Developments

Learning a new skill is great and the women's skills department at BRiCC (www.briccjos.com) is excellent at teaching women how to make all kinds of food and cosmetics.  Using that skill to start a business can be a little harder and that's where our new venture comes in.  Next Wednesday we plan to open Cafe BRiCC just outside the gates of the BRiCC offices.  It'll be nothing fancy - we'd rather start small and do it well before expanding, but the ladies who were given the opportunity to be involved are already excited.  As one of them said, she's tried starting a business but had a few problems.  At Cafe BRiCC she'll be able to learn more and get support from Madam Veronica and her friends.  The idea is to have two different women on duty each day, one Christian, one Muslim; one a recent student, one who graduated longer ago. They'll learn from each other and show the community how people of different religions can work together and have fun as well as providing a quality product.  The women will have the opportunity to show off what they can do and take private orders to build up their own businesses.  We won't be setting up in competition to the exisiting food places nearby as the menu at Cafe BRiCC will be very different.  Hopefully there'll be winners all round.

Planning

If anyone wants to help with the startup costs of the cafe please let me know.

Matter of the Heart

How do we move head knowledge about peace down to the heart? How do we make a real difference in people's lives and attitudes and not merely constantly talk about what should be done?
We tried something new at BRiCC (Building Relationships in City Centre; www.briccjos.com) on Wednesday. Many people have no idea about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and how similar the divisions in Belfast are to the results of the Crisis in Jos.  There are no go areas for members of each community; children are taught in segregated schools and learn hatred and fear; both communities exercise their cultural/religious "rights" in a way guaranteed to antagonise the other side; underemployed and angry young men are frequently on the verge of boiling over; the "religious" conflict is more about territory, economics and opportunity than differences of faith. 
Northern Ireland has had "peace" since 1998 but the divisions seem as deep as ever.  Real peace won't be achieved in either place until heart attitudes change and children are taught there is more that unites us as humans than divides.

BRiCC invited members of the police, Neighbourhood Watch Vigilante groups, peace NGOs and other community leaders to attend a morning workshop.  About twenty-seven people turned up.  We talked about how peace can only be made complete by a change of heart, watched documentaries on the state of Belfast filmed 15 years after the peace agreement, then broke into small groups to discuss how to apply the lessons learned from Northern Ireland to the situation in Jos.  There were good discussions, important points were raised, but the test will be in the practical implementation. Next week we look at Rwanda.

 

There are many interesting things to see by the roadside as you drive in Nigeria - that's during the few seconds you're not avoiding kekes, motorists on the wrong side of the road, potcraters and roadworks.  One that I like on my way into the BRiCC office is the sign on a tailor's shop.  God is invoked in many business titles, from dentists to photographers but for this tailor he's the senior partner. The sign over the shop includes a quote from Genesis: '"Let us clothe man" - God is the partner in our mission.'

God is very present in daily life here, possibly because people live much closer to mortality than we do in the West.  This was brought home yet again earlier in the week when the BRiCC family went on a condolence visit to the brother of Sadiq, our education co-ordinator. His three year old daughter had died the day before after eating the rat poison he kept under the dvds. "It'd been there for three months and there'd been no problems," he told us.  My heart went out to the little girl's mother who had been divorced by her Muslim husband when her Christian faith was reignited. By custom, the children belong to the father. There was no sign or mention of her when we visited.