Do Not Tiptoe 5

DO NOT TIPTOE

the conflict edition

‘ ALL AROUND YOU, PEOPLE WILL BE TIPTOEING THROUGH LIFE, JUST TO ARRIVE AT DEATH SAFELY. BUT DEAR CHILDREN, DO NOT TIPTOE. RUN, HOP, SKIP OR DANCE, JUST DON’T TIPTOE.’ Shane Claiborne

To find out more about Christian Aid Collective go to christianaidcollective.org

GUEST CONTRIBUTORS

Kevin EG Perry is a freelance writer and foreign correspondent.

His essays, articles and screeds have appeared in GQ, Vice and NME among other publications.

Tomi Ajayi manages comms for a project that supports grassroots groups working for social justice in Sierra Leone. She tweets topical limericks via @trustTomi.

Giles Crawford is an Australian comic book artist and animator currently living in the US, who is trying to make the world a better place with pictures and music.​

Micah Hooks is a freelance illustrator who’s based in London. You can see more of his work at micahhooks. carbonmade.com

CONTACT US AT: Tel: 020 7523 2300 Email: collective@christian-aid.org Online at: christianaidcollective.org Twitter: @TheCACollective Facebook: facebook.com/christianaidcollective Christian Aid/Sarah Rowe

For regional offices’ contact information, go to christianaidcollective.org/office-contact-information Do Not Tiptoe is available every six months. To find out when the next issue is on its way, sign up to our newsletter list at christianaidcollective.org UK registered charity no.1105851 Company no. 5171525 Scotland charity no. SC039150 NI charity no. XR94639 Company no. NI059154 ROI charity no. CHY 6998 Company no. 426928 The Christian Aid name and logo are trademarks of Christian Aid. Christian Aid Collective is a mark of Christian Aid. Do Not Tiptoe is printed on 100 per cent recycled paper © Christian Aid April 2014 14-421-J2226.

Cover art: Giles Crawford

CONTENTS

THE CONFLICT ISSUE 4 -7 LIFE AND FAITH With religious differences the cause of so much tension, Hannah Henderson asks if we should be embarrassed to be Christian. Meanwhile Tomi Ajayi gets shudderingly close to an uninvited guest on her year abroad, and Jim Atkins hits the campaign trail styled as Trevor McDonald.

8-37 CONFLICT 8 Shocking fact about child soldiers.

10 Campaigning in a galaxy far, far away...

Sharing an anti-war petition on Facebook may salve our social conscience, but, asks Kevin EG Perry, does it make a difference in ‘real’ life?

18 ‘Leave us in peace’– images from war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

26 Artist Micah Hooks on the horror of war.

28 Seed and sunlight – a tale of rebuilding a way of life destroyed by violence.

32 Never forget – stories from communities in Colombia counting the cost of conflict.

36 Visual reflection on role of theology.

38-47 SEE, HEAR, PRAY, DO Meet two inspirational women with a passion for justice and Jesus; give peace a chance with origami, prayer and a tasty dip; we check out 5 Broken Cameras; and Chris Mead finds love.

iStock/SSharick

‘It’s reasons like this that make me embarrassed to say that I’m a part of Christianity’

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LIFE AND FAITH

‘RELIGION IS IRRELEVANT. IT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SO MUCH WAR…’ … said a friend to me over coffee. Much as everything in me wanted to shout ‘No! Don’t tar me with that brush!’, I couldn’t. She’s right. Religious differences have been – and still are – at the centre of so much conflict.

I’m often embarrassed to say that I’m a part of Christianity. Because the first thing people think of is so often the wars; our extreme oppression of people because of gender or sexuality; or simply because we’re obsessed with telling people about Jesus rather than loving them.

The first thing people see isn’t the radical promise of redemption. It isn’t the powerful, subversive story of a king who commanded non-violence. It isn’t the lifechanging, heart-breaking, ‘I’ll-never-be-the-same-again’ demand on our whole beings to live a life fighting for justice and peace.

We live in a world full of conflict. When people are desperate to feed their family, when they’ve had their rights taken away from them, or seen their parents killed, the human reaction is so often to fight.

But what excites me about this faith is that Jesus recognised the human in us. He exists in solidarity among the suffering, he’s standing alongside ordinary people as they struggle to feed their families and weep for their lost. He calls us to follow him in living out a radical hope for a better world where there are no more tears. Although it’s become distorted, misunderstood or ignored, we follow a faith that offers an alternative to our human violence. An alternative of forgiveness and peace.

I want to be proud of my religion. To tell people that it’s far from irrelevant because it teaches a message that is exactly the opposite of all the conflict that’s happening.

But it’s up to us to make it relevant. Join us to build a community that can end poverty. Go to christianaidcollective.org/sign-up Hannah Henderson @hannahseunoia ISSUE 5 Do Not Tiptoe 5

FACE-TO-FACE WITH A MUTANT COCKROACH They say you never forget your first: that once-in-alifetime trip of your dreams. You’ve read countless blogs about other people’s experiences and you’re determined to make yours count. So you’ve made plans, taken precautions, and done your research.

But when that moment finally comes and you reach your long-awaited destination, it’s never quite what you expected. There is fear, there is fumbling, there is frustration, there is shame.

Take it from me: no matter how well prepared you think you are, that first long-term trip overseas to work or volunteer for a charitable cause is a smorgasbord of twists and turns. Naturally, many of these twists are curiously absent from the glossy ‘voluntourism’ adverts that promise intrepid young travellers a chance to change/save/see the world [delete as appropriate].

That severe bout of diarrhoea that catches you unawares on a hot, crowded bus; that cultural faux pas that nearly gets you arrested; the first time someone gently explains the importance of regular deworming. It’s not in the guidebook.

Neither is the irrational fear you’ll feel on coming faceto-face with a mutant cockroach. The silent fist pump you perform when you finally manage to trap it and throw it down the toilet. The shout of frustration that escapes when you realise the water supply has run out (again), making it impossible to flush the cockroach to its watery grave.

And then there’s the shame of realising that of all the wonderful stories you could have chosen to share with your Facebook friends – tales of beautiful landscapes, vibrant communities, heart-wrenching poverty, brave battles against injustice – you choose to tell them about the mutant cockroach.* Like I said before, it’s never quite what you expect.

Tomi Ajayi @trustTomi *It was as big as my hand. Seriously.

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iStock/Arlindo71, Shutterstock/Somchai Som

LIFE AND FAITH

CAMPAIGNING ON THE INTEGRITY HIGHWAY When I was growing up, Trevor McDonald was the face of ITN’s News at Ten. He was a stalwart in his field: trustworthy, honest and undeniably hopeful in communicating often negative world events. The stern drum beats of the credits gave way to his unmoving presence, oozing authority from behind the desk. ‘The world’s a mess kids, but I got this,’ he seemed to say, his spectacles sparkling beneath the studio lights.

But the world keeps on turning and things change. Today’s social-mediadriven news cycle has a face too, but one that more closely resembles Ronald McDonald: high on sugar and screaming ‘the end is nigh’ from the roof of the nearest fast-food restaurant. It’s fast, brash and loose, but it sets the pace for the rest of us. It’s Ronald’s way or the highway.

That great philosopher Jerry Maguire once said (and when reciting these words in your head, please say them in the voice of Trevor McDonald): ‘Play the game, play it from your heart.’

We’ve a world to change, people! It’s time to take risks, do so with integrity and get our McDonald on. The Trevor variety.

Jim Atkins @jimityjim

The charity sector, once so composed in its message of goodwill, seems to have been dragged into a race for the summit – sucked into games of corporate one-upmanship, sending out-of-work graduates on to the streets to demand cash from the weary and bewildered.

I mean, who’d trust anyone who defines themselves by what they’re not rather than what they are? Nongovernmental organisation? That tells us nothing!

But here’s the thing. In this fast-paced, quick-quid world, the charity sector is one of a few that still has integrity. Its core focus remains to not only try to make the world a better place but to represent the best of humanity too.

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CONFLICT

TODAY THERE ARE AN ESTIMATED

1 War Child, warchild.org.uk/issues/child-soldiers

CHILD SOLDIERS IN THE WORLD.

1

Christian Aid/Juliet Blackledge

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iStock/Mikkelwilliam

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Campaigning in a galaxy far, far away…

Social media can create ‘virtual’ revolutions, but, asks Kevin EG Perry, can an online petition or a Facebook ‘like’ stop a war or change a law? Or do we need to get up from our sofas once in a while?

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‘IF YOU THINK THE WORLD CAN BE SAVED AT THE CLICK OF A BUTTON, YOU’RE ABOUT TO BE DISAPPOINTED’ When was the last time you went online? Within the last hour? The last five minutes? Are you, in fact, checking your emails on your phone with one hand while you flip through this magazine? Are you halfwondering what you might tweet about it?

In 2014, the internet is where most of us live. That goes for the whole planet. Once in a small café in Koraput, a rural town in the east of India, a teenage boy asked me ‘what’s your name?’. Within moments he was showing me my Facebook profile on his smartphone. That’s in a place that never got landlines.

When we lived in the real world, we marched on the streets to get our voices heard. Now it’s easier than ever to mobilise mass protests online, particularly thanks to campaigning sites like Avaaz and Upworthy, but it’s also easier than ever for those in power to ignore them.

KONY 2012 SUCCESS… Online activism has been dismissed by some as the encroachment of marketing into protesting.

For a week in March 2012, it looked as if the Kony 2012 video would give us the answer to whether online activism was the real deal. A slick, wellproduced half-hour YouTube video about the hunt for the child-abducting leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, it ‘went viral’ in a way few videos have done before or since.

Some polls suggested that over half of young adult Americans at least heard about the campaign in the days following the video’s release, and it has now been watched more than 99 million times. This would seem to be a successful result for Invisible Children, the relatively small, single-issue campaign organisation behind it.

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Shutterstock/KunalMehta

… OR FAILURE?

‘It was a perfect example of the power of a simple narrative over a complicated one’

Except, of course, it didn’t change the world in quite the way anybody hoped. Joseph Kony remains a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, just as he was before Kony 2012. Despite promises of extra troops, his capture seems no more likely than it did before the campaign started.

The film itself was also roundly criticised and mocked.

The campaign was a perfect demonstration of the power of a simple narrative over a complicated one. The Kony 2012 message, as is made explicitly clear in the film, had been simplified to the level that a five-year-old child could understand it.

Unfortunately for Joseph Kony’s child soldiers, the world is more complicated than that. Within days of its unprecedented ‘success’, Invisible Children was almost entirely discredited.

Perhaps most pertinent for those seeking to learn the lessons of Kony 2012 is that Invisible Children’s own ISSUE 5 Do Not Tiptoe 13

campaign mobilisation didn’t materialise on the streets. The film ends with a call to plaster ‘every city, every block’ with posters of Kony’s face, yet this failed to happen. Reports in the Guardian referenced ‘paltry turnouts’ that had ‘failed to move from the internet to the streets’.

A BLESSING AND A CURSE Kony 2012 engaged people just enough to get them to watch and share a video, but not quite enough to leave the house. Protest conducted on social media is both blessed and cursed in this respect.

It’s good at harnessing loose networks of colleagues and acquaintances, but it is much less successful at replacing the dedicated campaign teams – whom Margaret Mead famously called the ‘small group of thoughtful, committed citizens’ – that can actually change the world.

Networks are good for spreading a message, but they’re not so good at thinking strategically or setting goals.

In a broad network, decisions happen through consensus, and the ties that bind people to the group are loose. You might use one to distribute food, but you wouldn’t trust one to bake a cake. You’d want someone with expertise to do that.

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Social media activism like Kony 2012 favours organisations with vague, adaptable goals and simple messages over those with disciplined, concrete strategic goals. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, but harder for that expression to have any actual impact. In effect, this strengthens the power of the status quo. This is fine if the changes you want to make to the world are minor or cosmetic. If you want real, systemic change, it’s more of a problem.

GREENPEACE VS VW A more instructive lesson about how social media can be harnessed to win campaign battles comes from Greenpeace’s sustained two-year campaign to persuade Europe’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen to ensure its cars meet strong CO2 reductions targets.

Greenpeace did this through a joined-up online and ‘real world’ campaign with a Star Wars theme: it wanted VW to turn away from ‘the dark side’.

Greenpeace’s campaign seems, at first glance, to be less emotive than Kony 2012’s stories about children being kidnapped in the night to fight in the jungles of central Africa.

Compared to most of its campaigns, which pit Greenpeace against petrol companies, Volkswagen would present a slightly different challenge. Volkswagen had cultivated an environmentally aware image, and Greenpeace knew that success would come not by hectoring accusingly but rather by urging the company to live up to its own self-image and the promise of its advertising.

USING THE FORCE At the time, Volkswagen launched its own Super Bowl advertisement featuring a small boy dressed as Darth Vader using ‘The Force’ to make the lights blink on his dad’s car. Inspired, Greenpeace realised it was being offered an irresistible opportunity to subvert that imagery to tell its own tale of good versus evil.

Alongside a digital campaign involving YouTube videos and online games, Greenpeace launched the ‘VWDarkside’ campaign with a ‘real world’ launch at Old Street – the home of UK digital marketing. Sixty-five people were there as well as four billboards and 15 ‘stormtroopers’. Of course, this ‘real world’ event was also intended to go viral online, with both ‘Stormtrooper’ and ‘Old Street’ trending globally on Twitter that day.

The initial video clip also went viral – often being shared as a funny advert rather than a worthy campaign video – and drove more than 5.5 million visitors to the campaign website. The site had a built-in game, ran competitions and gave away t-shirts so the support was fun, but all tied to the key messages of lobbying VW and then spreading the campaign across your own social networks.

There was a guerrilla element to Greenpeace’s campaign too. A claim

by LucasFilms soon meant that Greenpeace’s original video was pulled down from YouTube. However, it had already reached enough passionate supporters to ensure that more than 100 clone versions sprang up across YouTube and Vimeo.

‘Protest conducted on social media is both blessed and cursed’ ISSUE 5 Do Not Tiptoe 15

MESSAGES FROM #DARKSIDE This was a campaign that hinged on social media. In the space of seven months in 2011, there were 18,000 tweets sent using the hashtag #vwdarkside and 74,000 fans joined the Facebook campaign page.

In total, 526,000 people signed the rebel manifesto calling on Volkswagen to make its cars more efficient.

On 6 March 2013, after two years of campaigning, Volkswagen committed to ensure its cars meet strong CO2 reductions targets. VWDarkside’s message was coherent, with the knowledge that if ignored it could cause serious brand damage to image-conscious Volkswagen.

bring about real change, but coherent, sustained and well-planned activism can harness social media to amplify its message. The internet can be a megaphone, but that just makes it all the more important that the message and the demands are clear from the start.

Frederick Douglass, the slavery abolitionist, famously said of social change: ‘It must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.’

The internet hasn’t changed this. If you think the world can be saved at the click of a button, you’re about to be disappointed. People really can change the world, though, and the internet is full of them. That’s something worth tweeting about.

FROM VIRTUAL WORLD TO REAL-LIFE RESULTS Successful ‘clicktivism’ is possible, but it requires certain key factors to be in place.

If social media can be incorporated from the launch of a campaign, and if it can focus on a key audience who can spread the message, that will give the campaign a much greater chance of success.

The catch is that a slick video or shareable website is not enough. Mass networks of people expressing vague goodwill towards a cause will never

‘It must be a struggle.

Power concedes nothing without demand’ 16 Do Not Tiptoe ISSUE 5

Christian Aid/Will Storr

Despite its huge success in raising awareness, Kony 2012 didn’t have the desired result and Joseph Kony remains at large. Meanwhile, the LRA is still active in parts of Central Africa. Christian Aid travelled to Uganda to meet former child soldiers of Kony’s LRA and the communities living with the legacy of terror.

The stories we brought back are disturbing but we think they need to be told to help people heal and move towards peace.

Check it out and share or tweet it on. christianaidcollective.org/blog/ konys-shadow

If you’re inspired to make a difference and want to do more than click a button, check out our website and get involved.

Together we can end poverty. christianaidcollective.org/take-action

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All photos: Christian Aid/Matthew Gonzalez-Noda

CONFLICT

‘Leave us in peace’

Picture this… 20 years of violence and conflict has left eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in tatters. But amid the destruction and tragedy, the hope of peace stays strong.

CONFLICT

‘Will the violence ever end?’

2014 marks two decades of conflict in eastern DRC. It has shattered lives and livelihoods, yet communities still cling to the hope that one day the soldiers will leave their communities and peace will come.

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After her husband died, Safi was raped. The perpetrators? The very soldiers living in her town who are supposed to protect the community.

Acts of violence – from rape to beatings to looting – is an ever-present threat for civilians across eastern DRC.

ISSUE 5 Do Not Tiptoe 21

CONFLICT

One of these pictures shows a soldier from an armed group. The other shows a soldier from the Congolese army. Both have the responsibility of protecting civilians in the areas that they control. How would you feel if your protectors also used their weapons to harm you? How will it affect children, who grow up in an environment where they may have seen their mothers raped, been caught in the middle of gun battles or witnessed their homes razed to the ground?

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CONFLICT

‘We need a durable peace, our government needs to take responsibility.

If security improved, we would be free to travel, run businesses and send our kids to school’ Jacqueline Nyenyetsi

After years of what might seem like an uphill struggle to make a difference, it’s easy for the wider world to get disheartened. But for people living in conflict, the problems don’t go away. Christian Aid partners in the region provide support to people fleeing the conflict.

They help survivors of sexual violence seek the help they need and work with women to protect them against potential attacks. They also support people to find ways to earn money to feed and care for their families.

The quotes on pages 19 and 20 are from many people we spoke to. Time and again we heard these same questions and frustrations, so we have shared their collective voice here.

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Micah Hooks

SEED AND SUNLIGHT

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CONFLICT

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Christian Aid/Matthew Gonzalez-Noda

Never forget

For a communities living in humanitarian zones in north Colombia, the horrors of conflict are raw.

Rachel Lees shares their stories.

HOUSE OF MEMORY Barbed wire is the only visual measure of protection surrounding the community of Las Camelias, a humanitarian zone in north Colombia. Literally anyone with a pair of wire cutters could walk straight in. This wire barrier surrounds a community of peasant farmers, victims of the Colombian conflict. People who were violently chased away from their land and cut off from their lives and incomes. I shared food with these people and slept in their homes. The stories they told me seemed like the plot of a horror movie.

Stories of intimidation, of brutality, of murder. This House of Memory (above), in the centre of Las Camelias, is where the memories of those who were lost are preserved.

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CONFLICT LAND BENEATH OUR FEET This is Trinidad. She is a gentle matriarch who lives for her family and loves the ancestral land that has been beneath her feet for her whole life. That is until she was displaced by armed groups.

Three times.

We sit under a grand tree, planted by Trinidad’s husband, and hear the story of her family and the humanitarian zone they’ve created on their rightful land.

A zone created for their protection.

‘IN 2012, TRINIDAD’S HUSBAND AND HER SON WERE TORTURED AND MURDERED’ We learn that the tree we sit under was used by paramilitaries to torture people.

Sounds archaic in a way that makes it seem like it can’t possibly be recent history, right?

Manuel and Samir had been tricked out of leaving the humanitarian zone by a fake competition to win $10,000.

Christian Aid/Jo Rogers

In 2012, Trinidad’s husband, Manuel, and their 15-year-old-son, Samir, were tortured and murdered because of Manuel’s sense of justice and his knowledge of the local land that had led him to give assistance in the current government’s land restitution process.

Their bodies were found by Christian Aid partner the Inter-Church Commission of Justice and Peace.

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RELENTLESS DEFENDER Because Abilio grew up in the city, he was unaware of the extent of the conflict occurring in rural Colombia.

However a chance encounter with a priest led him on a path that now sees him relentlessly defending the human rights of others, working with our partner the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace. A deep sense of what it really means to love mercy, do justice and walk humbly with your God is palpable when spending time with Abilio.

By candlelight, in a home in Las Camelias, he says: ‘If I stopped doing this, I stop being true to myself and I wouldn’t be myself. It would be like dying and why would you be the living dead?’

Abilio faces death threats for simply standing up for justice. But the alternative just isn’t an option for him.

‘If I stopped doing this... it would be like dying and why would you be the living dead?’

All photos: Christian Aid/Rachel Lees

BROKEN VASES, SCATTERED SEEDS In the office of the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace is a memory room. A space to remember those lost and to affirm everything that has been achieved. It’s full of all sorts of objects, items that belong to people who have been killed or gone missing simply for speaking out against injustice. There are photos of those who are lost and paintings depicting the horrors of the war.

But it’s not all despair. There’s hope amid the sadness. Scattered seeds remind

us that life will go on. Broken vases that have been painstakingly repaired symbolise communities can be rebuilt.

We will never forget the past, the cracks and the wounds of our history, we won’t ever be quite the same. But there is hope.

That is what we are about.

To read more stories from around the world and find out how you can be a part of them, visit christianaidcollective.org/poverty-issues

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*

CONFLICT life and faith

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Quote: Henri Nouwen, Photo: Christian Aid/Juliet Blackledge

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SEE, HEAR, PRAY, DO

MEET CHINE MBUBAEGBU She’s head of media and communications at the Evangelical Alliance, editor of threadsuk.com, and the author of Am I Beautiful?

Tell us about yourself in fewer characters than a tweet. A bit of a busybody, creative, faith- and media-type.

Who are you most influenced by and why?

The amazing women I’m surrounded by. I’m sometimes astonished by the amount of world-changing, compassionate, injusticefighting, glass-ceiling-breaking women I’m lucky enough to call friends.

What’s the best thing about your job? I can’t remember a moment when I’ve been bored. Every day brings something new.

Which words or phrases do you most over use? ‘Cool’, ‘innit’ (in an ironic sense), and ‘basically’. I annoy myself using them, but can’t seem to stop…

‘I’m astonished by the amount of world-changing, compassionate, injustice-fighting women I’m lucky enough to call friends’

What is your preferred method of conflict resolution? Written communication. Often feels like a cop-out, but I feel I’m able to handle conflict if I can set out my thoughts.

Tell us one new law you would introduce if you became prime minister tomorrow.

I’d ban the objectification of women in all media and advertising.

What issue are you most passionate about? Women having equal opportunities to men – not just in the workplace or in Parliament but not having to be subject to horrible things such as female genital mutilation, domestic violence or rape during war.

What does community mean to you?

It means a safe space for sharing life together.

Follow Chine @ChineMbubaegbu 38 Do Not Tiptoe ISSUE 5

MEET MIRIAM SWAFFIELD She’s a student worker for Fusion and is quite possibly the most passionate and energetic person you’ll ever meet.

Tell us about yourself in fewer characters than a tweet. I’m passionate about Jesus and sharing him. I love adventure and I use an alarming amount of hand gestures when I talk.

Who are you most influenced by and why? Aside from the Holy Spirit, it’s those I do everyday life with in my church. I trust them to challenge me, and cheer me on, and it matters what they think.

What’s the best thing about your job?

The best thing, while being simultaneously one of the worst things, is driving the bright orange ‘loveyouruni’ campervan!

Which words or phrases do you most over use? All of them! I’m a sucker for a soundbite. I use the words ‘literally’, ‘seriously’ and ‘brilliant’ far too much.

What is your preferred method of conflict resolution? I am learning more and more to apologise, and to genuinely listen to the person I am disagreeing with.

Tell us one new law you would introduce if you became prime minister tomorrow.

Introduce yourself to your next-door neighbours wherever you live and share a meal together. I’d love to see what that would do to community.

‘I love adventure and I use an alarming amount of hand gestures when I talk’

What issue are you most passionate about? The biggest injustice for me is that people don’t know they’re loved.

This translates into so much abuse and injustice in how people treat each other.

What does community mean to you?

Community is key, it’s the church, the people of God gathered as family.

Illustrations: Hannah Henderson

Follow Miriam @miriamswaff Discover fusion.uk.com ISSUE 5 Do Not Tiptoe 39

* life and faith

ORIGAMI CRANES The origami crane has become an international symbol of peace. You can use them as a prayer activity – write on to the cranes a country or situation of conflict as you pray for it.

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Christian Aid/Juliet Blackledge

‘It is not enough for there to be an end to conflict, we must also work to build peace’ INSTRUCTIONS 1. Using a square piece of paper, fold the paper in half to form a triangle. If using a piece of paper coloured on one side only, begin with the coloured side facing up. Unfold the paper and repeat to make folds.

2. Flip the paper so the coloured side is facing down and fold the paper in half forming a rectangle. Unfold the paper and repeat.

3. Now fold along all four creases at once to form a square with the open end facing you.

7. Fold two edges in to form a kite-shape.

Repeat on the other side.

8. Fold the top layer (right side) to lay on top of the left side like turning the page of a book. Flip over and repeat on the other side.

9. Fold up the top layer as far as you can on each side.

10. Fold the top layer (right side) to lay on top of the left side like turning the page of a book. Flip over and repeat on the other side.

4. Fold two edges in, to form a kite-shape on top. Repeat on other side.

11. Fold down wings.

5. Fold the point down and crease above the other two folds. Flip the paper and repeat fold.

Undo the folds you made in steps 4 and 5.

12. Bend down the head to give the crane a long beak. Pull the wings straight out from the body so that the body inflates.

6. Pull the bottom corner (top layer only) up above the top corner. Fold along the creases you made in steps 4 and 5. Repeat on the other side.

Confused your folds? Got stuck at step 3? We’ve drawn up a more detailed worksheet: go to christianaidcollective. org/resources/origami ISSUE 5 Do Not Tiptoe 41

Illustration and photo: Christian Aid/Juliet Blackledge

SEE, HEAR, PRAY, DO

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BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER

‘People ask if we really believe that hummus can solve the Arab-Israeli conflict.

If there is anything that can solve it, it is hummus’ Yotam Ottelenghi1 It’s a long-standing debate over who owns hummus – the Egyptians, Greeks, Israelis, Lebanese and Palestinians have all laid claims. There are many things that Israelis and Palestinians disagree on, but perhaps, as Ottelenghi suggests in the cookbook Jerusalem, hummus could be the very thing that brings communities together.

Join us for a meal that could change the world. Visit christianaidcollective.org/ eat-act-pray 1 haaretz.com/weekend/pleasure-hunting/yotam-ottolenghiand-sami-tamimi-talk-jerusalem-recipes-and-passports. premium-1.493199

THE RECIPE 1 tin chickpeas 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 tbsp tahini 4 tbsp water

2 tbsp olive oil Juice of half a lemon Pinch of cumin Pinch of salt Sprinkle of paprika

• Put all of the ingredients in a blender and give it a good blitz until smooth.

• Have a taste and add more lemon, garlic, cumin or salt if it needs it.

• Serve in bowls and add a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of paprika.

Invite friends round to share it!

SEE, HEAR, PRAY, DO It’s all about size, speed, make and model.

We’re a nation, a world in thrall to the shiny pocket-sized phenomenon that we can’t live without. But, asks Chris Mead, at what price? Is our obsession with our little cellular friends costing the Earth?​

DO NOT TIPTOE AROUND...

MOBILE PHONES

I LOVE MY PHONE. As I write that sentence, I’m scared you’ll misunderstand me. That you’ll think I’m using love in that casual way that some people do: ‘I love those shoes’, ‘I love it when it’s sunny outside’ or ‘I love my new baby so much’.

I’m not talking about a trivial love here – I’m talking about a full on, can’t-livewithout-it kind of love. A depth of affection that means if we are parted, I begin to pine away. I become a shadow of myself, constantly wringing my hands before staring into my empty palm and lamenting the fact I don’t know what Caitlan Moran thought about Sherlock last night. Or where the nearest bus stop is. Or if anyone liked the picture of the stir-fry I made earlier…

I am a mess without it. Adrift in a sea of loneliness with no recourse to the regular, reassuring ping of notifications from my life feed and the soothing hit of validation that they bring.

I HEART MY PHONE. BIG TIME. And I’m not alone. There are more than 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions across the world. That’s more phones than toilets.

In Africa, more people have access to a mobile than clean drinking water. Putting my deep-abiding affection aside for a moment, it’s a worrying trend, isn’t it?

And that’s before we even start talking about what’s inside our phones (apart from Flappy Birds). One of the things inside is

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coltan, a mineral that’s so important in electrical engineering it’s in pretty much every fun device you own from laptops and cameras to games consoles. 70% of the world’s coltan reserves are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), one of the world’s poorest countries with, counter-intuitively, a vast amount of mineral wealth.

When these slap-your-forehead paradoxes start popping up, you know you know that someone somewhere is making a lot of money.

In fact, DRC’s trade in minerals (including coltan, tin and gold) helped fuel the African World War from 1998-2003, the deadliest since the Second World War, claiming 5.4 million lives. Fighting continues to this day in eastern DRC.

WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO GUESS WHERE THE MINES ARE LOCATED? The problem is that in many cases the minerals in our devices are untraceable, they are smuggled out of the country via a complex network of intermediaries and

‘[It’s] a cocktail of problems that all too often leads to conflict’

sold on. For instance, Congolese militias are illegally making millions selling coltan to be traded internationally – that’s millions that could be used to lift people out of poverty.

The DRC isn’t by any means the only country affected either. It’s a global problem that affects countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Frequently, where you witness the illicit trade in minerals, the backdrop is that same potent mix of natural resource wealth, long-term political instability and poor natural resource management. A cocktail of problems that all too often leads to conflict, a lack of security and the poor application of international standards.

So what can we do about it? Cast our rectangular buddies out of the nearest window? Swear off playing Plants vs Zombies for the foreseeable future? Of course, the solution isn’t anywhere near as simple as that. In fact it’s terrifyingly complicated and hugely nuanced.

COLD TURKEY IS NOT AN OPTION

CURB YOUR DESIRE

The answer is certainly not to stop buying these minerals completely – however broken the system there are still workers that legitimately depend on the mines for income to raise their families. It is also

So there we have it, it’s hard to look at your phone the same way now, isn’t it?

A labyrinthine tragedy on an epic level – love, death, war, exploitation – all hiding behind the sleek black glass of your

‘If we can’t actually solve the problem, we should at least be aware that we are absolutely a part of it’ shiny screen. If we can’t actually solve the problem, we should at least be aware that we are absolutely a part of it, that our constant lust for the newest, fastest, biggest-megapixelly model is creating the demand that fuels this particularly horrific fire. We have some tough questions to ask ourselves.

We need everyone involved (including the international community) to work together on decreasing risks and improving transparency. It’s massive systemic change that is needed and until a solution that works on this level is identified, boycotting products could actually harm the workers we’re trying to protect.

Do you really need to upgrade to the newest version with the fingerprintreader? Could you, perhaps, stick with your current phone for another year?

Christian Aid/Juliet Blackledge

potentially a great source of tax-income for countries such as the DRC. As ever, a holistic approach is needed. We need to find a way to gain more insight into where these minerals come from, in which company’s products they end up, who trades them and what the money from those trades actually funds.

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After all, true love is forever…

Chris Mead @thestairwell

5 BROKEN CAMERAS (2011)

This is not your average film about conflict. Normally films about conflict are about a few brave soldiers holding out against the odds; men in uniform yelling at people in dark rooms; a giant monster smashing New York to pieces.

Rather than the fast-paced combat action scenes that so many films depicting conflict concentrate on, this film focuses on the human cost of conflict.

Filmed over several years, the film tells the story of one Palestinian village’s struggle against the encroachment of Israeli settlements and the separation barrier on to land that the villagers use to cultivate olives, their main source of income. The story is narrated (and mainly filmed) by Emad Burnat, a farmer from the village of Bil’in, as he documents his village’s resistance with five different cameras that are replaced, as the title tells us, when they are broken (often by being shot).

The film doesn’t pull any punches. There are scenes of Israeli soldiers arresting Palestinian children in the middle of the night. As other soldiers drive through the village, you see them pelted with rocks.

It’s really challenging, both in terms of what you see happen in the film and how the villagers respond. They keep protesting and fighting for their land despite the opposition, and oppression, they face.

And here-in lies the real challenge of the film. Emad says: ‘It takes strength to turn anger into something positive.’

There are so many injustices in the world that it is easy to feel powerless, but we need to find the strength to do something constructive and not just moan.

In what ways can you follow Emad’s example and turn your anger over injustice into something positive?

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We are a movement of young people and students who believe the world doesn’t have to be the way it is. We’re not content to tiptoe through life. We want to shout out against injustice and challenge the systems that keep people poor. We want to run towards a new world – a better world. To be love in action. Together we can be the generation that ends poverty.

Together we are Collective.

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