In July Liz Cotton travelled to Malawi to lead a
team of people who were joining together on a house building project with the
charity Habitat for Humanity. Habitat works in many countries throughout the
world tackling the massive problem of inadequate housing. All projects are locally run and teams are
invited in to provide labour; encouragement and much needed funds to kick start
more projects. Most housing projects become self sustaining as the home owners
pay back the cost of the materials over time which feed back into a rolling
fund, however this project was for orphans and vulnerable children and so the
homes were gifted to the children to give them some security and stability. Liz
has done this each year since 2007 and is always challenged and inspired afresh
by the families they work with and the team members who leave the comfort of
their own homes to help change someone’s life on the other side of the world.
This year was no exception and in the team were some
people from Renfrewshire who were joined by folk from all over the UK and
beyond. With only two people knowing each other before they left the whole team
met up at various airports en route and had already gelled by the time they reached
Lilongwe. For most it was the first experience of a trip to Africa but all got
stuck in and were aspiring master brickies by the end of the first day.
In just over a week two houses had their roofs on
and were nearly ready for occupation and the team were all best buddies and the
sadness was as much leaving each other as leaving the community that they had
grown so close to in such a short time.
In her other life Liz runs Rainbow Turtle, the Fair
Trade organisation which has a retail shop on Gauze Street in Paisley and works
with schools, businesses, faith and community groups throughout Renfrewshire to
help them in their Fair Trade journeys and quest to making the world a better
place.
Inevitably on the build people shared their life
stories and Liz learned that Adam, who is based in Berlin, designs window
installations for shops in places like Hong Kong, Shanghai and Paris. He had
come to Malawi with a strong desire to use his practical skills to benefit
others and was really interested in Liz’s work in Renfrewshire. There were many
jokes about him coming to do a window display in Paisley but joke has turned to
reality and not only had he designed a winter wonderland display of ice caves,
icicles and origami animals but he came to oversee the installation.
Such was the bonding of the Malawi team that 17 of
the team members came to join him and help build the installation. This had
coincided with the Paisley Lights switch on and hopefully helped brighten up a
corner of Paisley and highlighted all the wonderful products from foods to
gifts, crafts, jewellery, toys and all sorts of Christmas decorations and
nativity sets. Rainbow Turtle wants people to make your shopping matter this
year and help change the lives of people in some of the poorest parts of our
world.