The OPSEU solidarity tour Blog 7 July 2012 The ten union members of the OPSEU solidarity tour have arrived at Makupo. They range from a younger recent graduate to an older member of the OPSEU Board, 8 women and 2 men, the chairman of the Workers of Colour Caucus, 2 native Canadians, 2 nurses, clerical personnel – all of them activists and leaders in the areas of Ontario where they live - all of them committed to the cause of social justice and solidarity. OPSEU represents more than 120,000 workers across Ontario and part of their membership dues has been dedicated to their Social Justice Fund established to recognise the unions role in supporting people working to overcome underdevelopment in other parts of the world. Their support to Makupo over the last few years has had a huge impact, by providing infrastructure, and the means to create enterprise Makupo has changed quite dramatically since the first well was put in, a well, incidentally that OPSEU funds helped install. We have 2 days of orientation planned so people can get their feet on the ground and understand where they are. They are still in the early stages of arrival and are eager to see it all. There was broad consensus on the programme, we have laid out and a few suggestions were made to fill in some gaps. The leader of the group is Brenda Wall, an OPSEU union representative and an old friend of ours from the anti-apartheid days of struggle in Lusaka during the late 1970s. She first came to Makupo in April 2008 with the President of OPSEU, when we had just started our work and she has remained a great supporter all along. She was up at 6 this morning to go for a jog and I got young Madalitso junior to join her for a few kilometres. As they passed the model primary school east across the dambo from us at 6h30 in the morning the headmaster was already there. He invited them in sweaty and huffing to sign his guestbook and recognising Mada as a Makupoite he asked for a well for his school. We are known here as the well people. I’ll join the group for breakfast at 7h30 and we’ll see how the rest of them have fared for their first night in the village. They were really eager yesterday and I hope the experience continues to be as rich for them.