so we've got news......

....what news we hear you cry!

well you're never going to believe it but Emerging Leaders have asked us to help assist in establishing a 'new model' of sustainable training which will help bring transformation into the farming communities in.....


.....South Africa!

yup you read that right and not just South Africa but specifically the Western Cape which is a place we know and love so much.

this opportunity came totally 'out of the blue' and the six month contract will mean that we will leave Madagascar in the middle of November and travel straight to Cape Town, we have already changed our existing return flights to England and we will initially be staying in the very valley where we spent near on seven years of our lives as we set up and then ran 'The Village of Hope' under the Thembalitsha Foundation.

there is a lot of work to do within this short space of time, but we are very excited to have this opportunity to work within a community and alongside people whom we have grown to love.

we are going to be looking at a this 'new model' for the UK High Street retailer, Marks and Spencer who are working towards their 'Plan A 2020' (should you wish to read more then please follow the link), with the wonderful existing Emerging Leaders 'team' in South Africa. 

this will include an integrated plan of community engagement via farms, schools and wider social networks with the understanding that without 'good leadership' there is no tangible change, therefore it is important for us to ensure that the leadership principles of the Emerging Leaders material is delivered, understood and put into practice by as many people as possible as we seek to show that 'everyone is a leader' and it starts with being able to lead your own life.

we will update further nearer the time, but just to say we are still very much focused on the work we are currently undertaking here in Madagascar and hold both opportunities to see communities transformed via 'leadership mindsets' at the forefront of our hearts.

Catching up with old friends and training trainers in Toamasina

see yourself as a leader

firstly we're very sorry for the lack of blog activity over the last three weeks, whilst the internet is capable of allowing us to post a few photos on Facebook it isn't quick enough to allow us to access this platform which enables us to provide a longer update.

today we have ventured to a 'hotel' in town, from which we could hope to hear the gentle lapping of the Indian Ocean however the hum of buzzing tuk tuks and scooters kinda drowns that peaceful idle out! however it does allow us to send out some emails and complete this long post.....hurrah!

since our last post we have made our way to the east coast port and second largest town of Toamasina, this is where we spent three months earlier this year and was the first place we visited on our initial trip to Madagascar in 2014.

the place holds some precious memories for us, as well as precious people, so it has been great to 'escape' the hubbub of the capital and enjoy some 'freedom'. once again Cho and Deborah have made us feel very welcome, although they were in Cape Town for a church conference when we arrived so the first two weeks were spent reconnecting with other friends we'd made during our previous visits.

rickshaws

Toamasina, also known as Tamatave, is a much more accessible town, sitting at the edge of the ocean it is very flat and has a well thought out, if not well maintained, road network. there are very few 'metal'/tar roads and once you reach them you are share them with the hand pushed carts, rickshaws, tuk tuks, scooters, motorbikes, cars, 4x4's, minibuses, buses, lorries of various sizes and huge articulated vehicles which carry the shipping containers from the port out into the country.

we have probably said it before but driving here is a bit like one of those crazy arcade games where some unbelievable situation happens which you must navigate before moving onto the next level, level one navigate around the rickshaws, level two introduce the tuk tuk, level three now involve some scooters, level four drive in the rain etc!

tim sharing at the street feeding programme

we landed in Toamasina on a Saturday morning, which was just in time to join our great friend and translator, Theo, at the 'street feeding programme', it was humbling to spend a precious hour or so with these dear people who are mainly women, of various ages, and their children. it's hard to understand all of their stories but to end up on the street is no place for them. Love'NCare now provide a nutritional meal to these street people each and everyday and it seems like the time sharing is the highlight of their dull and mundane days.

maz sharing at Bethany service, they don't look very
engaged do they!

on the Sunday morning we had the opportunity to share at the Sunday service that takes place at the largest of the Love'NCare schools which sits about 20 minutes outside the 'main town' in a semi rural area. Bethany is not only a place for education but also provides a home to some of the children and women, who are now employed as cooks, whom the Love'NCare team met during their 'street feeding programme'. it is such a great model and one that is having a tangible impact on the lives of those who had previously chosen the street as their home.

sharing at this 'church', which is mainly made up of the children and the staff who live on site, is always a joy and as you can imagine myself and Maz try to engage them in stories, games and activities to get the point across.

meeting with the prisoners

during our first week we also had the chance to catch up with nine of the 30 inmates who had attended the Emerging Leaders - 'Leadership for Live' training that we had delivered in the prison earlier in the year. it was awesome to see them and the joy on their faces as they saw us walk through the 'gate' was a memory that we shall treasure for many a year.

we can't say too much around the visit, other than it was hard to see the conditions that these guys have to endure, we are well aware that these people are inside for good reason but to hear their stories is so heart breaking, but there is hope and they told us of the transformation that they have seen both in their own lives and the life of the whole prison, as not only they but around 20 of the prison guards attended Leadership for Life training and have put the new mindsets in place to see change within the cold walls.

the main reason for our return to Toamasina was to run a 'Train the Trainer' week, similar to the one that we had just completed in Antananarivo a few weeks before. the great thing about working with the guys here is that those who we were planning to train had attended our Leadership for Life modules earlier in the year.

Maz training trainers

this group then had the benefit of seeing the new mindsets of 'seeing themselves as leaders' in whatever role or situation for near on six months and it was so awesome to hear some of their stories of how they had applied the training to their own lives and the lives of those around them.

once again we had a wonderful week with these 20 people from various organisations from around Toamasina, church leaders, prison staff, children's workers, heads of large institutions working in the social welfare sectors and younger people who had just graduated from university.

coffee time, with rice and rice tea!

as always there was an element of 'fun' during the training, although the material is very transforming it is also very accessible and to be able to encourage people to think in new ways and also new ways of training in so cool.


unlike the Tana training we weren't able to host the people but this all seemed to work out fine, we'd hired some local people to undertake the daily catering, cooked outside over a charcoal fire, this meant that we shared time around the table, which is always a great time for bonding. once again the food was great, always traditionally Malagasy which means rice, rice and more rice with different accompanying dishes.

Pastor Reynaud practicing his delivery!

the training is all about practice and it was great to see each person develop over the week, they grew in confidence and by the end we were very happy with what they had been able to deliver back to the group.

at the end of the training we have encouraged both of the groups to work through the simple but effective 'project plan' which takes us from 'the here' (reality of today) to 'the there' (what will the project look like in six months or a years time), therefore our two teams, Team Tana and Team Toamasina, have set realistic goals and we are so encouraged to think that now 50 local and passionate people will be able to deliver this training into the groups and organisations where they work which will see others in their communities transformed in the same ways as their lives have already been.

our 'Team Toamasina' Trainers

we promise to update the blog later in the week where we will be sharing some further stories of hope from our time here in Madagascar as well as some exciting news about our next steps!