Building Call to Action Communities

Hey, Everyone! Welcome back to Brym - it’s Season 2, Episode 3! A quick note before we dive into this new Season and how it’s a bit different ! * First of all, huge thanks to my friend Nicolas Vivas Nikonorow for his genius music in our podcast episode!!! * In Season 2 of Brym, we will be highlighting stories directly from changemakers across the world - inviting those folks to tell their own stories in their own ways in the spirit of Citizen Journalism! In addition to a written piece that they write themselves, we’ll also be doing interviews so you get to hear from their own voice as well! * In this week’s podcast episode, we interviewed Andrew Banda! Andrew actually taught me about the concept of Citizen Journalism when we met in Lusaka in March and is a part of Brym’s new Global Working Group, an advisory team dedicated to re-imagining our world systems and building global climate solutions together. As always, feel free to follow along on Apple Podcasts as well! Hope you enjoy… Building Call to Action Communities Author: Andrew Banda, November 17, 2022 I remember walking barefoot with a 15KG bag of fresh harvest from the farm with a sort of excitement, while the rain poured down heavily. Feeling connected to the earth as my bare feet touched the mud, I followed my mum and other parents and their children my age as best as I could as we took a foot trail through the bush, farms and a graveyard leading back home. I grew up in the northern end of the outskirts of Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, on the border of the Central Province’s Chibombo district, in a place called Chunga. Lusaka was at this time mostly farmlands and open bush. This was truer in Chunga than most areas, where almost all roads leading to it passed through some of bush. But this is not so now. There was a stream near where I lived to the east and it went north creating a natural border between Lusaka and the Central Province. Everything on the other side of this stream was either open bush or farmland. The stream, whose banks had ashy fertile black soil was suitable for sugar cane plants but also an extra use, as a raw material for toys. Many children my age and those before us used to make toy dolls, cars, houses and other ingenious things. Past the sugarcane fields was the guava tree fields, decommissioned sewer ponds, then further and around that were mango trees littered around the fields and the small hills that made up the southern side of Chunga. When in season, we would buy cheap guavas, mangos or go collect bondwe, a delicious vegetable which grew around and in the decommissioned sewer ponds. Sugarcane season was one of those seasons which I loved, where we would go to buy very cheap sugarcane or just pick the thrown away ones and eat to our hearts desire. Between our farming, and the amazing fruits, vegetables and insect delicacies which the seasons provided thanks in large part to the farms and open bush that surrounded us, it seemed we were never in short supply of food. Years later, I volunteered at a local theatre NGO called Barefeet Theatre. I consider this era in my life as the birthplace of my voice, which because of Barefeet, tilted hugely toward creative expression and storytelling more than anything else. While at Barefeet I became one of the founding members of a youth advocacy group called the Barefeet Children’s Council, advocating for issues that affected children and young people. This was also the period where I first came to learn about Climate Change, while networking with Zambia’s UNICEF ambassadors and the many trainings and workshops that Barefeet would afford me the opportunity to attend. Through Barefeet, I would attend 350.org’s Global Power Shift Conference and go on to host multiple events before and after the conference, the highlight being during the Barefeet Youth Arts Festival. Global Power Shift Conference, 2013 Barefeet Youth Arts Festival This was also a time in my life where I would leave my village (metaphorically), and find out, ‘oh, other people with different ideas, cultures etc exist!’ It was confusing, intimidating, scary and beautiful. I especially loved it when you would enter a Barefeet workshop and know, it doesn’t matter who I am, because the space would reduce us to happy kids on a playing field, running, laughing, bonding and creating. Barefoot Team during Rehearsal, 2021 After seven years at Barefeet, I joined the Alliance for Community Action (ACA), an NGO focused on social accountability. I remember when I joined, the Executive Director said something like, “we have reports, we want those reports to be turned into something citizens can interact with.” Well, they were in luck, I came from Barefeet lol. I like to credit Barefeet as the place that gave me confidence in my voice, creativity and imagination. The ACA, on the other hand, I like to think of as the place where I discovered the WHY to my voice. It’s so much I would need a part two to talk about it all but one thing I can say is that through their work I learnt that there was no such thing as the voice of the voiceless. People had voices and it was our duty to give them correct information and then a platform for them to use their voice. Andrew Facilitating an ACA Workshop on their Rights-Based Approach Because if there is anything that governments are afraid of, it is a mass of people speaking up, not one famous person. Through the ACA I got to lead on projects that introduced me to the African Crossroads, a group of changemakers in different spaces across Africa and beyond, sharing, collaborating and creating for the betterment of the continent. Through the community I did a data storytelling project called Tipende (lets count) and a climate change contextualizing project called Bevla of which season two is about to kick off. Here now, I see at how fortunate I was. I just happened to grow up in the outskirts of Lusaka at a time when there was farmland. This allowed my single mother and other parents to provide food for us, send us to school while other kids were on the streets trying to sell to have food... that’s the case more so today than when I was growing up. Of course, my meals were not extravagant, but I was not hungry. That made a huge difference, the only difference I required to be educated. Andrew, Bottom Right, with his Siblings, Mom and Nephew (who is now Executive Director of Barefoot Theater!) That is how I look at climate change, a man-made event that affects how available and affordable food is, that directly affects how hungry families there are and what they are able to achieve. If poor families are unable to break the cycle of poverty because their children have to be on the streets to find food, then we have failed them. But I also know that they have a voice, so from my first privilege, growing up not hungry to Barefeet, to ACA to the African Crossroads and other amazing communities, I decided, I want to help them understand what climate change is and how it affects them. Then, watch them use their beautiful voices. Huge thank you to Andrew for sharing his beautiful story! Our next Climate Autobiography will come from Steve Chiu, another member of the Brym Global Working Group on December 1st! Have a great rest of the week everyone and a safe weekend. 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