A Bridge Crossing Continents and Cultures Has to Be Constructed on the Solid Ground of Friendship

One of my favourite BBC radio programmes – when I get the chance to listen – is Crossing Continents. The 30-minute socio-political travelogue takes a more leisurely approach than many such documentary programmes, allowing space for those incidents and interviews that go to create a vivid yet authentic picture. Recent reports have come from Australia, the Balkans and Cuba.

The thought of "crossing continents" came into my mind after talking recently to the Deputy Headmaster of an independent school in our area. He happened to mention that his Headmaster was away in China with a party of senior pupils. On further enquiry I discovered that the school, Dixie Grammar School in Market Bosworth, has a link with Baxian Middle School in Chongqing, China. In fact a teacher from the Chinese city had been spending a year at the Market Bosworth school teaching an introduction to Chinese culture and Mandarin. Crossing continents indeed.

The concept of bridging continents was definitely in the minds of those of us who began the Wales-Lesotho link back in 1985. The vision was of building a bridge between two small nations in different economic halves of the world – one in the relatively rich "North", the other in the developing "South". Could such a bridge between Wales in Western Europe and Lesotho in Southern Africa be sustained, we wondered? And what sorts of people, representing which areas of national life in our two countries, would cross over it? Well, among others, there have been teachers and college lectures, medical students, doctors, nurses and health managers, members of organisations caring for the handicapped, church youth and church leaders, choir conductors and whole choirs, women's leaders, civic leaders, politicians, government ministers, print, radio and TV journalists…

In 1990, when the link was in its fifth year, the Lesotho High Commissioner accredited to London wrote to say the link had been a source of inspiration to his people. "It is an example of how the peoples of the world, regardless of the distance separating them or their countries, can co-operate for mutual development and support." Five years on again, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the link, he sent a message expressing his country's "deep sense of gratitude for the caring partnership demonstrated by the people of Wales" over the past 10 years. "The sense of belonging to a bigger world (as opposed to an often demoralising sense of isolation) has been a source of sustenance among the Basotho, even during difficult times," he said.

From the Welsh side, the link's first President, former Archbishop of Wales Gwilym Williams, wrote, "We want the link to be of real benefit to the people of Lesotho, especially in fostering friendship and understanding, without which material aid can be condescending and hurtful. But from the start we have seen the link as necessary for Wales." It would, he maintained, help the Welsh to find deeper unity "so that, whatever our difficulties and differences among ourselves, we can make our proper contribution to the family of nations and further our own development within one inter-dependent world".

Looking back, it has been people who have made the bridge. In nearly all cases, including my own visits to Lesotho and including all the Welsh teachers who go on regular exchange visits, we have stayed in Basotho homes. And scores of Basotho visitors have stayed in Welsh homes. It has been a bridging of cultures as well as continents. "Everyone has been so very friendly," remarked an official from the Lesotho Ministry of Health after two weeks visiting Rhondda area hospitals and clinics. "Although I had not met most of the people before, it was as if I had known them all my life."

Now the Scottish Parliament has decided to focus on Malawi, with which it has historical links, as the major recipient for its international development contribution. Small countries may find it easier to form such links than larger ones, but could the examples of Wales and Scotland set a trend? The Welsh experience over 20 years is that a bridge crossing continents and cultures has to be constructed on the solid ground of friendship. It can be rewarding.

In his Nobel prize-winning poem Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore, the great Bengali poet and visionary, put it like this:

"Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.

Thou hast given me seats in houses not my own.

Thou hast brought the distant nearer and made me a brother of the stranger."

NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.