As our second trip to Zimbabwe comes to an end, it's fair to say that whereas our first visit was about exploring possibilities and opening dialogues, our return was all about community building and consolidation into a sustainable project. During these past three weeks, FairFight has expanded its horizons way beyond the confines of one girl's high school in Marondera; we have woven a network of friendships from Marondera to Chitungwiza via Harare - with people both urban and rural, martial artists, academic researchers, businessmen and women, teachers... Tying into the Zim Martial arts communityWhen we started with FairFight in 2014, we were not expecting to find such a well developed martial arts community in Zimbabwe - but the more we got to know the country, the more we were humbled by just how much martial arts is valued here: karate, kung fu, tae kwon do... they all feature prominently in Zimbabwean life and school culture. At the heart of karate in Zimbabwe is a group of very senior karateka, 'The Old Harareans', training just besides Prince Edward School in Harare, and led by 5th, 6th and 7th Dan Zimbabwean black belts, presently led by Technical Director Paul Danisa. Whereas last year were worked only with Marondera Karate Club, this year we were finally able to meet and train with the Old Harareans, despite cancelling our first training with them when we burst a tyre and killed our car battery on the notorious Zim roads. Paul Danisa, Godwin Murambiwa and their crew were known to us for a long time: Mark Caddy had had a long standing invitation to come out and train with them through his ties with the World Jindokai Association, to which the Harare group is affiliated. So meeting them felt more like a reunion than a first encounter. The training, led by Sensei Mark, was fast and furious. It was great for FairFight volunteers to test their mettle with higher level training, and a nice complement to what we do in the schools with our beginners, white and yellow belts (I think Gerald can still feel his shin bone hurting!). Bringing FairFight and the old Harareans together signals a new phase for us, and we hope will bring about many more collaborations in the future. But our martial arts endeavours are not exclusive to karate. We had within our ranks this year aikido represented by Floris Eland, shodan from Aikido Dordrecht, and Korean martial arts, represented by Emma Bouterse from the Netherlands Tang Soo Do Association. So far we'd only had contacts with the karate associations here, but this time round we met with a few practitioners from the Tae Kwon Do world, including our academic research partner Tapuwa Rushesha, trained under Master Lee, who came to show his skills with us at the Old Harareans. We hope to develop connections with the Tae Kwon Do community during the coming year. Meeting MayorsLike last year, the FairFight project ran alongside a 3 week study trip run by Erasmus University College Student Association. Nine EUC students ran community research projects in Marondera under the supervision of PhD candidates Ashleigh Woodend and Ginie Servant on topics ranging from a phenomenological perspective on motherhood to the meaning of ubuntu in an entrepreneurship context. Like last year, the research was run in partnership with Drs. Winnie Mhaka and Tapuwa Rushesha, who earned their PhDs in South Africa based on research conducted in communities around Marondera and Harare. Thanks to Drs. Mhaka and Rushesha, we were introduced to the mayors of Harare and Marondera, who gracefully offered their time to meet us and speak with us. We were able to present the FairFight project to them, and both were delighted to hear about our work. Below, a picture with the mayor of Harare at the Town Hall: Part of the communityFor sure, apart from Alex Whitcomb who was born and bred here, the rest of us can never be Zimbabwean; however, this year we felt a lot less like outsiders landing in an alien country. People who last year were fresh acquaintances have become friends, and the streets of Marondera (and their notorious potholes) have become so familiar they almost feel like home. Projects fail when outsiders try to shove their ideals of change onto communities for which those ideas are neither fit nor considered. But when outsiders become part of the community and help to make the ideas of the collective become reality, then things can begin to happen. "Ubuntu" is a terribly difficult concept to grasp for Westerners, but perhaps this togetherness is the beginning of an explanation.
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One of the great challenges we had in coming to Marondera in January 2015 was dealing with the newness of karate for girls in a community entrenched in traditional conceptions of gender roles. There was already a karate club in Marondera, run by Gerald, who turned out to be our greatest ally in this project; but as Gerald pointed out when we first met him, almost all of the members (except his daughter) were men. Winning the community over to the idea that martial arts could lift up girls and women and so-doing bring everyone else up with them wasn't something that we could do with a couple of punches and kicks, especially given the short amount of time that we stayed in Marondera. When we left after three weeks, we felt that we had planted a seed, but it remained to be seen whether it would grow and bloom or wilt and die. We left the project in the hands of Gerald and he did a stellar job of keeping it running, but he experienced a significant rate of drop-outs as some of our girls were discouraged by their parents to continue with karate and chose instead more traditionally female sports. Numbers were dwindling, especially as Gerald had some serious personal challenges to face and needed to miss training more than once. When we arrived at Nagle House last week, girls timidly poked their heads through the door of the training hall, and there were some familiar faces, but very few. I was afraid that we would have to start from scratch again... and if we had to do that, then how could we sustain this in the long run? My fears were unfounded: almost unnoticeably, number began to swell on the second, then third training, and suddenly, I turned around during the warm up led by Sensei Mark Caddy, and there was a whole row of teachers having a go in their colourful african dresses! We handed them T shirts and pants, and I assumed that like last year they would come and go after 15 minutes. Much to my surprise, when I returned from training the yellow belts an hour and a half later (we had to use a different hall because we couldn't fit everybody in the main hall), all of the staff were still there! And what's more, they promised to come back the next day. The class over-ran by quite some margin, nobody wanted to stop, and as 16:30 rang on my watch, suddenly a man came to the door and inquisitively peered through. I asked him if he was a member of staff but he replied he was one of the parents of the girls coming to collect his daughter. When I asked him what he thought about his daughter doing karate, he thought about it and replied: "this is very good, for strength, for discipline, for self-defense", then promptly asked if he could join next time. Now that I think of it, I believe that the turning point was our girls' first competition in December, where Tinashe Munemo, a fiesty 17 year of 6th Form from Nagle House, won the national title in Kumite (sparring). Suddenly, a sort of karate-fever took over her school, and Gerald was allocated two rather than one classes per week. Enthusiasm was such that one of the Catholic nuns of the school, Sister Sandra, decided to join the classes, thus showing her community that martial arts could be practised as part of a Christian lifestyle. One day, where Gerald could not attend class, Tinashe took over and captained the girls through their training; this is hardly surprising to me, for Tinashe is exactly the kind of girl who understand what martial arts is about and how much it will impact her and her peers' life. Although she is still a yellow belt, she shows the spirit of somebody who will go very far with karate. I feel like we're stirred something big, and it's no longer only about us and our girls. We've brought the whole community of Nagle House together around karate. Who knows what we could do next? - Ginie Servant, Chair of FairFight The FairFight team landed in Harare to the warm welcome of the Zimbabwe Karate Union and Zimbabwean sunshine, before heading over to Marondera, the spiritual home of the FairFight project. Seeing Gerald, Madeline, Wallen and the other members of Marondera Karate Club again was an emotional moment – they had certainly not forgotten us anymore than us them, and it was as though the distance and the year that had gone by had vanished into the present where we found ourselves once again united in the same place and with the same purpose. This sense of continuity was all the stronger the minute we returned to Nagle House, the starting point of FairFight, and the school where Gerald upheld his training after our departure last year. Kalvin, the deputy Head of Sports, welcomed us once again with open arms, and after a ritual exchange of T Shirts, we were reunited with our girls. There were some familiar faces among the girls that showed up with their yellow belts and yellow stripes, but sadly, many of the girls we had begun with last year had left, and new ones had taken their place. When I asked Gerald about this, he told us that in some unfortunate cases, the parents put pressure on the girls to quit karate. He did not suggest why that might be, but after we completed a series of interviews in and around Marondera, it became apparent that we still have a lot of work to do before we win over the hearts and minds of the entire community, as many believe that martial arts is only about fighting and causing trouble and don't yet see its empowering potential for girls. As with all positive changes, these things take a long time, and with the full support of Gerald and his team, we are able to give it the time it needs. It’s a good sign that some girls came to us after class to ask if their friends, cousins, aunts and so forth could join the class. In addition, we have the privilege of having what is probably the first karate-practising catholic nun in Zimbabwe: Sister Sandra. We hope that her example will encourage young girls to take the plunge and start martial arts. In terms of the actual classes, most of our lessons have been led by Senseis Gerald and Mark, with a rotation of instructors throughout the class based on their various strengths and disciplinary advantages – Emma taking over kicking practice and Floris supervising self-defense exercises, while Ginie has been teaching the yellow belts the Shitoryu kata Pinan Nidan for their orange belt exams. To close off the week, we returned to Monte Cassino, where we taught last year as well. After a very energized double-class in a packed school hall with the entire school (nearly 400 girls!!), the director of sports of the school was so happy that he has proposed to hire Gerald to teach the school on an ongoing basis, including transporting him from Marondera to Macheke. The difficulty of access of Monte Cassino was the primary blockage to a long term partnership with them, so with this issue resolved, we hope to count Monte Cassino among the FairFight schools of Mashonaland! Emma's return to marondera"Returning to Zimbabwe has been quite an amazing experience for me. First of all, it brought back all the memories from last year – it seemed like we had never left. Returning to Marondera, to Peterhouse, to Nagle House; it felt like I was coming home in a sense, as it all came very natural. Seeing Gerald, Wallen and Madeline again; training with Marondera Karate Club and preparing to train with the girls felt very good. The FairFight team has grown now and Pearla, Mark and Floris are as motivated we were last year, maybe even more! I must admit that I was a bit scared of going back to Zimbabwe. Leaving with a new group of people, teaching a new group of girls and putting it all together to make it as great as it was last year were some of the things that were on my mind before leaving. I have to say that everything turned out to be really great! We have a great atmosphere within our group and everyone is motivated and inspired by what we’re all doing. Coming back to Nagle House to see the girls that have been training with Gerald for a year was a great inspiration for me. They all had grown so much, wearing different coloured belts and looking even more motivated than last year. The new girls were just same; seeing the smiles appear on their faces during training, hearing their loud kihaps while kicking and punching – it was amazing o be able to witness that again! Yesterday we went to Monte Cassino, one of the schools we visited last year. The headmaster had told the entire school (over four hundred girls!) to join our training. This is only the end of the first week and I can’t wait for what is yet to come." - Emma Bouterse, Secretary of FairFight Pearla's first time in ZImbabwe"I've been in Zimbabwe for a week now, and it feels like it has only been a few days. In a packed first week in Africa, I've been to play with the sweetest kids I've met in a local orphanage, and I learnt how to cook Sadza that we then went to serve at an old age home, where I had the opportunity to enter very interesting conversation where I learned a lot. I also experienced the everyday activities of buying fruit on the Marondera streets and riding the Zimbabwean dirt streets. Just as I'm slowly getting used to the bumpy rhythm of the car, I've grown to like the very sudden monsoon-like surprise showers of rain, whether I'm outside teachings karate or in the car at night. What will also stick with me is the people of Zimbabwe, who have been incredibly welcoming. Thank you! I could sum up my first week in one simple word, "happiness": happiness when I hear the laughter of my karate students, happiness when I see their excitement while giving a kick, a punch and a kiai. Most of all, happiness when I realize that what I was hoping to achieve by coming here is actually happening! I packed my bags with dreams of empowering young girls to believe in themselves and teaching them the tools to feel safe and defend themselves if needed, and the feedback has been uplifting. Several times the girls came up to me after class, telling me how awesome they thought I was, asking me to keep it up and come back quickly to teach them more, hugging and thanking me. Every time, I hug them and tell them that they can fly kick like I do to, they can punch and scream even louder than me, and they can easily be the kick-ass girl they think they see in me. So yes, I am happy, very happy with the mission and the trip up until now."
- Pearla Papiernik, FairFight Zim 2016 volunteer. On January 8, FairFight is heading back to Marondera, Zimbabwe, to reunite with Sensei Gerald Muusha and the group of karateka-girls of Nagle House High School. We've got big plans for this year: pushing our existing group of girls to the next level, both in belt exam gradings and competition skills, bringing in a whole new group of girls into the karate-fold at Nagle House, re-tying with our friends at Monte Cassino Mission School and Peterhouse School, and bringing Martial Arts to a new school in Marondera: St Francis. Before we take off on the (very) long journey back to Zimbabwe, here is a retrospective of our preparations. the eucsa ZIM 2016 groupYou've already met our new Martial Arts recruits, Pearla, Mark and Floris, but we're also taking with us a group of 9 students from Erasmus University College Student Association who have assisted us since September in fundraising, managing equipment and will now we taking part in FairFight activities in Zimbabwe. There are some martial artists in the group, representing Wadoryu karate and Jiu Justu but for most of them this will be a whole new experience. We're proud to introduce to you:
Planning Zimbabwe 2016Planning for Zimbabwe 2016 was easier than planning our first project on the one hand: since we already know the community, we knew what to expect. Sensei Gerald has been keeping in touch with us throughout the year, sending us photos of the girls as they progress in their karate skills. On the other hand, bolstered by last year's success, we were keen to offer more in 2016 than just a repeat of what we did the previous year. Planning this adventure was all the more challenging that one of our board members, Emma, was thousands of miles away in South Korea on student exchange, and two of our new members, Pearla and Mark, lived in different countries in Europe. Thanks to the power of Skype (and other useful apps), we were able to keep things rolling and come up with a plan that would expand our existing project, reinforce ties with our community partners, and extend it to new schools. There is always a danger of over-planning these things - probably a very Dutch habit! - we know from experience that in Zimbabwe things have a pace of their own. We expect that, like last year, our trip will require much making-it-up-on-the-spot. After a final board meeting on Tuesday, Simone left for Zimbabwe to join Alex in on-the-ground planning before we all join them on Saturday. Final fundraising tallyAs a final note before we take off, we'd like to thank you once again for your very generous support of FairFight across our numerous fundraising activities during this campaign: self-defence seminars, documentary screening, sponsorship and various other donations, but in particular, we'd like to thank once again the largest donors of the Zimbabwe 2016 campaign:
Thanks to these associations and all our other donors, we received around 4400 euros in fundraising, and over 30 gis and belts in donations. If this picture is anything to go by, you will have some idea of the impact that your donations will have in Zimbabwe. Thank you all once again and see you in Zim! FairFight first started its work in Zimbabwe in January 2015, when the founders Ginie Servant and Alex Whitcomb went to Zimbabwe with 10 students from Erasmus University College Student Association. After three weeks of intense training in karate and kick-boxing, the group left the project in the hands of Sensei Gerald Muusha, head of Marondera Karate Club and former Zimbabwe national kata champion. A year has passed an as a new group is about to head back to Zimbabwe in January 2016, we wanted to reflect on the progress of our project on the ground for the past 12 months. Our main project took place at Nagle House, an all-girls catholic high school in the centre of Marondera. By the end of the group’s stay in Zimbabwe, we had a group of about 25 committed girls, all outfitted with the gis that we bought or that were donated to FairFight. Fortunately for the girls, Nagle House agreed with Sensei Gerald to let the girls train once per week, a schedule that Gerald and Senpai Wallen Mapondera managed to keep going throughout the year. As it always goes with karate, some girls left after a while, under pressure from school work or from their families, and new girls came to train instead. Despite great personal difficulties, Gerald managed to keep a group of 15 girls on track for their yellow belts, and we feel it important to remind ourselves that he did this unpaid, purely for the love of martial arts. FairFight hit its first challenge on the ground when the yellow belt exam came and half of the girls could not afford the exam fee of 10 dollars! Indeed, in Zimbabwe an external examiner is required for all exams, and this had to be paid for. We learned about this quite late in the game and sending the money to Zimbabwe took some time, but by late October, all of the girls that were ready to do so had either received their yellow or yellow-stripe belts - we now have a dozen coloured belts in our club! In addition, Gerald took five of our girls to their first competition on November 28th, and one of them came first in kumite! We have high hopes for their future as competitive karateka, and so does Nagle House, who have authorised Gerald to teach twice a week in view of the good results. When we return to Zimbabwe in January, we hope to finalise preparations for the girls’ orange belts, and perhaps even help Gerald to give the exam. Thanks to the donations we received, we’re bringing high quality competition gear with us so that our girls are not let down by poor equipment when they compete nationally and perhaps even internationally. We can’t wait to go back, bring karate to a larger group of girls, and sharpen the skills of the girls who have been with us for a whole year now.
Although we tried our best, we were not able to resolve the logistical issues with Monte Cassino mission school, which we were only able to visit once in January. This school is so remote that Gerald could not make his way there once we were gone and there was no car at his disposal anymore. We will go back to give a self-defense workshop there next January, but we do recognize that logistics matters when it comes to the long-term commitment of our local martial arts teachers! Instead, we will be opening a new project at a second school much closer to Marondera, which Gerald will be able to support once we go. With only four weeks to go until we return, we’d like to thank you once again for your support of the project! Retrieved from KentOnline - Written by Bess Browning on November 10, 201 A black belt instructor will travel to Zimbabwe to teach young women from challenging backgrounds the benefits of martial arts.
Former British karate champion Mark Caddy, the chief instructor at the University of Kent for more than 20 years, will work with the Fair Fight project which helps to empower girls in third world countries through the art of karate, aikido and other forms of self-defence. Mark, 43, and the team will travel in January to a school in the southern African country, where hundreds of youngsters await his lessons. He said: “Martial arts may seem like a strange thing to be teaching but it can be practised anywhere, alone or in groups, and with very minimal equipment. “The physical skills though are only a small part as in turn we promote equal opportunities, equal respect, self-confidence, self-belief and working together as a team. “Martial arts offer a powerful form of physical and mental development and we show them something new and hope they will realise they can do things they never thought possible. “We give them new sportswear which may end up being the clothes they wear every day – it is not often they receive new clothes. It is incredibly poor and there is very little economy in the rural areas out there. “We really want to help them realise their potential.” Mark, of Horselees Road in Boughton, is currently fundraising to provide equipment for the project. He hopes to raise at least £1,000 before he leaves for his three-week trip to contribute towards the underprivileged communities. Those funds will all go directly to the project as his company, Jigsaw Business Consultants, has already funded his own travel and accommodation. Mark, a management consultant, is also looking for donations of training gear such as pads, special mitts, gum shields and first aid items. The Fair Fight Foundation, founded last year and based in the Netherlands, would like to take their mission across the globe, travelling to India next year and different parts of Africa, to schools where their services would be valued the most. In January 2015, they began their work in Zimbabwe establishing regular classes with one school and ran events at a local orphanage and another school. The students also learned when it is appropriate to use the techniques they have been taught, shared stories and heard first-hand how martial arts has changed people’s lives for the better. On the 3rd of October we organized the first ever FairFight self-defense seminar. Our primary aim was to raise funds for the Zimbabwe 2016 campaign, but also to raise awareness for our cause and show people why we do what we do. Laurent, our PR and social media manager, interviewed two of the people present that day to get their impressions. Here is what they had to say: Ashleigh Woodend is a researcher and course coordinator at Erasmus University College. She is of Zimbabwean nationality and will be a part of the 2016 Zimbabwe Study Trip. Laurent: To start-off, I would like to know the reason why you attended the seminar. Was it to financially support the cause or simply because you wanted to learn the basics of self-defense? Ashleigh: It was a bit of both. I strongly support what FairFight strives for and have always wanted to learn self-defense but never really got around it, so that was definitely a big motivation for me. Also, I brought a friend with me to the seminar and I know she was really interested in self-defense too. L: In general, did you like the event? A: I liked it a lot! It was a well-designed seminar with a very nice atmosphere. We were taught a lot of practical moves that were quite easy to do and thus manageable regardless of your age or experience in martial arts. There was also sufficient support throughout the event to let us know whether we were doing the exercises right or wrong. L: That’s great to know, thanks! I know that a 3-hour seminar is short, but do you feel that you learned something, which you will possibly think of if ever you find yourself in a dangerous situation in the future? A: First of all, I learned a lot of practical tricks for when you go out. For example keeping flats [shoes] in your bag so that you can take off your heels when you walk back home. It was also really good that Floris [the assistant trainer] stressed that all the techniques we were taught are only last resort measures and that we should always try to avoid such situations by cooperating first. Additionally, on a personal level I realized that physical strength is quite important to defend yourself and tricks are not always enough. L: Does all this knowledge help you understand the reason why we believe providing free martial art classes in developing countries lead to empowerment? A: In developing countries women are not only dominated mentally but also physically. Thus, giving them the means to react in various dangerous situations is, I think, one of the right routes to take in order to reach empowerment. I was able to appreciate this more fully by attending the seminar. L: Do you think that martial arts provide only physical empowerment? A: Well, it is hard for me to say because I have only attended one class and never felt physically endangered myself. However, I think that from now on I will walk with more confidence in the street, as I know that I am better able to defend myself.. So I am sure that for girls and women who have had to face physical abuse in their lives, regular martial arts classes can lead to empowerment both on the physical and mental level. Daan van den Oetelaar is a 26 year old Dutch citizen currently finishing his thesis for a Master in Management. He also works part-time as the Student Life Officer at Erasmus University College. Laurent: So what did you think of the seminar? Do you feel like you got anything out of it more than just entertainment? Daan: It was great! A lot of fun to participate in and I think it gives a nice impression of what impact regular trainings could have on the children in developing countries. L: Did you know about FairFight before joining the seminar or was it first time you got acquainted with it? D: In a broad sense, yes. As I know the two founders [Ginie and Alex] I already heard the name a few times and was quite familiar with what they wanted to achieve. L: Has the seminar provided you with more insight on why FairFight uses martial arts to empower young girl in developing countries? D: Definitely! I thought that there was one thing which was really well transferred to the people attending the seminar. I now understand that it is not an active fighting sport but rather a self-defense one that provides you with a certain mindset. L: What kind of mindset are you referring to? D: Well I understand it on two different levels. First, the focus of martial arts is not on beating the other person up, but rather on protecting yourself. Second, you are aware of the fact that you are vulnerable. As we were told during the seminar, in your head you always win the fight, but that rarely is the case. Remaining aware of those two points allows you to assess certain situations more fairly and thanks to that you will be able to avoid plenty of unnecessary dangerous situations. The children in developing countries will be able to use this kind of mindset both in martial arts and throughout their lives, which can help to lead to empowerment. For Zimbabwe 2016 we will have three new members joining Emma and Ginie to train girls in Marondera for three weeks and set up a new dojo. Read about their background and why they decided to join FairFight. Floris eland - Rotterdam, The netherlandsMy name is Floris Eland (on the left in the picture). I am 18 years old and currently live in The Netherlands. Being a 1st dan black belt in Aikido and doing boxing on the side, the work established by Stichting FairFight immediately caught my interest when I was first told about it. I therefore applied to be part of the trip to Zimbabwe next January and am extremely grateful that the board decided to trust me with such a task and is giving me the opportunity to use my hobby for a good cause. I have joined Stichting FairFight because I want for children living in third-world countries to have a fighting chance in a successful and happy life. I strongly believe that Martial Arts has the power to achieve such a goal as it helped me build and empower myself throughout the years. For instance Aikido, which I have been practicing since the age of 8, with its strict discipline and physical training taught me etiquette and respect, in my daily life and on the tatami (mat), as well as developed me physically and mentally. On the other hand, boxing, which I started when I was 14, is a great way to strengthen my body and satisfy my competitive side. Besides that it's a great way to test my skills in a safe environment. Pearla Papiernik - Milan, italyHi! I’m Pearla (in the middle in the picture), I’m half French and half English and am currently studying Economics at Bocconi University in Italy, Milan. I started Karate 15 years ago, at the age of 5, I have also done two years of Ju Jitsu, and am now eagerly searching for the next martial art I want to try! I am extremely excited to join the FairFight project this year; it is an amazing project that tackles the very important issue of women’s empowerment with a solution many people do not even consider, but when thought of, is incredibly logic and efficient. What I find so powerful about Martial Arts is that it does not only give you physical confidence and a sense of safety and protection, but it also gives you a general psychological strength, that in the end helps you fight for yourself, your voice and your rights. I know that Karate has shaped my life in a way nothing else has. It helped me find confidence at every difficult stage of growing up as a woman, and will with no doubt continue helping me forever. Arming women with this reminder that they can do anything is a fight I can’t wait to be a part of, and I will be putting all my energy and passion into working to give this powerful tool to as many young girls as possible. Mark Caddy - Canterbury, EnglandHi, I’m Mark Caddy and have Yondans in Shorin Ryu & Shotokan Karate as well as belts in other arts including Kobudo, Iaijutsu and Goshin. I’ve been fortunate to be lead instructor at the University of Kent Karate club for the past 20 years, helping them achieve many individual and club medals at national student championships. It was partly down to those successes I was awarded my Shihan Menkyo status. My training in Karate started in 1987 under David Kershaw one of the leading Shotokan practitioners in the country. Quickly becoming addicted to training it wasn’t uncommon for me to train up to 20 hours a week resulting in quickly being awarded my 1st black belt in under 3 years. Over the years I’ve taught countless students from beginner to black-belt and regularly teach at seminars attended by a hundred or more. Having had links with the founders of FairFight and martial artists in Zimbabwe for many years and supported from the wings where able, I was delighted to take the opportunity to join them in the 2016 trip and play a far more active part working with martial artists from many different countries. When I submitted the very first proposal for FairFight back in early 2014, before Alex joined me, my original destination had been India. We postponed this when Alex came on board to focus on Zimbabwe as our first destination, but I’d always kept in mind my original plan. I may seem strange that I focused so much on this country to which I had never been: all I knew of India, I learned from E.M. Forster’s beautiful eponymous novel, and from my infrequent visits to “Little India”, that lively neighbourhood of Singapore where I would sometimes wander through noisy temples and the bustling wet market. Still, reports of violence against women in India were pouring in from all news outlets, and the horror that was brought to the eyes of the world by the rape and murder of Jyoti Singh in Dehli in 2012 seemed to carry on time after time. The decision to take up FairFight India after the success of FairFight Zimbabwe, then, seemed like a logical move. At the very core of FairFight’s mission statement is the empowerment of women in situations of poverty, in danger of violence and in a societally difficult position, wherever they may be, and it so happens that some of these women are in India. Getting involved in India was greatly aided by my long-time friend Meera Innes and her family, who reside in the Southern city of Bangalore. With their help (thank you Rani, Tony and Jai!), I was able to contact two schools and a potential local martial arts partner. The schools are located in North Bangalore - the first, Vidya Niketan, is a fairly large establishment, with over 1000 students from elementary to high school, headed by Ms. Lalitha Desikan. They offer an impressive architecture with beautiful art from all over India represented on the walls, and most of all, a large covered outdoor space on their roof-top which will make a most splendid martial arts training hall! Vidya Niketan do not have any martial arts on offer yet, so we will be doing something completely new when we start there next June with a group of 20-30 girls from the high school! The second school, the Parikrma Foundation, is a non-profit establishment founded to provide educational opportunities to the poorest children in Bangalore. This school brings in children from the surrounding slums and provides them with a solid education from elementary to high school, with possibilities of scholarships for college. The school has a beautiful building, but no sports facilities, so we will be training bare foot in the red sand of India! Time to purchase some black outfits, I think, for our next shipment of equipment! Parikrma already has a Tae Kwon Do association, in which some of the trainers are also from the slums, and this association has trained some very successful fighters from the school, who compete nationally. However, the school wants to include karate in their activities, and FairFight will be able to provide this. We still have so much work to do - cementing our relationship with the local martial arts community is top of our list (we’ve started work on that, but it will take some time). I’m apprehensive because Bangalore is such a huge city, especially compared to the peaceful and quiet Marondera, Zimbabwe. We are also taking on a larger scale programme than the one at Nagle House - we were only working with one school in Zimbabwe, and here we are taking on two at once. But I am also bolstered by the huge success of our 2015 project. We learned so much, we actually know what we’re doing now, and that makes it so much easier to move forward with confidence. Of course, as usual, we’ll be chasing time and money - what successful project isn’t? FairFight India is a very exciting adventure, and I can’t wait to throw myself into it! I don’t know who was more impatient - me, or the girls I met, our future students! Ginie In the next couple of weeks, we will finalise the documents to cement FairFight’s passage from an ad hoc project of the Erasmus University College Student Association to a Foundation (Stichting, in Dutch) in its own right. This transition marks a new phase in the project, one in which FairFight can finally spread its wings and embrace bigger, more long term ambitions. It’s been a long ride to this moment, and not always an easy one. I remember the exact moment that I dreamt up the idea of FairFight, in November 2012 - of all places, in a noodle bar in the South Korean city of Dongtan. I was at the height of very severe depressive episode (I talked about this in some detail during my TEDx talk at Bocconi University), I’d escaped Singapore for a few days and was trying to make sense of it all with a bowl of dumplings and a good friend. To cheer me up, he asked me to dream up the one thing worth fighting for, worth carrying on for. I laughed and said that I would love to build a martial arts school for girls in underprivileged places, where I could help them find themselves and their strength - after all, martial arts was the one thing I still seemed capable of doing and enjoying! Almost three years have passed since that conversation, and when we signed the paperwork to set up Stichting FairFight in the notary’s office last week, I couldn’t help but visualise our journey to this moment, and feel a nervous tingle in my spine. There were some difficult moments in the transition from dream to project. In those early days, in the first half of 2014, Alex and I would spend long evenings after martial arts training, hammering out our plans and coming up with clever ways to overcome the obstacles that kept coming up. We chose to set this project up within our home institution in Rotterdam so that we could open it up to our students, but that came with all manner of administrative and organisational challenges - rejected proposals, risk assessments that were not complete enough, budgets that didn’t match up… Sure, we could have just gone with the two of us and done a small project there and then, it would have been easier, but I don’t think that was what FairFight was meant to be, that was not our vision. We both believed so strongly in the power of our students to help us lift this project off the ground that we were ready to go to any length to have that happen. In the mean time, through an old friend of my first karaté sensei, we got in contact with Gerald Muusha, the head of Marondera Karaté Club. It was sort of love at first e-mail between our project and his vision, and by June 2014, he had already agreed to work with us, before we even had the green light from our university! It was those little encouragements that led us, with a final push, to get the project approved in late summer 2014, and ecstatically, to be able to bring on board 10 students from EUCSA. Sticking to our guns and fighting to make this an EUCSA project the best thing we could have done. How happy were we to see that among the great people who applied to the project, there were Emma, Simone, and Laurent who would all three eventually join us on the second half of our journey, from project to institution! We knew Emma, Laurent and Simone quite well already - Emma and Laurent had been joining my kick-boxing classes for a year already and they were helping me out with our new guys. Simone was the one student I could count on to turn up to my philosophy classes at 9:00am in his pyjamas, but always reliably prepared! Emma, Simone, Laurent, Ronald, Tirza, Iris, Isabella, Nienke, Fabienne, Sharona - every one of them put their heart and soul into raising funds and preparing for this journey. Emma worked tirelessly to bring on board the Netherlands Tang Soo Do Association, and under her coordination, bags of equipment and funds kept coming in. Laurent also worked very hard to get us the support of the HE Space Foundation, to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude for their support of our first project. Delft Karaté Club also sent equipment and support our way as did many of our colleagues and friends from EUC and beyond. All together, we went from fundraising events to meetings to draft proposals to preparations… until finally, in January 2015, we went from dream, to planned project, to actual project in Zimbabwe. You can see the results of our project in our upcoming documentary, so I won’t describe them here, but when the project was over and we came home, there was a huge sense of relief and happiness. But it was also time to think about what came next. Surely, we could have kept working as an ad hoc project of EUCSA for a couple of years. But I felt the time was right to move to something bigger for us, so during the first meeting preparing Zimbabwe 2016, I suggested that we set up FairFight as a separate entity to EUCSA. I wasn’t sure how the suggestion would be received, but Alex, Emma and Simone were immediately on board, and so began the administratively arduous process of acquiring Stichting status, which we are about to complete. Laurent and Mathieu joined us shortly after that meeting, as our first volunteers, to help with our social media, website and our documentary. To be honest, Mathieu had already been involved with us since November 2014, since he’d done all of the promotional shots for our fundraising campaign. Given his talents with web, photography and video editing, having him on board has been a real blessing for us. Setting up Stichting FairFight has been an administrative challenge, but it’s also been a big emotional challenge. In the dream phase, you can still back out, postpone, or you can push forward, get things moving, but whatever happens, it’s completely under your control. When you reach the project phase, things get tough, you have to start trusting other people with your precious, fragile dream. When that dream is what held you together in the toughest times of your life, letting other people onto it is a very, very challenging process. But in a project phase, the scale is still small enough that you can keep a very hands-on approach, double check everything, reassure yourself that all is proceeding as planned. In the institutionalisation phase, though, suddenly, a whole new world of possibilities opens up, but also a whole new place where you must rely on others, you can’t control everything anymore, so you just have to make sure that you chose the right people to surround yourself with, because now it’s in our hands, jointly, and that requires much trust indeed! And when you’ve seen some of the things I’ve seen in charity management, that trust is an incredibly difficult thing to give. It doesn’t come easily, and sometimes it’s still a frightening prospect - you need to keep old fears and freak-outs under control, that voice that says “this is going to go wrong” - but trust I do: we have a fantastic team of motivated, committed and honest people, and from here, it’s onward and upward! So see you on the other side, when the last signature is put to paper. I hope you can join us too as we head into our ambitious new future! |
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