A Thank You Email From Gavin

Dear Everyone!!

Late last year my family and I made a decision ... my older sister and I had sold our Mum's small house in New Zealand. We had a choice, either pay off the mortgage on our own home or travel and document grassroots perspectives on climate change. Of course you all know what we chose to do.

It took a huge effort to organise our journey, but we could never have done it without all of you. In various ways you all helped us along the way. I want to especially mention Khun Tuenjai and her amazing network of people in Thailand. You organised such a busy itinerary for us to start our journey, but it was such a rich experience and we met so many warm, generous people in your country... too many to name here. After Thailand we were on our own a lot more and it was very hard work at times to meet and film people and places. But we managed. Viet Nam was hard, but we have some very good friends there who did their very best to help us. Our brief stay in India was greatly helped by Andy in New Delhi.

Nepal was both challenging and inspiring ... for Lena, Ali and I it was truly a highlight to walk with Karma Lama for 19 days and to cross Thorong La Pass (5400 metres). I greatly enjoyed meeting Ngamindra and his colleagues in Kathmandu and I sincerely hope we can find a way to work with and support you. A special thankyou to Chandra for being there when we all had food poisoning! Everything in Egypt came together at the last minute, but again we met such warm, hospitable people who did their best to help us. Thankyou to Angela and Selim, and to Prof Zakharia for compelling me to go out to the Western Desert where we again met some wonderful people at Bahariya Oasis ... thankyou Ahmed and Corien.

In Italy I have to thank Marco and his small team and I sincerely hope we can keep working together and find ways to work with all of these other wonderful people we have met. And who would have imagined the connection with Katharina and Alfredo in a beautiful valley in Umbria ... a place we went to because the accommodation was a good deal and it looked nice! In Milan, thankyou to Iva and Paolo for having us in your home. We experienced the same warmth again with the Galli family in Lugano. Our time in France was too short, but thanks to Remy for having a bit of time to meet and talk... and to Jean-Pierre and Claire in the south of France (whose email address I don't have) for your wonderful work.

We've come to the end of our journey now. On Saturday, 7 July, Karen, Ali, Emma (who many of you never met but maybe you will one day) and I leave London for New Zealand. Lena is staying on here until late October and has already started a job here in London. For me the last week or so has been a time to rest and reflect. I have a lot to do when I get home, not least of which is to start earning some money again!! I still don't know yet how I'm going to produce a documentary out of all that we've done. But it will happen somehow. Meanwhile I am working on ways to strengthen the connection that I have made with many of you and hopefully to find ways to develop interconections between some of you and others in your respective countries. Already many of you are interconnected through our blog page ... if you haven't looked recently, take a look at http://earthlimited.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately I'm not able to communicate to many of the real grassroots people we met ... farmers, village leaders and others ... Thankyou to those of you who helped me meet all of these people.

A special mention goes to my cousin, Michael, who has done such a wonderful job with the blog page. And to my big sister Jill for buying me such a great hat!.... and to everyone else who I haven't mentioned by name!!

Very warm regards from me and on behalf of my family Gavin, Karen, Lena, Emma, Alice.

It's happening!

Less than two days before we leave ... no more reunions or birthday parties to organise. Emma is safely in Milan and very excited about being there. We've got our gear in the lounge and are packing away things in our bedrooms along with valuables and breakables, readying the house for the people who will be renting from us for the next 5 months.

It feels like serious focus time now. I've worked incredibly hard since making a clear decision with the family to embark on this journey. It's amazing what has been achieved over the last month and now we're on the edge of leaving. Lena is feeling it, not just packing for a 5 month journey but preparing to leave home.

We're looking at all our gear now, keeping ourselves to the basics with clothes, looking at the equipment etc. and gifts we've bought to share along the way. In the back of my mind I'm also thinking about the really serious side to all of this ... the focus I want to bring to things as soon as we reach Thailand. Am I prepared enough, not just in myself but also to guide Karen, Lena and Alice in supporting me? I believe so.

The interactions I've had with NZ farmers over the last 6 years have given me a lot of confidence that there is a collective voice from farmers everywhere that we all need to be hearing and some very positive stories that we need to be much more aware of. Remember to visit www.earthlimited.org for more background to my work, in case you're new to this site and are not sure what this is all about.

Meet the team - Michael

Michael Jeans is Gavin's cousin. Michael will be editing this blog. Michael is a photographer based in Cambridge working in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Auckland and Taranaki regions of New Zealand's North Island. With Michael in the photo are Lena, Alice, Emma, Karen and Karen's parents Bill and Barbara.

Meet the team - Emma

Emma Kenny (16) will be on exchange with a school near Lugano in southern Switzerland while the rest of her family undertake this journey. We are calling Emma our ‘anchor’ as we will be travelling towards her.

Meet the team - Alice

Alice Kenny (13) is the youngest in the family. She is a very determined and focused young lady and is very excited at the opportunity this journey will provide. She is likely to become our sound technician when we are filming.

Meet the team - Lena

Lena Kenny (18) has just finished High School, graduating from Taikura Steiner School in Hastings at the end of 2006. Lena has interests in art, the environment, people and is thinking of pursuing a BA in Environmental Studies. For now she is dedicated to working with her family on this project and then spending some time in the UK.

Meet the team - Karen

Karen Kenny has a BA in Art History, is a qualified state teacher in New Zealand and also a trained Steiner teacher. Karen gave up her first teaching job to dedicate herself to being a mother. Along the way she developed and followed her interests in pottery, homeopathy, and herb growing.

Karen came back to teaching in the late 1990s, leading to a year training as a Steiner teacher in 2001. She spent a year teaching at Taikura Steiner School in Hastings and subsequently has spent 3 ½ years working with special needs children. Karen is a very dedicated educator.

Meet the team - Gavin

Dr Gavin Kenny (48) has a background in horticultural science and agricultural meteorology. Gavin has been a labourer, student, traveller, husband, father, scientist, small farmer, facilitator and communicator.

For nearly six years now Gavin has been interacting with New Zealand farmers to develop and document - a grassroots perspective on climate change and adaptation. The outcomes of this work can be found at earthlimited.org.

Gavin’s focus since the early 1980s has been to develop and refine his holistic worldview and the fundamental role of healthy agricultural systems in sustaining healthy societies and economies.

Prior to developing his grassroots approach to climate change with farmers in New Zealand Gavin had spent a decade working on climate change projects in Europe, New Zealand, Bangladesh and the Pacific Islands. He was also involved in a sustainable development project in northern Viet Nam. This background in research and capacity building strongly influenced his subsequent work with farmers.