30/7/2003

People may sometimes look at you and say

Spending the past few years learning the internet instead of just going back to the sort of work and business I had before, which would have been the easy way. Or would it, given the fact I have a back that doesn't like that sort of work anymore.

Maybe I could have done more work with indigenous artists and fight for their many causes - then again there are so indigenous people doing a great job of this, they don't need me to tell them how to suck eggs.

I could have thought more about myself and not let myself get quite this poor - again I would have missed the joy of finding my overseas wardrobe at my favourite Op shops.

I am sure many thought, when I decided to pack up my car, leaving my possessions in storage and move back to the Sunshine Coast, with no money or permanent place to stay.

Not me. I sometimes make it hard for myself, I know that. But that is part of it, knowing before hand it will be tough, but also knowing it is the right choice for you.

Coming back to the Sunshine Coast, was one of those times, when I knew in my heart - it was the right thing if I want to set up the Global Children's Alliance, HOPE projects and a Global Children's Festival.

There were some great people in Cairns, where I had lived happily in the little white house up against a beautiful rainforest hill, with native animals at my doorstep. But life is about change.

For the Global Children's Alliance and the HOPE projects to succeed. I need a whole communities support. Something after being away from Noosa for around 10 years, I hoped was still there.

Guess what - I may still be living out of a suitcase. But I made that decision -to trade a bit of discomfort for a whole community. Boy did I make the right choice.

My gut feeling was telling me, "maybe lots of the people who remember me from the 80's, maybe gone or busy on other things - but the community spirit I remembered will still be there."

If you want to make it easy for yourself in the long run, like I did. Start a project in a place with the right community spirit.

Noosa Shire may have changed dramatically, but scratch the surface and you find amazing people doing amazing things.

One such group are the Rural Futures Network at Pomona, a small rural town a half an hour drive from Noosa, one of the leading tourist designations in Australia.

This group are doing just that, working on things to make it a better world for all of us. My kind of people! One of them Janice another grandmother, is already helping me. thanks Janice.

Their great building is set on land given to them by the adjourning Cooroora Secondary College. Land Care group also work out of the building. They straight away suggested I do the same.

The Cooroora Secondary College has a very forward thinking Principal Peter Bradford. I meet up with Peter who is at prsent on leave to do his masters. I think him and I both knew very quickly we will be working together, the same feeling I got when I meet many of the Rural Futures group, Peter was one of the founders of.

In fact I asked Peter in the first five minutes if it was possible to cut off a bit of land for the Global Children's Alliance.

He didn't say no - he said you would have to convince me! A challenge if I ever heard it. We left the meeting, with Peter going to arrange a meeting at the college with Principals from the Sunshine Coast area, as well as community leaders, so we can get the ball rolling before I go to Taiwan.

I must admit as I got in my car, I had a sneaky look at where a Global Children's Alliance building might be in the next few years.:-)

Speaking of Taiwan, I heard from there, that at the press conference to be held on the 20th August a few days after I arrival.

A show edited from the poem One Mind One Voice will be presented by preschool kids. Expected to interact with the guests to make it a two-way activity.

I can't wait, have my suitcase packed, then again I haven't really unpacked have I.

Today Show. On Thursday morning the Today Show announced they would have a grandmother from Queensland on a mission to make it a better world, on the show on Friday. They did hope to interview me before Ricky Martin one of the members of the Alliance for the New Humanity was on the show, early this week.

It was a bit quick, so they will interview me, before I go to Taiwan. They did ask Ricky about his humanitarian work as well as his singing, good for people to see this spiritual side of him. I am looking forward to meeting him and so many others in Puerto Rico.

Another of the Alliance Board Roberto Savio, a person I will be a panellist with dealing with issues around media.

Roberto Savio (Italy, Argentina): Roberto Savio is founder of the Inter Press Service and the Secretary-General of the Society for International Development. In 1964, Savio established Inter Press Service, a non-profit co-operative of journalists and experts specializing in global communications for development. Since the 1970s, Savio has been a consultant on communication issues for many developing countries. In 1999 he was appointed Senior Advisor for Strategies and Communication to the Director General of the International Labor Organization and in 2000 he was appointed Consultant for Internal Communications Strategies to the Executive Director of the World Food Program.

Roberto and myself are now working on the Global Children's Alliance and HOPE projects and where they fit within the Alliance.

He is also helping to arrange where I will be going next year. One of the places is Italy where he is based. Another a small island where he happened to tell me he was at the time. It made me learn about.

Christopher Columbus, Journal of the first voyage

Thursday, 11 October 1492 [Columbus has disembarked on the new land and has made the first contact with the natives "I, so that they would welcome us in great friendship, since I had realized that these people would have had trusted in. and converted to our holy faith more easily if treated with love rather than with compulsion, gave some of them coloured caps and glass bead necklaces that they put around their necks and many other things of little value, which made them exceedingly happy and they became so much our friends that it was marvellous.

Then they came swimming out to the boats in the canals where we were, and they brought us parrots, balls of cotton yarn, assegais and they exchanged them for other things that we gave to them, like glass beads and rattles. In short, they took everything and gave of what they had with a good will. But none the less they struck me as very poor people.

They all go naked as the day they were born, even the women, although I only saw one woman, who was very young. And all the men I saw were very young, and I never saw one older than thirty years; they all have good physiques, with fine bodies and pleasing faces. They have thick short hair, which looks like the hair of a horse's tail. They wear it in a fringe over the forehead, save for a few long locks that they throw back, which they never cut. Some paint themselves in dark colours and their skin colour is like that of the Canary Islanders, neither black nor white, other paint themselves white, others red, and others again in whatever colours they may find; some paint their faces, others the whole body, and others again only the eyes or the nose.

They carry no weapons, nor do they know them: for I showed them some swords and they, out of ignorance, on taking them by the blades, cut themselves. They have no iron of any kind. Their assegais are canes without iron while some are tipped with a fish tooth and others again tipped with other things. These people are generally fairly tall, with lithe movements, and well built. I saw some whose bodies bore the marks of wounds, and by dint of gestures I asked them what had happened: and they had me understand that sometimes people from other islands came with the intention of capturing them, and that they defended themselves.

I thought then and think now that people come here from the mainland to take them as slaves. They must be good and ingenious servants, because I observe that they instantly repeat what I say to them and I also believe that they could easily become Christians, since it appeared to me that they did not belong to any religion. If Our Lord should will it, on leaving here I shall take six of these men with me to Your Highnesses, so that they shall learn to speak. On this island I have seen no animals of any species, save parrots."

Christopher Columbus A navigator and explorer, probably born in Genoa (but many towns claim to be his birthplace), in 1479 Christopher Columbus began sailing on merchant ships and, in 1486, he settled in Portugal. It was there that he first began to cultivate his dream of reaching India by the fastest possible sea route.

In 1492, after two previous failures, the king and queen of Spain approved his plans, naming him Admiral of the three caravels they had ordered to be prepared for him: the Pinta, the Niņa and the Santa Maria. On 3 August they set sail from Palos and on 11 October 1492 they landed on the island of Guanahani (in the archipelago of the Bahamas), which Columbus named San Salvador. Later, he reached Cuba, which he thought was China; then it was on to Haiti, where he established a small colony. When he returned to Spain he organized another expedition with 17 ships, in the course of which he reached the Antilles and Jamaica, but without finding the riches he dreamed of. On his fourth voyage he skirted Central America from Honduras to Colombia, still convinced he was in Asia. Tired by then, he returned to Jamaica, where he stayed for 10 months, only to return to Spain in 1504. He died in 1506, a forgotten man.

Have a nice day, I will thinking about Guanahani and some pre-schoolers performing at a press conference at the Howard Plaze Hotel and where I will be staying while in Taiwan http://3w.howard-hotels.com.tw/hotel_je/je.asp

I think I made the right choice!

Kerry Bowden
Global Strategic Alliance for the New Humanity,
One Mind One Voice.
A Famility of Humanity
PS: Caitlin say