December 1, 2024 • 22 mins
Tim is the International Programmes Director at Tearfund New Zealand, overseeing the delivery of NZ$11 million in development and humanitarian support through local partners across the globe. Originally from New Zealand, Tim spent his childhood in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, before returning to New Zealand at 14. He holds a Masters in International Development with First Class Honours from Massey University.
With six years of experience working in refugee response programming in Uganda, particularly in the mental health sector, Tim has also led humanitarian efforts in Iraq, Ukraine, and Ethiopia. His work has included managing large institutional donor partnerships, such as those with UNHCR, BPRM, ECW, and New Zealand’s MFAT.
Tim is passionate about finding innovative and sustainable solutions to support marginalized communities. He is married to Helen, a humanitarian photojournalist, and they live in Auckland with their three young children, and one foster child.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News Talk sed Bday.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowen. I love to
have people on the show who are making a difference,
and that certainly describes my guest tonight, Tim Manson, just
back from Africa. Welcome Tim.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, thanks very much, John, and a pleasure to join you.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
What were you doing in Africa?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, So I'm Tearfund's International Programs Director and Tearfund has
a partner that we support in an Ethiopia who are
responding to a large scale hunger crisis, and so I
was open there visiting our partner and seeing the work
and talking to some of the people that we're supporting.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So what's going on in epop here at the moment.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, So it really really hasn't hit New Zealand's headlines
very much at all, but there's been a large scale
hunger crisis across a lot of East Africa, including Ethiopia,
where I've just been driven by a three year long
drought across large parts of the Horn of Africa, and
(01:25):
this has pushed huge numbers of people to the brink
of a famine. In Ethiopia alone, they estimate they are
about twenty million food and secure people and in the
communities that I visited, very very high levels of malnutrition.
So we're working through a partner who are providing emergency
(01:46):
food relief to some of these people.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
When you describe these problems, I'm sort of getting deja vu.
You live aid and all that from I don't know
how long ago that was, thirty forty years ago and
decades ago. Is anything actually getting better in Africa?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're dead right. So forty years ago, right,
was the sort of very infamous and huge scale famine
that there was also an Ethiopia, And actually since then
there have been a few others, not quite at the
same scale, but also extremely serious, complicated question to answer,
things getting better. I think on some levels we have
(02:26):
an ability to respond faster. We have really good early
warning systems that let us know if a region is
sort of heading towards famine or certainly high levels of
food and security.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I remember over a million people died in that famine
when back in the eighties we're not at that stage.
You're talking about early warning systems. Is this what's going
off now?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Exactly? Yeah. So the sort of formal famine declaration is
while we would described as a level five on the
Food and Security classification system, which is the highest on
that scale, the part of ethiopy that we're working in
as a level four. So it's one tier down from
a formal famine. Still really serious. Still, some people have
(03:10):
already died from lack of food, but it hasn't quite
hit those key markers that would define it as a famine.
I think we are making progress, John, and I think
part of the reason for that is we can work
fast and we can respond before things kind of hit
that really critical point, which is exactly what we're trying
(03:30):
to do through our partner in Ethiopia at the moment.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah. So I'm doing a bit of a Google and
that suggested that worldwide hunger has dropped from thirty percent
to ten percent in those decades. I suppose that's still
pretty tragic that one in ten people are food and secure.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, I mean you can look at it through two lenses, right,
Huge numbers of people have climbed above what we describe
as the poverty line and are now sufficient. Many countries
are now not at risk of a famine, a long
way away from that. But there are pockets in the
world where things really haven't moved very far at all,
and often and by quite a complex array of factors.
(04:11):
So sometimes it's climate related, in this case a long drought. Definitely,
conflict exacerbates a population, makes them much more at risk.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And it's a conflict area. Is this a conflict area
where you're working it is?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah? Yeah, so's there's pockets of fighting across the periphery
of Ethiopia. Was a region called Tigray that's been the
Tetawar for lasted for about three years, and more recently
in Amhara District there's been fighting. The district that we're
working in isn't formally at war, but there is certainly insecurity.
(04:46):
There's rebel activity and parts of it that the government
doesn't have great control over it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Okay, So if nothing much happens, what will happen?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah? So in terms of a global response, yeah, I
mean people are really have run out of options. Right.
So the the part of Ethiopia it's called it's called
Borina region, it's right down by the Kenyan border in
the far South, and it's an area that's very dependent
on livestock. So most families have had herds of cattle
(05:23):
or goats that they rely on for their income, for
their sort of security blanket. They can sell livestock if
they get into trouble. And I've spent now that this
recent triple was my third visit, and I've spoken to
lots of families who've shared that their entire herds were
lost during the drout, and so they really don't have options.
They don't have other ways that they can support themselves
(05:47):
unless they're getting external aid. Some people take this sort
of quite risky decision to leave their land and maybe
move to a nearby city to try to find work.
Some people will sort of change tack and try to
chop down firewood and sell that for some supplementary income.
Some people resort to begging. There's things that you know
people will reach for, but really the options are pretty thin,
(06:13):
And lots of families shared with me they kind of said, hey,
we're desperate, you know, we don't know how to feed
our kids. We have absolutely run out of options.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, you said that. It's not making the news here.
As the New Zealand government responded at all.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
They have here, we've been really encouraged. So tear Fund
works quite closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Trades in the New Zealand government and we, along with
some other NGOs and New Zealand flagged this kind of
worsening situation about two years ago with m FAT and
they responded by supporting. I think it's five New Zealand
(06:50):
based NGOs that are responding across the Horn of Africa,
particularly in Ethiopia and Somalia, and now they've just recently
rolled out a second round of support. So yes, m
FAT are responding and they're kind of backing the private
fundraising work that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Backing it are they were matching it or doing something like.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
So they're providing match funding. So it's dollar for dollar support.
So every dollar that we raise at Tier funds is
matched by m FAT and it's able to really scale
up the level of support that we can offer. It's
been brilliant and that's up to a cap for us
personally of seven hundred and fifty thousand New Zealand dollars.
But like I said, there are some other NGOs so
(07:33):
New Zealand's support is broader than that.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, that's encouraging. I'm sure you could speak at length
on tier fund in fink. We'll come back to it
later on, But I just want to talk a bit
about yourself. I mean, how much of your life have
you actually speen in Africa?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, yeah, a reasonable amount of it. So I was
born on a sheep and beef farm on the west
coast of the Waycado. My parents were farmers there. I
was the youngest of four, but at a very young
age of just five years old, our family left New
Zealand and moved to West Africa, initially to Nizer, which
(08:11):
is kind of right in the heart of the Sahara
Desert and pretty different to West coast Waikato.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, and then I'll be a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, and then we spent a good amount of time.
Actually almost all my primary school years were in Kote Divois,
which is also in West Africa. And then my wife
and I, Helen Manson, who I think you've also interviewed
on this show.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I did, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Have spent a good amount of our married life living
in Uganda. So we spent about seven years living there
and working actually doing quite different jobs. But but yeah,
it had an amazing experience living in Uganda.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Now, excuse my preddas, but Africa freaks me out. You know,
if I had a list of places, I don't really
want to go to those types of parts, places that
you're itching to get back to, the places I would avoid.
But are you comfortable in Africa? Mean that you you know,
(09:12):
you can function there and live there and not be
constantly stressed.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, you know, I mean possibly quite the opposite of
feeling feeling apprehensive about it. I'm really drawn to the
African continent. I love spending time there. Yeah. I find
the people just magnetic, and the different African countries that
I've lived in very hospitable, very welcoming, very friendly, extremely
(09:39):
relational to and no two days are the same in
certainly the parts of Africa I've been, and you just
got sort of constant change and unpredictability, which which I
kind of thrive on to be honest.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Okay, so it's a place that you that you like,
I must have. I need to re upholster my attitudes,
I think to Africa. But when you come back to
New Zealand, what's something that when you get here, you go, ah,
I've this.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, So hands down it's the ocean, I think, you know,
certainly in Uganda, it's Central Africa. There is Lake Victoria
that you could look at, but it's not quite the
same as that. He's on coastline, and so I love
being on the coast and getting out on a boat
in particular safe. So yeah, the sea is I think
what I missed the most.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I'm talking with Tim Manson. I guess you could call
him an Africa file, someone who loves Africa, who's spent
a lot of his life there, who's just returned from
another trip there to help out with the famine and Ethiopia.
We'll be talking more about his life and what draws
him back to the what's been called the Dark Continent,
and the things he's doing to help out there. This
(10:52):
is real life on news Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news
Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Welcome back to real life. I'm talking with Tim Manson,
who works with Tearfund and he loves Africa, spent a
lot of his life there. That's not an African song
you picked though for us? What are we listening to there.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, so Brooke Fraser is an artist I love, and
the song's Albertine and she wrote the song. I think
actually after a visit to Ruanda, and I've actually got
quite a strong personal link with Rwanda. So this song
strikes accorded me.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Right, Okay, what was your link to Rwanda?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, so I think I just shared how I've grown
up in West Africa from my primary school years of
my parents were missionaries there and I think I was
there from sort of age five to fourteen. And during
our time there, actually my mum and I went on
a holiday across Africa to visit my auntie and uncle
(11:53):
and my cousins who were living in a town called Goma,
which is back then was in Zaire or today what
we call the dr Congo, and really vivid memory from
me from my childhood because we land in Kegali, which
is the capital of Rwanda, and we drove across the
country I was I was twelve years old at the
(12:15):
time and had this amazing holiday. I remember distinctly swimming
in Lake Kivu, which had kind of borders Ruanda and
the Congo. And then I went back to my life
and Ivory coast and kind of resumed school, and I
can distinctly remember just a short time later, it was
probably a month after this holiday that I saw a
(12:37):
newspaper front page of a newspaper was in French, but
it was and there was this just awful image on
this newspaper that showed actually Lake Kivu with bodies floating
across the surface, like as far as I could see.
And these were the first images and the first reports
coming through of the ruined and genocide of nineteen ninety four,
(13:02):
which turned out sort of and it's aftermath. It was
the fastest genocide and human has in terms of the
number of people killed in the shortest timeframe. I think
it was about eight hundred thousand people are estimated to
have died in that kind of three or four month window,
and it really it struck a huge cord with me.
(13:23):
Actually that stayed with me right through my teenage years
of just this kind of I guess this very personal
experience and exposure to that level of violence and sort
of horror in the aftermath of war. I think I'd
just been to this country, I've driven through it. I've
probably seen lots of people in Rwanda that ended up
(13:43):
being killed in the genocide, and I'd swum in this
lake which had now these images coming through or were
being splashed across the global media. It was a very
defining experience for me as a child, and I think
probably has led me into the kind of work that
I do now, and that kind of that strong desire
to seek justice for people who really struggle in lots
(14:05):
of different ways.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Well, one of the jobs that I know that you'd
not currently doing, but you have worked with the mental
help of people that have been impacted by conflict and terrorism.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, that's right. So I've one of the sort of
themes of my work I disposal or motivators for me
has been my faith. I believe that kind of God
calls us to show love to our neighbors and reach
out to people particularly who are struggling, and look to
provide support to them. And yeah, twenty years after that story,
(14:39):
I just explained, my wife and I found ourselves in Uganda,
which borders Ruunder and I ended up working for a
mental health organization called tutor Pona that was providing trauma
counseling for people who'd fled from war, actually including some
people who had fled from the ruin and genocide and
(15:00):
were now living as refugees in Uganda twenty years on. So, yeah,
kind of a really interesting link that that sort of
connection between my childhood experience and something that i'd seen
and thought a lot about, and then working in the
space kind of Yeah, supporting local mental health workers to
help people recover from the trauma of war.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
When you came back to New Zealand to do your education,
I know you've got a master's degree in international aid.
You also got yourself a wife, and I was reading that.
I think it was even on your first date, you
were both laying down certain conditions, certain deal breakers. For
her it was adoption that you've got to be open
to adopting, and for you it was you've got to
(15:44):
be open to coming back to Africa, and you've managed
to fulfill both.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, you're very well researched there, John, That's exactly right.
So it was over an oreo milkshake at Denny's. My
classy kind of a first.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Date guy romantic you killers.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
We Yeah, I think we've both kind of come out
of long term relationships and we're a little bit sick
of perhaps not connecting with people who had similar value.
So we kind of laid out these ideas that we
had for the future, and Gosha, I've been so fortunate Helen.
Helen didn't grow up in Africa. She actually grew up
in Orange County in California, mostly while I was in
(16:23):
the sort of savannah of West Africa with a sling shot.
But she did go with me back to Africa kind
of quite early on in our marriage and during our
time there, and again we did actually adopt two of
our three children. So yeah, both of those conditions have
come through. I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
So you've got one child of your one sort of
di y and to adopted and they are African. Are
their challenges in having a family where two of your
children are African and one looks European? Like?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Not so far. I mean possibly when they get a
bit older and they get to teenage years, maybe right,
But I think at this point they're all quite young.
They're all in primary school. Eva, who's our biological medal daughter,
she was adopted. She would go around and tell people
she was adopted as well. And yeah, it's sort of
(17:19):
it's been how don't I feel really grateful? It's been
an amazing journey to All three of our kids have
sort of come into our family in really unique different ways,
and it's been brilliant.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
A friend of mine just recently posted on Facebook and
old brochure that he found when going through his parents' stuff,
and it was from nineteen sixty one and it was
describing mission work in India. I think it was where
they had six hundred leper patients and they were all
queuing up for their leprosy mission, but they had to
listen to a sermon first before they got their medicine.
(17:54):
Now you've mentioned that your motivation is Christian, that you
grew up in a mission family, and things has approached
a mission changed.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, it has. I think really important to
draw this out actually both sort of the work I've
been involved in before Tier Fund, but also what Tearfund
does now that we are a strongly faith based organization,
but we don't proselytize, We don't put conditions on supporting
people or exclude people. In fact, we work where the
(18:24):
need is greatest, and we work through brilliant local partners
who come up with innovative solutions to complex development problems.
But we certainly don't put conditions that listen to a
sermon or attended church on to the people that we support.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, now you're not just handing out food. What else
does your organization do. It's got a range of projects,
hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, quite a wide range.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And actually while I was in Ethiopia, I got to
visit two different projects. One was the one I've just described,
which is food relief for people who are food and secure.
But the other program actually was fascinating to visit. It
was a long term farming project and actually at the
backdrop I've just described to you where Ethiopy's got, you know,
(19:12):
a very severe drought and lots of people who struggle.
I found it really encouraging to see this other work
that the tearfunder supported over the past six years, again
through through a local independent partner, and I got to
sit down with a group of farmers who've been through
this program and they shared just what a tremendous impact
(19:32):
this work had had for them. And I really, even
after having worked in development, you know, and humanitarian work
for more than a decade now, I found it really
moving just to listen to what a massive difference our
support can make. Even from the other side of the
world over here in New Zealand. Just a few soundbites
(19:53):
for you, because because you know, often in this line
of work, you can feel despondent, right, you can think
no progress is being made, or you know, we just
sort of go from headline of disaster to disaster or
another war. But honestly, listening to these people just gave
me here huge hope. I was sitting in someone's courtyard,
a farmer's courtyard outside and there were these beautiful trees
(20:15):
above me and flourishing crops in the fields around me,
and these people shared how this farmer program, farmer training
program had helped them go from kind of really intermittent
harvests and being very hand to mouth to now being
independent and food secure in the middle of a massive drought,
(20:37):
right when in a context where lots of the country
was struggling to feed itself. They shared how they were
able to get a better price for the crops that
they were growing at the market through selling it as
a collective as opposed to individuals. They were now able
to send their children to school where previously they hadn't
been able to afford the school fees. And you just
imagine as a parent how much of a difference that
(20:59):
would make to have your kids able to have that
hope for the future. And even down to some really
small details, they said, you know, Tim, the chair you're
sitting on as you have lunch with us, and the table,
those bits of furniture we've bought as a result of
this program. And more than that, for me, though, was
this kind of sense of hope that this community had,
(21:20):
that they were now able to look after their own
needs and support themselves, and that there was a belief
that the future might look better than the present.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And that's just a good antidote. When you're exposed constantly
to these scenes of deprivation and poverty and hardship, it
must be good to see, Oh, actually this you know,
there can be an end to this. We can It's
not just hopeless and we shouldn't just walk away. It's
actually something we can do. And it's been great talking
(21:51):
of your term. You've picked another song for us to
go out on. What are we going to be listening to?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Yeah? So one of my favorite songs is where the
Streets Have No Name by You two, and I think
it's a links to maybe some of the more remote
parts of the world that I've been to in my.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Travels, where the streets don't have any names exactly. Hey,
this is real life. I've been talking with Tim Manson
from Tearfund, who's been explaining his work with aid agencies
in Africa. I know they work in other places in
the world as well, and I suggest that if this
is a prit some interest in you, that you go
to their website, which is tearfund dot org dot nz
(22:28):
and check out some of the things that they're doing,
and maybe you might even feel motivated to help. This
is real life. I'm John Cown, looking forward to being
back with you next Sunday night.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
For more from News Talk SEDB. Listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News Talk sed Bday.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowen. I love to
have people on the show who are making a difference,
and that certainly describes my guest tonight, Tim Manson, just
back from Africa. Welcome Tim.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, thanks very much, John, and a pleasure to join you.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
What were you doing in Africa?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, So I'm Tearfund's International Programs Director and Tearfund has
a partner that we support in an Ethiopia who are
responding to a large scale hunger crisis, and so I
was open there visiting our partner and seeing the work
and talking to some of the people that we're supporting.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So what's going on in epop here at the moment.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, So it really really hasn't hit New Zealand's headlines
very much at all, but there's been a large scale
hunger crisis across a lot of East Africa, including Ethiopia,
where I've just been driven by a three year long
drought across large parts of the Horn of Africa, and
(01:25):
this has pushed huge numbers of people to the brink
of a famine. In Ethiopia alone, they estimate they are
about twenty million food and secure people and in the
communities that I visited, very very high levels of malnutrition.
So we're working through a partner who are providing emergency
(01:46):
food relief to some of these people.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
When you describe these problems, I'm sort of getting deja vu.
You live aid and all that from I don't know
how long ago that was, thirty forty years ago and
decades ago. Is anything actually getting better in Africa?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're dead right. So forty years ago, right,
was the sort of very infamous and huge scale famine
that there was also an Ethiopia, And actually since then
there have been a few others, not quite at the
same scale, but also extremely serious, complicated question to answer,
things getting better. I think on some levels we have
(02:26):
an ability to respond faster. We have really good early
warning systems that let us know if a region is
sort of heading towards famine or certainly high levels of
food and security.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I remember over a million people died in that famine
when back in the eighties we're not at that stage.
You're talking about early warning systems. Is this what's going
off now?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Exactly? Yeah. So the sort of formal famine declaration is
while we would described as a level five on the
Food and Security classification system, which is the highest on
that scale, the part of ethiopy that we're working in
as a level four. So it's one tier down from
a formal famine. Still really serious. Still, some people have
(03:10):
already died from lack of food, but it hasn't quite
hit those key markers that would define it as a famine.
I think we are making progress, John, and I think
part of the reason for that is we can work
fast and we can respond before things kind of hit
that really critical point, which is exactly what we're trying
(03:30):
to do through our partner in Ethiopia at the moment.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah. So I'm doing a bit of a Google and
that suggested that worldwide hunger has dropped from thirty percent
to ten percent in those decades. I suppose that's still
pretty tragic that one in ten people are food and secure.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, I mean you can look at it through two lenses, right,
Huge numbers of people have climbed above what we describe
as the poverty line and are now sufficient. Many countries
are now not at risk of a famine, a long
way away from that. But there are pockets in the
world where things really haven't moved very far at all,
and often and by quite a complex array of factors.
(04:11):
So sometimes it's climate related, in this case a long drought. Definitely,
conflict exacerbates a population, makes them much more at risk.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And it's a conflict area. Is this a conflict area
where you're working it is?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah? Yeah, so's there's pockets of fighting across the periphery
of Ethiopia. Was a region called Tigray that's been the
Tetawar for lasted for about three years, and more recently
in Amhara District there's been fighting. The district that we're
working in isn't formally at war, but there is certainly insecurity.
(04:46):
There's rebel activity and parts of it that the government
doesn't have great control over it.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Okay, So if nothing much happens, what will happen?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah? So in terms of a global response, yeah, I
mean people are really have run out of options. Right.
So the the part of Ethiopia it's called it's called
Borina region, it's right down by the Kenyan border in
the far South, and it's an area that's very dependent
on livestock. So most families have had herds of cattle
(05:23):
or goats that they rely on for their income, for
their sort of security blanket. They can sell livestock if
they get into trouble. And I've spent now that this
recent triple was my third visit, and I've spoken to
lots of families who've shared that their entire herds were
lost during the drout, and so they really don't have options.
They don't have other ways that they can support themselves
(05:47):
unless they're getting external aid. Some people take this sort
of quite risky decision to leave their land and maybe
move to a nearby city to try to find work.
Some people will sort of change tack and try to
chop down firewood and sell that for some supplementary income.
Some people resort to begging. There's things that you know
people will reach for, but really the options are pretty thin,
(06:13):
And lots of families shared with me they kind of said, hey,
we're desperate, you know, we don't know how to feed
our kids. We have absolutely run out of options.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, you said that. It's not making the news here.
As the New Zealand government responded at all.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
They have here, we've been really encouraged. So tear Fund
works quite closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Trades in the New Zealand government and we, along with
some other NGOs and New Zealand flagged this kind of
worsening situation about two years ago with m FAT and
they responded by supporting. I think it's five New Zealand
(06:50):
based NGOs that are responding across the Horn of Africa,
particularly in Ethiopia and Somalia, and now they've just recently
rolled out a second round of support. So yes, m
FAT are responding and they're kind of backing the private
fundraising work that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Backing it are they were matching it or doing something like.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
So they're providing match funding. So it's dollar for dollar support.
So every dollar that we raise at Tier funds is
matched by m FAT and it's able to really scale
up the level of support that we can offer. It's
been brilliant and that's up to a cap for us
personally of seven hundred and fifty thousand New Zealand dollars.
But like I said, there are some other NGOs so
(07:33):
New Zealand's support is broader than that.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, that's encouraging. I'm sure you could speak at length
on tier fund in fink. We'll come back to it
later on, But I just want to talk a bit
about yourself. I mean, how much of your life have
you actually speen in Africa?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, yeah, a reasonable amount of it. So I was
born on a sheep and beef farm on the west
coast of the Waycado. My parents were farmers there. I
was the youngest of four, but at a very young
age of just five years old, our family left New
Zealand and moved to West Africa, initially to Nizer, which
(08:11):
is kind of right in the heart of the Sahara
Desert and pretty different to West coast Waikato.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, and then I'll be a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, and then we spent a good amount of time.
Actually almost all my primary school years were in Kote Divois,
which is also in West Africa. And then my wife
and I, Helen Manson, who I think you've also interviewed
on this show.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I did, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Have spent a good amount of our married life living
in Uganda. So we spent about seven years living there
and working actually doing quite different jobs. But but yeah,
it had an amazing experience living in Uganda.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Now, excuse my preddas, but Africa freaks me out. You know,
if I had a list of places, I don't really
want to go to those types of parts, places that
you're itching to get back to, the places I would avoid.
But are you comfortable in Africa? Mean that you you know,
(09:12):
you can function there and live there and not be
constantly stressed.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, you know, I mean possibly quite the opposite of
feeling feeling apprehensive about it. I'm really drawn to the
African continent. I love spending time there. Yeah. I find
the people just magnetic, and the different African countries that
I've lived in very hospitable, very welcoming, very friendly, extremely
(09:39):
relational to and no two days are the same in
certainly the parts of Africa I've been, and you just
got sort of constant change and unpredictability, which which I
kind of thrive on to be honest.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Okay, so it's a place that you that you like,
I must have. I need to re upholster my attitudes,
I think to Africa. But when you come back to
New Zealand, what's something that when you get here, you go, ah,
I've this.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, So hands down it's the ocean, I think, you know,
certainly in Uganda, it's Central Africa. There is Lake Victoria
that you could look at, but it's not quite the
same as that. He's on coastline, and so I love
being on the coast and getting out on a boat
in particular safe. So yeah, the sea is I think
what I missed the most.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I'm talking with Tim Manson. I guess you could call
him an Africa file, someone who loves Africa, who's spent
a lot of his life there, who's just returned from
another trip there to help out with the famine and Ethiopia.
We'll be talking more about his life and what draws
him back to the what's been called the Dark Continent,
and the things he's doing to help out there. This
(10:52):
is real life on news Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on news
Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Welcome back to real life. I'm talking with Tim Manson,
who works with Tearfund and he loves Africa, spent a
lot of his life there. That's not an African song
you picked though for us? What are we listening to there.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Yeah, so Brooke Fraser is an artist I love, and
the song's Albertine and she wrote the song. I think
actually after a visit to Ruanda, and I've actually got
quite a strong personal link with Rwanda. So this song
strikes accorded me.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Right, Okay, what was your link to Rwanda?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, so I think I just shared how I've grown
up in West Africa from my primary school years of
my parents were missionaries there and I think I was
there from sort of age five to fourteen. And during
our time there, actually my mum and I went on
a holiday across Africa to visit my auntie and uncle
(11:53):
and my cousins who were living in a town called Goma,
which is back then was in Zaire or today what
we call the dr Congo, and really vivid memory from
me from my childhood because we land in Kegali, which
is the capital of Rwanda, and we drove across the
country I was I was twelve years old at the
(12:15):
time and had this amazing holiday. I remember distinctly swimming
in Lake Kivu, which had kind of borders Ruanda and
the Congo. And then I went back to my life
and Ivory coast and kind of resumed school, and I
can distinctly remember just a short time later, it was
probably a month after this holiday that I saw a
(12:37):
newspaper front page of a newspaper was in French, but
it was and there was this just awful image on
this newspaper that showed actually Lake Kivu with bodies floating
across the surface, like as far as I could see.
And these were the first images and the first reports
coming through of the ruined and genocide of nineteen ninety four,
(13:02):
which turned out sort of and it's aftermath. It was
the fastest genocide and human has in terms of the
number of people killed in the shortest timeframe. I think
it was about eight hundred thousand people are estimated to
have died in that kind of three or four month window,
and it really it struck a huge cord with me.
(13:23):
Actually that stayed with me right through my teenage years
of just this kind of I guess this very personal
experience and exposure to that level of violence and sort
of horror in the aftermath of war. I think I'd
just been to this country, I've driven through it. I've
probably seen lots of people in Rwanda that ended up
(13:43):
being killed in the genocide, and I'd swum in this
lake which had now these images coming through or were
being splashed across the global media. It was a very
defining experience for me as a child, and I think
probably has led me into the kind of work that
I do now, and that kind of that strong desire
to seek justice for people who really struggle in lots
(14:05):
of different ways.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Well, one of the jobs that I know that you'd
not currently doing, but you have worked with the mental
help of people that have been impacted by conflict and terrorism.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, that's right. So I've one of the sort of
themes of my work I disposal or motivators for me
has been my faith. I believe that kind of God
calls us to show love to our neighbors and reach
out to people particularly who are struggling, and look to
provide support to them. And yeah, twenty years after that story,
(14:39):
I just explained, my wife and I found ourselves in Uganda,
which borders Ruunder and I ended up working for a
mental health organization called tutor Pona that was providing trauma
counseling for people who'd fled from war, actually including some
people who had fled from the ruin and genocide and
(15:00):
were now living as refugees in Uganda twenty years on. So, yeah,
kind of a really interesting link that that sort of
connection between my childhood experience and something that i'd seen
and thought a lot about, and then working in the
space kind of Yeah, supporting local mental health workers to
help people recover from the trauma of war.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
When you came back to New Zealand to do your education,
I know you've got a master's degree in international aid.
You also got yourself a wife, and I was reading that.
I think it was even on your first date, you
were both laying down certain conditions, certain deal breakers. For
her it was adoption that you've got to be open
to adopting, and for you it was you've got to
(15:44):
be open to coming back to Africa, and you've managed
to fulfill both.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Yeah, you're very well researched there, John, That's exactly right.
So it was over an oreo milkshake at Denny's. My
classy kind of a first.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Date guy romantic you killers.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
We Yeah, I think we've both kind of come out
of long term relationships and we're a little bit sick
of perhaps not connecting with people who had similar value.
So we kind of laid out these ideas that we
had for the future, and Gosha, I've been so fortunate Helen.
Helen didn't grow up in Africa. She actually grew up
in Orange County in California, mostly while I was in
(16:23):
the sort of savannah of West Africa with a sling shot.
But she did go with me back to Africa kind
of quite early on in our marriage and during our
time there, and again we did actually adopt two of
our three children. So yeah, both of those conditions have
come through. I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
So you've got one child of your one sort of
di y and to adopted and they are African. Are
their challenges in having a family where two of your
children are African and one looks European? Like?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Not so far. I mean possibly when they get a
bit older and they get to teenage years, maybe right,
But I think at this point they're all quite young.
They're all in primary school. Eva, who's our biological medal daughter,
she was adopted. She would go around and tell people
she was adopted as well. And yeah, it's sort of
(17:19):
it's been how don't I feel really grateful? It's been
an amazing journey to All three of our kids have
sort of come into our family in really unique different ways,
and it's been brilliant.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
A friend of mine just recently posted on Facebook and
old brochure that he found when going through his parents' stuff,
and it was from nineteen sixty one and it was
describing mission work in India. I think it was where
they had six hundred leper patients and they were all
queuing up for their leprosy mission, but they had to
listen to a sermon first before they got their medicine.
(17:54):
Now you've mentioned that your motivation is Christian, that you
grew up in a mission family, and things has approached
a mission changed.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, it has. I think really important to
draw this out actually both sort of the work I've
been involved in before Tier Fund, but also what Tearfund
does now that we are a strongly faith based organization,
but we don't proselytize, We don't put conditions on supporting
people or exclude people. In fact, we work where the
(18:24):
need is greatest, and we work through brilliant local partners
who come up with innovative solutions to complex development problems.
But we certainly don't put conditions that listen to a
sermon or attended church on to the people that we support.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, now you're not just handing out food. What else
does your organization do. It's got a range of projects,
hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, quite a wide range.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And actually while I was in Ethiopia, I got to
visit two different projects. One was the one I've just described,
which is food relief for people who are food and secure.
But the other program actually was fascinating to visit. It
was a long term farming project and actually at the
backdrop I've just described to you where Ethiopy's got, you know,
(19:12):
a very severe drought and lots of people who struggle.
I found it really encouraging to see this other work
that the tearfunder supported over the past six years, again
through through a local independent partner, and I got to
sit down with a group of farmers who've been through
this program and they shared just what a tremendous impact
(19:32):
this work had had for them. And I really, even
after having worked in development, you know, and humanitarian work
for more than a decade now, I found it really
moving just to listen to what a massive difference our
support can make. Even from the other side of the
world over here in New Zealand. Just a few soundbites
(19:53):
for you, because because you know, often in this line
of work, you can feel despondent, right, you can think
no progress is being made, or you know, we just
sort of go from headline of disaster to disaster or
another war. But honestly, listening to these people just gave
me here huge hope. I was sitting in someone's courtyard,
a farmer's courtyard outside and there were these beautiful trees
(20:15):
above me and flourishing crops in the fields around me,
and these people shared how this farmer program, farmer training
program had helped them go from kind of really intermittent
harvests and being very hand to mouth to now being
independent and food secure in the middle of a massive drought,
(20:37):
right when in a context where lots of the country
was struggling to feed itself. They shared how they were
able to get a better price for the crops that
they were growing at the market through selling it as
a collective as opposed to individuals. They were now able
to send their children to school where previously they hadn't
been able to afford the school fees. And you just
imagine as a parent how much of a difference that
(20:59):
would make to have your kids able to have that
hope for the future. And even down to some really
small details, they said, you know, Tim, the chair you're
sitting on as you have lunch with us, and the table,
those bits of furniture we've bought as a result of
this program. And more than that, for me, though, was
this kind of sense of hope that this community had,
(21:20):
that they were now able to look after their own
needs and support themselves, and that there was a belief
that the future might look better than the present.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And that's just a good antidote. When you're exposed constantly
to these scenes of deprivation and poverty and hardship, it
must be good to see, Oh, actually this you know,
there can be an end to this. We can It's
not just hopeless and we shouldn't just walk away. It's
actually something we can do. And it's been great talking
(21:51):
of your term. You've picked another song for us to
go out on. What are we going to be listening to?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Yeah? So one of my favorite songs is where the
Streets Have No Name by You two, and I think
it's a links to maybe some of the more remote
parts of the world that I've been to in my.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Travels, where the streets don't have any names exactly. Hey,
this is real life. I've been talking with Tim Manson
from Tearfund, who's been explaining his work with aid agencies
in Africa. I know they work in other places in
the world as well, and I suggest that if this
is a prit some interest in you, that you go
to their website, which is tearfund dot org dot nz
(22:28):
and check out some of the things that they're doing,
and maybe you might even feel motivated to help. This
is real life. I'm John Cown, looking forward to being
back with you next Sunday night.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
For more from News Talk SEDB. Listen live on air
or online, and keep our shows with you wherever you
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