Tools for solidarity debate

national | environment | event notice Tuesday September 07, 2004 10:18 by Hamish Arrowsmith - Tools For Solidarity tools.belfast at virgin dot net Unit 1B1, Edenderry ind.est, 326, Crumlin Rd, Belfast 029 90 747473

Tomorrow night at 7pm (Thursday 9th September) Tools For Solidarity (as part of it’s 20th birthday celebrations) will be hosting a public debate in the Indian Community Centre, Clifton St, Belfast. The title of the debate is ''Aid is effective in alleviating poverty in Africa. Argue for or against"

PUBLIC DEBATE ON AID TO AFRICA

Tomorrow night at 7pm (Thursday 9th September) Tools For Solidarity (as part of it’s 20th birthday celebrations) will be hosting a public debate in the Indian Community Centre, Clifton St, Belfast. The title of the debate is ''Aid is effective in alleviating poverty in Africa. Argue for or against"

Speaking on the panel are:-

1. Cllr Carmel Hanna, SDLP, MLA for South Belfast, Chair of the All Party Group on International Development and former NI Assembly Minster for Further and Higher Education.

2. Mr. Explo Nani-Kofi, of the African Liberation Support Campaign, editor of the Kilombo Panafricanist journal and a campaigner against the IMF and the World Bank's fraudulent debt in Africa and Africa's forgotten wars.

3. Mr. John Barry, Co-chair of the Northern Irish Green Party and deputy director, Institute of Governance, Queens University Belfast.

4. Mr. Paul Braithwaite, International Programmes Officer of Trocaire, MA in Development Studies.

Our chair for the evening is Roisin Mc Laughlin, Lecturer (International Exchanges), UNESCO Centre at the University of Ulster. We are also expecting to get a representative of either the British or Irish government’s international development departments and a development / economic academic.

Tools for Solidarity is a non-profit making development organisation which collects, repairs and ships out hand tools and sewing machines to skilled tradespeople in Africa

We look forward to a thought provoking evening

Further information:- from: Hamish Arrowsmith, Tools For Solidarity
tel 028 90747473 or tools.belfast@virgin.net



Enclosure :-
Celebrating Tools for Solidarity (TFS)

You can’t address poverty without addressing the poor. You have to deal with them…and the people in the villages want tools. They’ll need millions of hammers.
Julius Nyerere, Former President of Tanzania

In twenty years TFS has developed from two volunteers doing weekly door-to-door tool collections to operating two full time workshops in Crumlin Rd, Belfast & Downpatrick with 10 full time and 40 part time volunteers.

Over 100,000 tools and 1000 sewing machines have been collected from all over Ireland and the Isle of Man.

TFS has shipped out more than 20,000 high quality refurbished hand tools and 300 sewing machines to groups in Nicaragua, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. Local organisations supported include disabled village projects, women’s groups, blacksmithing co-operatives, vocational training schools and youth economic groups. With tools in their hands groups have been able to take on more people, generate more income and produce a wider range of items. This benefits not only the individuals involved but also their families and the wider community. This is a real grassroots, bottom up approach to sustainable development.

TFS has received numerous environmental credits and was the first group in Ireland to receive the prestigious Schumacher Ireland Award.

The work of TFS is not solely about providing assistance to people in the Third World. TFS is committed to raising awareness of the issues of sustainable development; waste, over consumption and social, economic and political injustice. We have given presentations to hundreds of different groups throughout Ireland ranging from primary and secondary schools to community groups and statutory agencies.

One of the main reasons TFS opened its full time workshop in Belfast was to provide people with disabilities and with learning difficulties the opportunity to get involved in our work. We believe that our work is empowering, giving people the chance to get involved directly in real solidarity, to undertake work that has real meaning at many different levels, to learn new skills and to feel part of a movement working for change. TFS continues to work with a range of organizations assisting people with learning difficulties.

What TFS is celebrating most of all are the people who work towards change, who give their time and energy to advancing a humane value system and to those whose lives are full of hardship but whose spirit acts as in inspiration to us all.