What does RTU do? - 3. Housing

You may have noticed that it's nearly Christmas. I wonder where you will be celebrating? Perhaps in your own home; perhaps with your parents or your grown-up children; perhaps somewhere quite different. Wherever you'll be this year though, the chances are that the house will be warm, dry, and safe. So it seemed like a good moment to pause and think about the housing in the area of Southern India covered by Reaching the Unreached. For a long time, the poverty of the villagers has meant that they have lived in inadequate huts. Roughly constructed with mud walls and thatched rooves, these one-room "houses" let in the rain and poisonous snakes, have no sanitary facilities, and are often completely destroyed in strong winds. They need re-construction on an annual basis, at a cost which many families cannot afford. This forces them to go to money-lenders, who charge high interest rates (60% or more), and so the cycle of poverty and debt is reinforced.

Since 1976, RTU have been constructing simple but sturdy houses for the most needy local people. These houses are made of brick, with tiled rooves. They have a living area, sometimes partitioned for privacy, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a veranda. Each house costs approximately £450 to construct. Over 7,500 have been built so far. Villagers apply for an RTU house, and their need is carefully assessed. If they are successful, they are fully involved in the planning and the construction of the house. I particularly appreciate this empowerment of the local people, rather than forcing them into the role of passive receivers of charity. Moreover, the bricks, tiles, window frames and so on are all made in an RTU factory, providing employment for local people, and using local materials which are not harmful to the environment.

Each year, Lasallian Developing World Projects, founded by the De La Salle order, sends teams of young people to developing countries to participate in building projects. Since 2005 this has included the Rural Housing Programme of RTU. One returned volunteer wrote, "There was nothing that we did that could not have been done by the people of the village. We could have just sent a cheque. So what was the point?". This volunteer goes on to describe how each member of the team gained enormous insights into the local culture and the impact of poverty there, and how humbled they were by the generosity of the local people. It seems, also, that the locals were delighted to receive these Westerners; it was evidence that people cared about their situation and were making real efforts to help. The mutual benefits of such projects are obviously manifold. The young people particularly appreciated being invited to the house-warming parties. These involve lighting candles, cracking open a coconut, and sharing warm milk, cake and fruit. Perhaps during the next week we can remember the delight of these people in moving into their new homes, and appreciate our own homes a little more.

Why run for WPF Therapy?

In the UK, approximately 1 in 4 people experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives, and over 4000 people take their own life each year. To me those figures say: 1.) this is common; 2.) this is serious.

At WPF Therapy, over 500 hours of assessment and treatment take place every week. That's a lot of people given a safe place to talk. Because charges are means-tested, people from all backgrounds and standards of living can access the service, giving them the chance to face the difficulties they are experiencing and to move forward.

Although these would be more than adequate reasons to run a marathon for WPF Therapy, I have a personal motivation as well: my own experience of depression.

It's hard to compress a personal story into a paragraph or two, but perhaps you can fill in some of the gaps. I first experienced depression as a teenager, and this recurred several times in subsequent years. For most of this time I was undiagnosed, unsupported, wrongly diagnosed or badly supported. I was ashamed of what I was going through and imagined that nobody would understand what I was feeling. Moreover, I didn't believe that anything could be done to help. When something eventually spurred me to speak more honestly to my GP, he sent me for six sessions of brief counselling and put me on anti-depressants. The drugs helped - they gave me enough energy and positivity to move forward with my life. The counselling didn't - six sessions barely scratched the surface and I wasn't offered more. So why would I be enthusiastic about WPF Therapy, which offers counselling? Simply because they only stop after six sessions if six sessions is enough! Simply because they offer a client-centred approach, empowering each individual to take responsibility for their lives and to make the changes needed. Simply because they are there, de-stigmatising mental health difficulties and respecting their clients. Simply because they are intervening at the level of causes, not of symptoms. Simply because they make a difference.

I'm glad of the experience I've lived through; I wouldn't be the "me" I am without it. But I'm glad of it mostly because I can turn it to good. By speaking out I can help to cut through the taboos and stigma so that other people won't have to negotiate such a mire of isolation and hopelessness. With increased awareness of and openness about mental health problems, resulting in their earlier identification, and with improved availability and affordability of talking therapies, personal suffering could be reduced dramatically. So "thankyou" WPF Therapy for your part in that! And "thankYOU", that's YOU - my supporters - for funding their work.

Training update 2

It's now just 4½ months until the Bungay Black Dog! With this in mind I have been licking my training schedule into shape over the last little while. That means it's now more interesting, and hopefully more effective, than the "60 minutes steady run round the park" I was doing 2 or 3 times a week. According to the experts there are several important kinds of training, incorporating different speeds and distances; these in combination are meant to build up fitness and endurance, for example by making the muscles more effective in their use of the oxygen in your blood. I find the body's capacity to adapt to exercise (in other words to get fitter) really amazing. I never expect it to work!

At the moment I'm still only managing three runs a week, but they are quite varied. Perhaps the most important one (definitely for my psychological readiness if nothing else) is the "long run", which I'm increasing by 10 minutes (about a mile) a week. I should be at a half-marathon distance next week or the week after, which works out right for this length of time before the marathons. Then I have an "interval run", a very new and challenging discipline for me, which involves (after a warm-up period of gentle running) alternating fast running with jogging to recover. My most recent interval run included eight repetitions of 90 seconds fast and 90 seconds jog. Let's say it was good to stop! The final run is a bit of a hybrid at the moment, as I've tried to compress into it a steady run and a tempo run. Tempo, or threshold, running is even harder for me than intervals - it means running at the limit of your aerobic capacity so that you can keep going, but only just! Finding this whole idea rather scary, I've started by trying to put a bit of this type of running into the middle of an hour's steady run. I'm not sure I'm running fast enough for the "threshold" section of it, but to run any faster than my standard speed for longer than a minute or two is already an achievement!

The great thing is that I can see the evidence that these efforts are working. If I drop back down to something that seemed hard a few weeks ago, it's now noticeably easier. The tiredness of my legs after a run doesn't last as long. I can make a bit more of an effort up a hill or against the wind without gasping for breath. Maybe I will be able to run a marathon! Maybe even two!

Looking back over my posts I see I haven't said a lot so far about WPF Therapy. It's next on the list, so keep an eye out!