IT SEEMS OUR WESTMINSTER MASTERS ARE ABLE TO TURN POVERTY ON AND OFF LIKE A TAP.

We have been giving out emergency food parcels for over fifteen years. We were a foodbank long before foodbanks were even a thing. In fact when we became a foodbank the very word foodbank didn't even exist.

My point? My point is we know a bit about this thing we do.

One thing I have learned is that it is almost impossible to predict how many people will turn up looking for emergency food on a day to day basis. Over the last year, our monthly demand has risen from 400 parcels per month to 500 parcels per month. Am I surprised? Not really. Wages are stuck. Benefits are frozen. Food prices are up. Power costs are up. So it's hardly rocket science. The safety net of the Welfare State is increasingly filled with holes. So of course demand is up. How could it not be?

So if you ask me how many emergency food parcels First Base will give out in January, I will say about five hundred and I won't be very far wrong. But if you ask me how many parcels we will issue tomorrow all I can do is shrug my shoulders. The maths should be easy enough. 500 parcels. Twenty or so working days. So 25 parcels a day, right? Nope. Not even close. It might be sixty or it might be four. It is entirely up in the air.

That said, there are a couple of times of the year when things are easier to call. This is the time of year when people say to us 'you guys must be really busy right now.'

Why? Because Christmas is a couple of weeks away. And we are hard wired into the idea that Christmas is a brutal time for the poor. Which it is of course. Much of this is probably down to Dickens and the whole 'Christmas Carol' thing. Scrooge and Tiny Tim and all that. But that is hardly the full story. If you are either relying on Universal Credit or sick pay to put food on your table, Christmas is by some distance the best time of the year.

Why? Well I can't prove it, but the answer seems clear enough. All of a sudden from about the third week in December, people stop getting sanctioned. Sick people are deemed to be sick. Benefits are paid in full and on time. Why might this be? Well I'm a pretty cynical sort of soul. Maybe the powers that be are scared to death of the papers getting hold of the story of some desperate individual hanging themeselves on Christmas Eve in a house of empty cupboards and no power. Recently sanctioned. Hungry and desperate. Driven to utter despair. A Christmas Carol story for the twenty first century, yeah? The media would lap it up and the studios would be filled with head shaking, hand wringing guests on the verge of tears.

Nor a good look for our gallant Tory rulers, right? So they send the word down to their minions in the Department of Work and Pensions. Ease up lads. Make nice for a while. Pay in full and on time. And lo and behold the two weeks of Christmas are the quietest two weeks of the year for the likes of First Base.

On about 12 January everything goes back to normal. The DWP resumes its cold hearted war on the poor. Sanctions kick back in. Sick people are once again deemed to be fit as fleas. Because when all is said and done, who really cares if someone hangs themselves on 12 January. In a house with empty cupboards and no power.

The second time when demand is predictable has just happened. Sometimes it comes in October. Other times it is November. It is the week when the first frosts of winter arrive. All over Britain, people face a moment of truth. They have had the heating switched off all Spring and all Summer and most of the Autumn. But now there is no choice. It's -2 degrees outside and there is ice on the inside of the windows. Time to use some gas for the first time in months. Time to feed the meter.

Time for a moment of truth. 

Understandably, people figure if they haven't used any gas, then they can't have spent any money on gas. It makes sense, right? Except it doesn't because there's a catch. Small print. A sting in the tail. Whatever. It goes by the name of the 'standing charge'. A sneaky few pence a day which adds up quietly through the bright days of spring and the hot days of summer and the wet days of autumn. It adds up and it adds up. Out of sight and out of mind, until the day comes when it is -2 degrees outside and the moment of truth can no longer be avoided.

So you put £20 on the meter and most of it is eaten up by the standing charge. Which means you are suddenly confronted with a very Britain 2019 question. You've got £20 left. Is it to be heating or eating? Pop quiz. No middle ground. And the cupboards are bare. And it's -2 degrees outside. What's it to be?

Of course most people opt to switch on the heat and come to us to get something into the cupboards. Of course they do. Wouldn't you? I certainly would.

So on the week when the first frosts of the winter arrive, demand for our food parcels jumps. 10%. 20%. Just up.

Except this year it didn't happen. For the first time in over fifteen years, it didn't happen. In fact on the week the temperature dipped all the way down to -5 degrees, demand for our food parcels actually fell. How very strange.

Which begs the question, why? Why this bucking of a fifteen year long trend? Why did it suddenly feel like Christmas?

Well I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure the reason is exactly the same as the reason for our being quiet at Christmas. For the first time in decades we have a winter election. And of course the last thing Boris and his boys would want would be a desperate, dismal tale of a sanctioned benfit claimant hanging themselves in one of their target seats in the 'Red Wall'. In Hartlepool. In Bolsover. In the Don Valley. In a house with bare cupboards. In a house devoid of a trace of heat.

So it looks like the word has been sent to the DWP. Make nice until 12 December. Let the sick be sick. Let the unemployed turn up five minutes late. Allow some slack. Pay up and smile.

And on 13 December you can go back to business as usual. Come down on them like a tonne of bricks. Put a bit of stick about. Let them know their place. On 13 December you can do your thing and you can keep on doing it for five years. Long, endless years.

It would appear they can turn poverty on and off like a tap. Can I prove it? 

Nope.

Do I think I'm right?

Of course I bloody do. And in a few short weeks we will no doubt be busier than ever before . And in five year's time.....?

Christ. I shudder to think.

If you can spare a quid or two to help us meet the demand which is coming as sure as night follows day, you can find our online fundraising page via the link below. 

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

A NEWS STORY FROM 7 DECEMBER, 2029

'TEN YEARS SINCE THE DAY WHEN THE TIDE TURNED'

History loves a good turning point moment, especially when the sea change comes down to one man. Or woman. Most of the time, these famed moments are probably little more than the fairytales of folklore. You know. Paul on the road to Damascus. Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned. King Alfred burning the cakes. Robert the Bruce spending quality time with a spider. All good stuff, but all a bit Walt Disney if we are honest.

Then there are other turning points which have a bit more heft about them. Most famous in the history of these islands of ours was the moment Winston Churchill took to the airwaves in a the dark days of 1940 to make his eloquent promise to fight on the beaches. In school we were taught how these epically galvanising words stiffened the spine of the nation and emboldened us to stand alone against Nazi tyranny.

There are one or two minor flaws to this narrative if we are to acknowledge a few inconvenient truths. Post war paperwork showed Hitler had no intention whatsoever of attempting a seaborne invasion of Britain. Obviously he didn't. The Royal Navy absolutely ruled the waves of the English Channel and the Royal Air Force was pretty dominant in the skies above. An attempted invasion would have led to the greatest mass drowning in history. Hitler knew it. His High Command knew it. We knew it.

But, hey. It was still a pretty good speech.

Martin Luther King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? Mandela's speech to the court before his sentencing? It is hard to argue about these two speeches and the monumental impact both men's perfectly chosen words eventually had on the world.

Which brings me to the tenth anniversary we have reached today. Have you forgotten? Surely not? Well. Let me remind you. Let me paint you a picture of the way the world looked on that cold December morning ten years ago. Here. In the old United Kingdom. When our islands were still more or less as one.

The weather was grey and not particularly cold. Liverpool were eleven points clear at the top of the Premier League. The true horrors of the climate emergency were slowly starting to emerge. And the old UK was a week out from its first winter election in generations.

On that long lost Saturday morning, the outcome of the coming vote seemed pretty much nailed down. The Tories were ten points clear and it seemed that enough of the electorate was ready to hold its collective nose and send a serial liar and shyster into Number 10. And then what? Then we would have been out of the EU in a matter or months and the most right wing government in a hundred years would have set out on dismantling the checks and balances the UK had put togther over a thousand years.

In hindsight, it is truly hard to understand how many of us were willing to vote for the Tory leader, Boris Johnson. In the months following the election many home truths emerged which sent him first out of office and then out of the country altogether. On that grey Saturday morning, the true extent of his venal corruption wasn't common knowledge. Millions of Brits were gearing up to give him the benefit of the doubt. We find it hard to admit it now. Of course we do.

Three years earlier, Donald Trump had managed to win the American Presidency against all expectations. In the desperate agonising which followed this earthquake, most agreed there was only one candidate he could possible have beaten – Hilary Clinton. Clinton was widely despised and vast numbers of Americans wondered how this career politician from a relatively humble background had been able to put together a net worth of $250 million. How indeed? She was sufficiently hated and distrusted for the Donald to slip in through the dack door of the Electoral College system even though he won three million less votes.

On that grey Saturday morning a decade ago, Boris Johnson was about to benefit from a similar set of circumstances. His opponent was Jeremy Corbyn, a rather grey seventy something year old who had won the leadership of his party more or less by accident. Corbyn liked cycling, working in his allotment and taking the side of what he saw to be the little guy and the tabloid press saw as terrorists.

Corbyn enjoyed a bizarre cult following among half a million mainly young, mainly well educated, mainly public sector party members. They saw his as a weird mix of a favourite grandfather and Father Christmas. The problem was that they were in a pretty small minority and the majority of the country couldn't abide the Labour leader. Oh he tried to turn it around. He really did. He smartened up is wardrobe. He promised to keep nuclear weapons. He ditched a lifelong wish to leave the EU.

But nothing washed, no matter how hard he tried. And with five days left before the polls opened, as Labour candidates knocked doors all over the country, they heard the same story over and over and over.

Old school Labour voters from Lands End to John O'Groats couldn't stand Jeremy Corbyn. Just like tens of millions of Americans had been driven by a visceral loathing of Hilary Clinton three years earlier.

Basically, Jeremy Corbyn was beyond toxic. Most Brits despised Boris Johnson. But they despised Corbyn a whole lot more.

When he called a Press Conference on that Saturday afternoon, there was neither excitement nor interest. No doubt it would be yet another promise to spend an eye watering amount of money on something new. And no doubt nobody much would have believed a word of it.

Well.

How wrong we all were.

He stepped out in front of the cameras in front of the usual backdrop and made a speech which lasted less than two minutes. He promised no new money. He made no new policy. Instead he stopped the country in its tracks and turned the course of history with a few carefully chosen words.

“Good afternoon. Over the last four years I have tried my very best to lead the party I have always loved. I don't pretend to be any kind of Messiah. I am actually a pretty ordinary sort of guy. As you all know, I like working in my allotment and watching Arsenal. To be honest, I don't really recognise the pictures most of the newspapers have painted of me over the last four years. But this doesn't matter of course. What matters is the fact that a majority of my countrymen and women clearly agree with the stories the tabloid press have told about me. And so it is time for me to look the truth in the face, no matter how hard this is to do. Next Thursday there is a strong possibility that this country will fall into the hands of the most corrupt and right wing government we have ever had, and if this happens, it will have largely been down to me. Most people say the only reason they are willing to give their vote to the appalling Boris Johnson is that they find the prospect of me even more appalling. Well, as of this afternoon I am taking this reason away. Today I will step down as Labour leader with immediate effect. I will not be your next Prime Minister. I will return to being a humble back bencher. I cannot tell you who will be the next Labour leader. All I can say is it will not be me. I make this announcement with a heavy heart. Believe it or not, I am doing this for my country. Really. I simply couldn't live which the knowledge that I had been responsible for a monster like Boris Johnson getting his hands on the levers of power. Thank you so much for all your support. A hundred and seven years ago, Captain Oates left his tent in the Antarctic with these famous words “I am just going outside. I may be some time.” Well Captain Oates stepped outside to freeze to death. I will face no such fate. I will tend my vegetables and at weekends I will take my seat at the Emirates Stadium. Thank you.”

And with that, he was gone. No questions answered. No tours of the studios. No tweets or articles in the Sunday papers. One minute he was there, the next minute he was gone.

And the rest of course became history. The Labour vote surged and they became the largest party in a hung Parliament. Two months later Boris Johnson was forced to resign as the truth of his relationship with Jennifer Acuri emerged. In September 2020, the UK voted to remain in the European Union by a majority of 57 to 43 and slowly but surely the country regained a degree of sanity. Of course we lost Scotland and Northern Ireland along the way, but at least we managed to stay pretty much the same place we were before the 2016 madness took a hold.

So where would we have been if Jeremy Corbyn hadn't decided to have his Captain Oates moment? Who knows. Nowhere good, that seems all but certain. We might well have been in a very dark place indeed. Instead were where we are. Not perfect. But not terrible either. It's a pretty ordinary sort of place. Ordinary like the man who fell on his sword for the sake of all of us.

So thank you Jeremy, wherever you might be now. You did the decent thing.

THE WAY PEOPLE REACT WHEN I SAY THE DREADED 'I' WORD IS ENDLESSLY FASCINATING

I find the way people react to me saying the dreaded 'I' word endlessly fascinating. The dreaded 'I' word in question is of course Independence. As in Scottish Independence.

My views on the matter are well known locally as a result of this blog and my efforts during the 2014 campaign. I get the feeling local Unionists studiously avoid the subject in my company. In our neck of the woods, 65% of the people opted to stay in the Union back in 2014 and yet I never seem to meet anyone who is happy to admit to voting for Better Together.

Funny that.

I can only recall one occasion in the last five years when when my uttering the 'I' word caused any kind of upset. It was in Tesco of all places. There is a guy on the checkouts who always asks after the foodbank. How are things going? Are you guys busy? Are you getting enough donated food? His concern is clearly genuine and as often as not he will take a moment to rue the dismal state of the country.

One time he asked me if I could see any possible light at the end of the tunnel. I said yes, I could. The day when Scotland finally frees itself from the dead hand of London rule and gets the chance to act like a decent, modern democracy in the North of Europe. You know. Like our Scandinavian neighbours who don't tend to do child poverty and war on the poor.

For a moment I was worried he was about to have a heart attack. His turned crimson and he actually started to shake. When he found the ability to speak, he told me the day Scotland became Independent would be the day he packed his bags and left.

Forever.

Wow. I said something along the lines that it would probably be best if we agreed to disagree and he slammed my shopping through in freezing silence.

The next time I spotted him on the checkouts I made a point of choosing his aisle and he was visibly embarrassed by his outburst. We found old familiar ground. He asked how things were going at First Base and I told him we were as busy as ever. And we have stayed on the same safe ground ever since. Like I said, he's a really nice guy and I respect his passion and honesty. It is a rarity.

The 'I' word often comes up when I am doing media appearances. When a new set of figures about poverty and food bank use emerge, calls are made to First Base. Have you seen the statistics released today? Would you be willing to comment?

It is an unexpected part of the job. Adding flesh to the bones. Making dry statistics real life experience. The human angle. The view from the front of the front line.

Over the years I have become accustomed to this stuff. The reporter will set me up and ask a series of questions for five or ten minutes. Initially I thought this suggested a well fleshed out news piece lasting for a similar amount of time.

The reality is inevitably completely different. As a rule of thumb, the whole piece will be a couple of minutes long and only three or four of my sentences will find their way onto the nightly news. So now I ask how long it will be and try to make the three or four sentences count. Reporters are fine with this. They actually quite appreciate it. It makes their work tighter. More punchy.

As often as not, they will ask me what might make things change? Is there anything I can see in the future which would mean less people coming through our door for bags of emergency food?

I tend to smile at this. Well, actually there is, but I doubt you'll be willing to air it. Oh really? Yes, really. I reckon an Independent Scotland will be a place where many less people will find themselves in the desperate place in their lives where they need to come to us.

At this point there are apologetic smiles and sad shaking heads. Actually you're right.... my producer would want that... we have to steer clear....

Unwritten rules. Don't give house room to the 'I' word in any news item covering the realities of grinding, soul shredding poverty. It's just not done.

I had a new twist to this familiar tale last week. This time the local ITV news were in First Base to make a short, 'feel good' piece about our new charity, The Kupata Project and our efforts to raise cash to provide sanitary pads to school girls in Uganda.

I know the reporter well. He's one of the good guys and I was delighted when he called to tell me he wanted to come and do a piece. We ran through the bones of the story and how long it would air for. What are the main points you want to get over, Mark? The difference £3 a year can make to a girl's life. The fact that the Kupata Project has absolutely no overheads which means every last penny we receive goes to buying pads to the girls. The fact we have a rock solid system in place on the ground in Uganda which minimises the risk of corruption taking a bit out of our efforts.

Then there's the Scotland thing. The Scotland thing? Yes. The Scotland thing. Because right now London won't allow us any kind of foreign policy of our own. But everything will change once we become Independent. And when things change, we might well look to the fifty plus countries who have freed themselves from London rule over the last seventy years as natural bedfellows. Allies. A window on a sunny future.....

Cue rueful grin. Sorrowful shake of the head. Resigned shrug of the shoulders. Sorry Mark, no can do... the election, right?... can't go there. Not now.....

So my vision of a newly born Scotland cutting a dash in the world was kept well and truly under wraps. Just like I knew it would be.

The news piece was great by the way. An object lesson on how to say a huge amount in under three minutes. Top drawer journalism if you ask me. It's here, if your interested.

ITV NEWS PIECE ON THE KUPATA PROJECT

And if you like the idea of what the Kupata Project is doing then you might be of a mind to bung us a quid or two via the link below.

THE KUPATA PROJECT ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

OK. I'll put the begging bowl away! Roll on a couple of days. The rain was hammering down and our leaky roof was making the buckets go tap, tap, tap. I was waiting on a three o'clock appointment. Five kids from Dumfries High School who had chosen First Base as their nominated charity. They asked if it would be OK to call in to find out more about who we are and what we do. Sure. Nae bother.

They arrived like a clutch of drowned rats and made their way up the stairs. They exchanged embarrassed glances at the sight of our leaking roof and the tap, tap, tap sound of fat drops hitting the carefully placed buckets. Welcome to the voluntary sector guys. Welcome to the front line of the war on poverty.

They had questions pre-prepared on their phones and they asked them one by one in shy voices. How many people do we help? What is in one of our food parcels? Do we help many children? Why do so many people need to come to a food bank?

Good questions. Well thought out. Relevant. Pretty on the ball for S3's.

I answered the questions one by one and waited for the one I knew to be on the way.

“Is there anything which you think might make things better? Anything which will mean you have to help less people......”

Absolutely. An independent Scotland. A brand spanking new country where elected leaders have absolutely no choice when it comes to loking after the most vulnerable.

And it was like switching a light on. Five beaming faces. And I mean really beaming. They exchanged glances. They made enthusiastic notes. They seemed genuinely chuffed.

Was it because of the surprise at hearing this from an old guy with a Lancashire accent? Was it because I was saying something that was not really allowed? Or was it the fact we were all on the same page. Singing from the same hymn sheet.

I like to think it was option 3. In fact I am pretty sure it was. The world seen through the eyes of the young. This was the way they saw the future for our country. Their country. My country.

They were not just happy to hear the 'I' word. They were chuffed to bits.

And when all is said and done, they are the future. Thank goodness.

HERE'S ONE OF THE MANY JOYS OF BEING A FOODBANK MANAGER! YOU GET THE CHANCE TO WRITE A BLOG ABOUT 'BAGS FOR LIFE'.

It's four minutes past eight in the morning on a greyer than grey Scottish Saturday. The world outside is a picture of damp cold. Fair enough, there is no frost on the ground. But cold all the same. The kind of seeping cold which makes me want to put off log splitting.

Instead, the time seems right to embark on a blog about bags.

Yeah. You read it right. A blog about bags. Re-usable bags. Strong ones. Available from all good supermarkets along with all kinds of planet saving promises. 'Bags for life'. Bags to save the Great Barrier Reef.

You know the kind of thing.

There's a problem. My bag talk really has nothing to do with saving the planet and carving out a better future for all the generations to come. The fish of the Pacific Ocean will not play any kind of part in the next few hundred words.

Instead my bag talk is all about how strong they are and how they make it easier for someone to cart half a week's worth of emergency food a mile or two across their home town.

Nuts and bolts. 

For the new readers out there, I manage a foodbank which helps of 5000 folk a year across 3400 square miles of Dumfries and Galloway. In Scotland.

For years we used strong, extra large white plastic bags to house our emergency food. Then the Brexit vote happened and the pound lost 20% of its value. The bag manufacturer didn't want to raise its price of 16p. So instead they went down the road of making the plastic 20% thinner. 20% less strong. 20% more crap. Much like the United Kingdom as a whole.

This meant the bags were no longer fit for purpose. Our clients started telling us dismal tales of split bags and tins of beans on wet pavements.

Another image from a country on the slide.

At this point Katriona and the good people at Nationwide rode to our rescue like the seventh cavalry.

We applied for funding enough for each and every one of our 5000 emergency food parcels to be housed in a strong re-usable 'bag for life'. And the good people of Nationwide said 'Yes!' and they sent us a cheque for £1850. Enough for a year's worth.

We choose natty green bags from Morrisons and they were immediately a big hit with our regulars. Strong and anonymous. Two boxes ticked. Punters happy. Job done.

Well. Not quite.

In a perfect world, 90% plus of our clients would have brought the new bags back to us and bought into the whole 'bag for life', save the planet agenda. To be fair, about 40% did exactly that.

But 60% didn't. Which by the way is absolutely fair enough. It's just how it is. When your life hits the bricks, the last thing you tend to think about is the Great Barrier Reef.

Last week Iain shook his head and looked rueful. No bags left. All gone. Time to buy some more. All good things come to an end.

A bit like the whole of the UK.

So. At this point in proceedings I have to assume not nearly enough people are reading this blog about bags. So I guess it's time to try and go all sneaky Russian and to cynically manipulate the Google algorithm. What's needed here is some click bait. Something to start ringing bells out there in the virtual world.

So here goes. The Donald tends to use block capitals when he is looking for attention. And who am I to argue with the wisdom of the Donald....

“PRINCE ANDREW CAUGHT IN STEAMY AFFAIR WITH ISIS SUPPORTING 'BAG FOR LIFE'! FARAGE EXPOSES THE BAG AS A BREXIT BETRAYER!!! BORIS DENIES THE BAG IS REALLY HIS SIXTH CHILD IN A CUNNING DISGUISE!!!!!”

That should do the trick........... Aye right.

Bags are bags when all is said and done, even when they are 'bags for life'.

I guess this blog is basically targeted at folk living here in Dumfries and Galloway. If any of you have a half forgotten collection of 'bags for life' gathering dust in the cupboard under the stairs, well First Base would dearly like to take them off your hands. You can drop them off at our main base on Buccleuch St or any of our 25 collection points.

All 'bags for life' are welcome, even naught bags who support ISIS or a wicked betrayal of the Brexit dream. Even those bags on the rebound from a frantic fling with Prince Andrew.

Of course, if rooting about in the cupboard under the stairs seems too much like hard work, you can always bung us a donation. £2 is enough for 8 of the super strong paper bags Morrisons are now offering. Just a few weeks ago £2 would have been enough for 10 of the aforesaid bags. But we live in the times of Boris Brexit where the Government's supposed 3% inflation figure is just another of their lies.

The bags used to be 20p each. Then in the blink of an eye, they are now 25p each. As in a 25% increase. So 3% inflation? Really?

So be it. A donation of £2 still puts 8 'bags for life' in the basement, all ready to fill with emergency food and safe from the unwanted attentions of Prince Andrew.

And believe me, they really DO make a difference. Being forced to seek the help of a foodbank is a bad enough thing to have to do. To have to cart the food home in a rubbish bag which is constantly in danger of ripping apart only makes things worse.

Having had a couple of years of providing emergency food in decent, strong bags we really don't want to have to go back to using post Brexit vote rubbish.

So any help you might be able to offer, as ever, will be greatly appreciated.

Here's the link to our online funding page.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

And if you are reading this sentence, I really have to say a massive thank you. Hang on a sec. Let me just check the word count.....

1006!

And you've made it all the way to right here. You're my hero!

I'VE GOT A THOUSAND WORDS AND SIX MINUTES OF VIDEO WHICH MIGHT CHANGE A LOT OF LIVES. FOR THE BETTER. IF ANYONE READS...... OR WATCHES.......OR SHARES..........

OK.

So I've got this video. I've had it for a couple of weeks now. I was the cameraman. It is just over six minutes long and it was shot in the very heart of Africa. Under the green hills of Africa.

I sat and idled away the time as it uploaded onto YouTube like a snail making its way from Dumfries to Aberdeen. But it got there in the end. It lost some quality along the way, but not too much. Not enough to really matter.

And now it's there. On a perch in the vastness of the online world. Six minutes among minutes and hours counted in their billions. Inconsequential. Unnoticed. A grain of sand in a desert without end.

For days now, I have racked away at my brain. How to find the right words to steer some watchers to the video? How to attract attention? How to persuade readers to donate six minutes of their life?

It's a twenty first century dilemma. How to flag down a taxi when it is racing down the M8 at a hundred miles an hour?

Right. Enough waffle. I guess I'm avoiding getting to the point because failure means letting too many people down.

Background.

In November 2017, Carol and I visited a school in the south west corner of Uganda and we gave the girls a year's worth of sanitary pads. 250 girls. Under the green hills of Africa.

The name of the school is a mouthful. Here goes. Kamuganguzi Janan Luwum Memorial School. We have shortened the mouthful for our own personal use. We now call it 'Our school'.

Anyway. We returned to Scotland and set a new charity. The Kupata Project. And over the last two years we have have made three more deliveries of sanitary pads to the girls. There are more girls now. Lots more. 410. Which offers pretty compelling proof of just what kind of a difference free sanitary ware can make. It what is now called a 'pull factor'. No more missed monthly days. No more infections. Maybe these statistics might just make you proud to live in the first country in the world to provide free sanitary pads to every one of its school girls and female students. The country in question is Scotland by the way; for readers out there in the rest of the world.

When we give the girls their pads we also give them a postcard bearing a simple message.

'To you from the people of Scotland'

Which of course is exactly what it is.

This year the generosity of the people of Scotland enabled us to help 900 girls in 4 schools. We are adding a fifth in a couple of weeks time.

So now you know why we were there. At Kamuagnguzi Janan Luwun Memorial School. At our school. Under the green hills of Africa. Two weeks ago.

To make a movie.

I had made some requests. The movie was for Carol. A song from the black and white TV pictures of the streets of Martin Luther King's 1960's America. Brutal cops. Snarling Alsations. Ripped and bruised flesh. Non-violent defiance. Off the charts courage. An anthem for the ages.

“We shall overcome.”

A three worder: Dominic Cummings style. Three words to say it all. Three words to stand the test of time. Three words to change the world.

For the better of course. Still work in progress of course, but at least we now live in a time when people who call other people 'Nigger' get arrested and charged.

So I made my request. Could the girls have a go at giving their take on the old Civil Rights anthem? Could they collect the soundtrack of the defiant Sixties and take it all the way to the green hills of Africa?

Of course they could.

For a while things were in the balance. At the very moment the girls were ready to roll, a raging tropical storm chased down the valley. For an hour or so, the school was half submerged by the kind of rain Noah was worried about. It poured from the tin roofs in a constant stream. The glassless windows were home to hundreds of grinning faces.

But this wasn't Scotland. This was the green hills of Africa. One minute it rains like the world is about to end. The next minute, the sun rips aside the clouds and the ground starts to steam.

Show time. The whole school headed back outside for the performance. Reverend Benon, the headmaster, was the accomplished ring master. The machine was well oiled as an audience of 700 was arranged into place.

Then the hubbub dropped into silence.

Lights. Camera. Action.

Over to you. Here's the link. It requires six and a half minutes of your life. And I hope you feel inspired. Uplifted. Maybe even hopeful. Because the world doesn't always have to be about constant bitter ugliness. Instead it can be...... well. Like this.

'WE SHALL OVERCOME'

So there you go. Thanks for the six and a half minutes. Each and every of the girls hasn't had to miss a single day of school since November 2017. Thanks to the generosity of the people of Scotland. Westminster might not allow us a foreign policy of our own, but they cannot stop us doing this kind of thing.

Well you know what is coming next. Course you do. Can you blame me? I hope you don't. If you do, well, so be it.

Maybe the girls have inspired you. The bare facts are as straight forward as they come. £3 is what is required for a Ugandan school girl to be provided with a year's worth of sanitary pads. From the people of Scotland. From you.

For their families, £3 means three days worth of average wages. About £300 in our money. As in completely out of the question when filling empty bellies is the number one priority. So you can see just how a big a deal £3 can be.

I guess I better do the unconditional guarantee thing. If you give £3 to the Kupata Project, not a single penny will be spent of salaries or fancy offices or all expenses trips to the green hills of Africa. Every last penny will be spent on sanitary pads and nothing else.

Here is the link to our online fundraising page.

THE KUPATA PROJECT ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

There. It's done. Just over a thousand words to be thrown out in the ether to go along with six and a half minutes of video. To sink or swim. To gain a toehold or to be swept away into oblivion. A tiny flicker of a flame to either burn or be snuffed out.

Who knows? I don't. Which is why I have put off choosing these thousand words. I can't think of any more. So it's time to do the wrap up. Throw the words to the spell checker and then cast them out into the vastness with a well trodden sense of trepidation.

To sink or swim.

Thanks for getting this far. I might as well push it? It's what you do in the sharp elbowed online world. Could you maybe share these thousand words and six and a half minutes?

Enough, already! Time to post.

ONE PHONE CALL AND 239 LIVES ARE CHANGED FOR THE BETTER....

Running a small charity can be a tough gig at times. On the surface things seem pretty simple. Something bothers you. Something just doesn't seem right. So you decide you would like to try to make things better.

The vehicle to make this happen is a registered charity. So you jump through a whole bunch of hoops and few months later you're good to go.

There are times when the improvement you are looking to make has a clear end point. You know, like climbing a mountain. You either get to the cairn on the summit, or you don't. Maybe you decide to try and raise enough cash for your local hospital to install a new MRI machine. Or maybe your goal is to chase up the money needed to dig a new well to provide fresh water for an African village.

Basically, this kind of charity provides you with a specific goal. An end point. A chance to take a few pictures, thank all your supporters and finish the sentence with a resounding full stop. Job done.

I feel a tad jealous of people involved in this kind of campaign. The two charities I am involved in are not like this. Not remotely.

This month about 500 people will pitch up for emergency food parcels at the 25 collection points we have in Dumfries and Galloway. This isn't our fault. We haven't caused a single one of these 500 lives to crash and burn to so badly as to need a food parcel. Obviously it isn't. But what if they turn up in all good faith to get a food parcel only to find the cupboards are bare? Sorry, but.......

Would this be our fault? Of course it would. Oh, we could drone on about all kinds of funding pressures. Less Government money. Less Council money. Trusts overwhelmed by funding applications. Less donations from a squeezed community.

But moaning about how hard things are doesn't make a jot of difference to the 20 or so individuals and families who leave kitchens with empty cupboards and hope to return home with something to eat.

Thankfully this has never happened in the 16 years of First Base. Not once. We have been mighty close to the edge at times. Three weeks away. Two weeks away. Desperate enough to dive into frantic online funding campaigns. SOS campaigns.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is this. Of course it isn't our fault that 20 people have nothing to eat today. But it is absolutely our responsibility to make sure they don't go hungry. And if they go to bed tonight with empty stomachs, then we have to to take the blame for that. If 20 people go to bed with empty stomachs tonight, it is because we have failed to keep the balls in the air.

This is a day I dread. Lying awake and running all kinds of things through a racing mind. Could I have filled in more application forms? Were we right to extend our service over such a large area? Were there any costs we should have cut?

Like I said. It has never happened. And I hope it never will happen. But we would be utter fools not to accept the fact it might happen one day.

When we established our African charity, The Kupata Project, we thought it might be rather different. Our work at First Base is all about providing sticking plasters. Our role is merely to stop the bleeding. We tide people over for a week or two as they work their way through a crisis and get back on their feet again. We don't make any false claims. We can't solve all their underlying problems. We can't make the Westminster Government behave like decent human beings. We can't make the pound worth $1.50 again. We can't stop power companies from hammering up the price of gas and electricity. 

Instead, all we can do is react and hope things don't get a whole lot worse.

Kupata's work in Uganda is very different. We saw something which just wasn't right and decided to try and make things better. The problem? School girls miss 25% of their time in school because their families can't even begin to afford to buy them sanitary pads. So. A massive problem which is caused by human biology and an economy which provides very few with an income of more than £1 a day.

The solution? Easy. Provide sanitary pads. It's not like we're making like super clever people from the West who are turning up to teach Africans how to live their lives. They know the solution to their problem. Sanitary pads. They just can't afford to buy them. Which makes our job pretty straight forward. Raise cash and spend it on sanitary pads whilst at the same time making sure not a penny of the cash we raise is wasted on either overheads or corruption.

So. Simple, right? We have found a Ugandan based charity which makes re-usable pads. They cost about 70p each and we give the girls four per annum. £2.80 per girl.

Maths time. Lets say we raise £1000. £1000 divided by £2.80 = 357. So that's great, right? We can help out 357 girls and make a mighty big difference to their lives......

Except....

Because there is always an except. We're not building a well here. The 357 girls we help out will still need sanitary pads next year. And the year after. Which means we will need to raise at least another £1000 next year. What if our fundraising efforts flop? Then we have to make a horrible phone call. We know we said we would be there for you, but.....

And they won't be interested in our excuses. An economy smashed up by Brexit. Blogs sent out and not read. Rejection letters.

Instead they will have to go back to using old pieces of cloth or banana leaves. Which won't work. So they will inevitably go back to missing a quarter of their education.

And we will have done what Europeans have done for hundreds of years. Turn up in Africa. Make a bunch of big promises. Act big. And then let them down. Completely.

Which of course is the exact and polar opposite to what we are trying to achieve. So the best plan of attack is not to do that. Instead we are going to try and take a leaf out of the Chinese playbook. They have a different approach to the one we have adopted down the centuries. When they turn up in Africa and make a promise, they do something pretty unique: they keep it. When they say they are going to build a railway from the coast to the interior, they actually build a railway from the coast to the interior. Unsurprisingly, the Africans are kind of impressed by this. No wonder most of Africa now looks to Beijing when they are in the market for a trustworthy partner.

When we hand pads to the girls, we also give them a postcard. This year the picture on the front is Edinburgh in the snow. Here it is.

On the back is a simple message. 

'To you from the people of Scotland'.

A big promise, right? Basically we're telling them we've got this. You can trust us. We're not going to be here today and gone tomorrow. We're in this for the long haul.

OK. We basically need a new plan. Before making a first delivery of pads to a new school, we need to be as near to 100% confident as we can we will be there for the foreseeable future.

Thus far, we have helped out the girls in one school. Kamuganguzi Janan Luwum Memorial school. When we first pitched up in November 2017, the school was home to 250 girls. The availability of sanitary pads has proved to be a pretty major pull factor. Now there are 410 girls on the school roll. This means the annual bill for providing sanitary pads is about £1200. If everything goes pear shaped and we fail to raise a single penny, then push coming to shove means Carol and I footing the bill. It won't be easy, but barring unforeseen personal disasters, we can manage it.

So. Box ticked. A promise we can keep.

The next two schools on the list are Rwesasi and Harambe. These are both very small rural schools, each with a hundred girls on the register. The annual bill for each school is about £300. £600 for both. Not a vast fortune but it would be hard for Carol and I to guarantee £1800 for three years should our fundraising efforts fall flat.

The solution? Look close to home. We put the idea of adopting school each to our two sons and thankfully they are up for the idea. Dyonne and his partner Louise are adopting Rwesasi school and Courtney is adopting Harambe. They will have their own funding pages and like us, they will make good on any funding shortfalls. It's great to see the young generation making this kind of commitment. 

This meant there was only on school left on our immediate list. Kigata High School. 239 girls. About £700 a year. Too much for Carol and I to able to confidently guarantee.

So I picked up the phone and made a call to a funder who has helped out First Base for many years. They also donated some money to the Kupata Project when we launched last year. I explained the problem and out fear of letting the girls down. Would they be interested in committing to ongoing funding....?

They would. They did. No written contracts of course. Just an over the phone handshake. More than enough for us.

So in a couple of weeks time we will pitch up at Kigata High School and provide 239 girls with sanitary pads for a year. And when we tell them we will do all we can to carry on providing them with pads for many years to come, we will be making a promise we are confident of keeping.

When I finished the call, the enormity of the whole thing hit me. One phone call and 239 lives in a country thousands of miles from Scotland were about to be transformed. 25% more time in school is a huge deal. Better education means infinitely better life chances. The chance to push away a forced marriage. The chance to get a job and a salary and the chance to transform the prospects of the whole family group. Money for school fees for brothers and sisters. Maybe a solar panel to bring some light into the long tropical nights. Thousands of lives made better over the years to come. And thousands of people in a land far away who will feel a warmth to the people of Scotland.

All because of one phone call.

In the midst of all the hateful sound and fury of Brexit, it is worth remembering we are more than capable of being a whole lot better.

If you would like to help make sure we keep our promises to every Ugandan school girl we help, please follow the link below to the Kupata Project online funding page.

THE KUPATA PROJECT ONLINE FUNDING PAGE