylauded philanthropy – on whatever scale that might be proffered. By what authority does a (merely) wealthy person decide who lives and who dies? Is there even one Cincinnatus out there – the small-scale farmer who was appointed dictator by the Roman senate in 458BC in order to conquer some aggressive tribes and who, having completed the task 16
days later, gave up the reins of absolute from the many to the few on a vast scale, power to return to his farm? Perhaps he speculation far beyond that which might be necessary to create a stable market cannot ski. operating in the realms of fantasy without Real change almost invariably comes from adding any value (the annual foreign below, when anger finally erupts and can exchange trading volume is about and the be contained no longer: anger at the $1,000,000,000,000,000!) corruption, the selfishness, the despotism, traditional role of the bank having been the blindness of the leaders, anger at the lost as it has grown into a multi-platform, poverty, the degradation, the hopelessness pure profit-focussed, behemoth. of the masses. The eruption need not be a violent one, as the sit ins and marches of The solution is for we the people to require the civil rights movement, the Revolutions that those in power return that power to us of 1989 and, perhaps, the recent jasmine across the board except in the very limited revolution in Tunisia confirm, but the circumstances where we agree that it needs longer that the cause is ignored, the more to be more widely shared. Thus we seek likely the violence. The levels of anger the greater devolution of political power towards the wealthy and powerful are wherever possible; the break up of the rising across the world and, by the very large combines (is the supply of most of nature of the global economy in which we our food really in the hands of just five all now live, the anger will become companies in the UK – whatever increasingly global. Seattle, Prague, happened to competition law?) with limits Quebec City, Genoa, Gleneagles, on future size and a stakeholder vote on Heiligendamm, London, Toronto all attest future acquisitions and mergers; and a to a global sense of injustice in the West sharp Tobin tax and a return to high street even if many of the demonstrators would banking with local credit decisions. have found it hard to articulate coherently what it is that they would see as a solution. We in the UK, for instance, have invested £67bn in two of the larger banks in the The realms of economics, politics and UK alone to save them from collapse in finance are now inexorably intertwined so the last three years. Once we are out (and any suggested alternative way of we shall of course have to pay market addressing the injustice that affects the vast bonuses to keep the expertise until we are), majority of the inhabitants of this planet that money could be ring-fenced and must speak to all of these constituencies. invested (as it should have been in the I have suggested a spiritual solution for the credit crunch in 2008) in many small, local UK, although it has much wider banks to support those of the 4m application, in the last newsletter, and businesses in the UK (99% of them) that specific thoughts on comparative wealth in have fewer than 50 employees and that are newsletter No. 35. Here, once again, is a the backbone of this country’s economic modest proposal that might undergird activity. There were 70 Quaker banks in these suggestions. The problem, wherever England by the 19th century and, in 1810, The it arises, is one of scale. All we want is to some 720 provincial banks. get back control of our lives from those precedent is there already. That system who seek to control us. That is part of the was more than adequate. lesson of Egypt, of Libya, of Bahrain and As in the UK, so across the world. elsewhere. Fairness can only be understood in the On the political front, all of the context of a scale small enough for independence movements of the last 60 everyone to share the same hopes and years come from a profound sense of fears. Fairness is a distant hill that is itself disjunction and a desire to take greater dwarfed by the far off peaks of Justice and control of the destiny of one’s tribe, ethnic Love, but it should easily determine our group or nation. The number and trend view of the morality of any large line of these movements give the lie to accumulations of power, land or wealth. those who would talk of ever more And it will be by a moral consensus, a clear centralised power, such as those who agreement of the sheer wrongness of such support an increase in the size and power things, that we shall change the world. Let of the European Union or who look to Orwell start that process today: ‘The maintain central planning, as in Russia and animals reassured Squealer on this point China or who would prop up the immediately and no more was said about the pigs sleeping in the farmhouse beds. And dictatorships of the Middle East. when, some days afterwards, it was announced On the economic front, large, amorphous, that from now on the pigs would get up an impersonal, multinational companies, hour later in the mornings than the other controlling the lives of many hundreds of animals, no complaint was made about that thousands of people and their families have either’ Animal Farm, 1945. come to symbolise distant greed and local poverty, compulsory dislocation and largely unnecessary or damaging consumer choice. James Odgers Founder The Besom and FACE to Face On the financial services front, the claims March 2011 to wealth creation are hollow indeed, with smoke and mirrors channelling wealth
CONTACTING THE BESOM If you would like to discuss giving things, skills or time please log on to www.besom.com and click on ‘Local Besoms’ to find the nearest Besom to you. If you would like to discuss giving
– ‘Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just’ – Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, 3rd President of the USA
www.besom.com
The Besom is a Christian charity. This newsletter has been printed with funds given especially for that purpose Registered charity no. 1104026 Editor: Mandie Shirnia, The Besom in Runnymede
money please call: 020 7223 0119
A big thank you to all who have given money, time, skills or things
UPDATE
Since the last newsletter in September 2010 those giving money through The Besom have provided funds for the purchase of…
Materials to waterproof roof and electric gate at a home for disabled children, Bethlehem Medical equipment for a medical centre, Bolgantanga, Ghana Dental equipment for clinic at medical centre, Zanzibar Building materials for study hall at children’s home, Tamilnadu, India Shower, security cameras and work surface for youth project in Bradford 12 mattresses and beds for a home for physically disabled, Zimbabwe Two solar panels for a children’s home in the jungle, Guyana Beds, mattresses, duvets for 3 kids’ bedrooms for a family centre, Chester, England Clothes, kitchen equipment and beds for flood relief, Pakistan Material to construct a store at settlement village, North East Uganda Ceiling tiles to replace ceiling in homeless centre, Brighton Tools for garden training centre, Richmond Furniture for HIV/AIDS project, South Africa Equipment to refurnish 2 medical boats on the Amazon, Peru 80 desks for a primary school, Uganda Reclining chairs, mattresses and utensils for an AIDS hospice, South Africa Materials to repair 8 wells in villages around Malawi Furnishings for drop in counselling centre, Brighton Materials to build 2 chicken houses for apprentices to rear chickens, Zimbabwe Carpet for halfway house hostel, London Tile and block press and tools for building a disabled school, Zambia Carpet for house at homeless project, Brighton 30 goat and donkey loans for a poverty project, Sudan New blinds for elderly community centre, London Hoover, lawnmower and fridge for exoffender community, London 2 laptops and 1 projector for children’s education project, Indonesia Material to repair 3 bore wells for 3 villages, Malawi Materials to refurbish buildings to be used in building project, Paraguay Materials to build a shelter for expectant mothers, Zambia Video recorder to help with a project working with cleft lip, Ethiopia Equipment for orphans at a children village, South Africa Sewing machines for income generating project, Bethlehem