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Henning Mankell supports Hand in Hand

2009-05-12

Henning Mankell supports Hand in Hand by sponsoring an entire village. “I have spent a lot of time in countries where people live in extreme poverty, which so many times is completely unnecessary. With very little effort it is possible to help people raise themselves out of that situation. I think that Hand in Hand can play an important part in this. Moreover, focusing on women is a very good way of fighting poverty since it is the women who keep the family united. Furthermore, it is the women who are mainly responsible for supporting the family. A mother rarely abandons her children. At the same time, helping women starting their own businesses strengthens their role in society, which is great from a democratic point of view but also when it comes to gender issues”.

Hand in Hand is a non-profit organization that fights poverty in Tamil Nadu in the south of India by creating the right environment for women in an exposed position to start their own businesses. By starting their own businesses and becoming entrepreneurs the women are enabled to strengthen the economic situation for themselves as well as for their families. Moreover, they are strengthened in their role as contributing citizens. Hand in Hand’s work is mainly focused on creating self-help groups, education, coaching and financing in form of micro loans. In less than five years Hand in Hand have started more than 220.000 smaller family businesses and more than 400.000 medium sized companies. More than 400.00 women are participating in 28.000 self-help groups. Besides focusing on enabling women to start their own businesses, Hand in Hand’s program also includes fighting child labour, democracy- and IT- projects and health and environment issues.

Henning Mankell supports the village Nelveli in the district of Kanchee in Tamil Nadu, one of India’s southern states. In Nelveli there are 180 families making up a total of 825 citizens. Out of the 180 families 140 live solely on farming. Only 66 % of the men and 55 % of the women know how to read and write. A mere 3 % of the families have a functioning toilet. Hand in Hand’s work starts when the leader of the village together with the women sign a “Memorandum of Understanding”, which outlines what kind of work is supposed to be done. This is very important to make sure that the programme has the required support needed for the upcoming work. After that the village forms a “Village Development Committee” which organise and commit the grass roots of the village in order to high light issues which need to be dealt with such as toilets, water supply, schools and transportation. The committee guarantees that that the village focuses on the right tasks and that the village is truly dedicated to addressing the problems at hand.


	In The Eye of the Leopard, Hans Olofsson travels to Zambia and stays for 20 years until he reluctantly is forced to leave the country when the African struggle for liberation makes it too dangerous for him to stay.


	In Uganda, Henning Mankell is committed to a tv-project, Karibu Africa!, whose primary aim is to devise, produce and broadcast a daily television drama series targeted at teenagers and young adults in an emerging society with the underlying purpose of informing and educating about relevant social issues. Click here to see a teaser of the tv-show Fruits of love. If you want to read more about the project click here.


	Since 1986 Henning Mankell has divided his time between Maputo and Sweden. Here he spends at least six months every year, and works as an artistic leader at Teatro Avenida. Hanna arrives to Lourenço Marques (the name of Maputo until 1975) in the beginning of the 20th century in Memories Of a Dirty Angel. Having just buried her husband she leaves the boat in sorrow. Instead of continuing to Australia she puts up at a hotel in the city.


	In 2008 Henning Mankell went on a long awaited journey to Timbuktu - the place where the myth about an Africa that lacks a written language is being crushed. Mankell is also currently writing a novel with the title The Journey to Timbuktu.


	Henning Mankell has a dream that his memory books project about HIV and AIDS one day will be stacked in the new library in Alexandria . Together with PLAN Henning Mankell initiated this project to try to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS issue.


	Guina-Bissau was the first place in Africa Henning Mankell visited. The year was 1972 and the moment he got off the plane he had a curious feeling of coming home.


	In Chimoio Henning Mankell, together with SOS Children's Villages, are building a small village for approximately 100 orphans. For more info go to SOS Children's Villages.


	José Paulo finds a notebook under the parquet flooring at Grand Hotel in Beira, Mozambique, in Memories Of a Dirty Angel. On the first page it’s written: Hanna Lundmark Vaz, 1905.


	Somewhere outside the Horn of Africa is where Hannas husband Lundmark gets his final rest in Memories Of a Dirty Angel.


	Lovisa af Sundsvall stops to bunker in Algiers, Algeria, in Memories Of a Dirty Angel. This is where Hanna and Lundmark gets married before continuing their journey through the Suez Canal towards Lourenço Marques.


	In the novel, The Man from Beijing, Birgitta Roslin travels to Beijing to try to find out what happened in the small village of Hesjövallen.


	In The Man from Beijing the traces lead back to three Chinese brothers who were kidnapped in Kanton to work as slaves for the railway in Nevada in the 1860's.


	Henning Mankell vistited the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair in 2009. Among other guests were Assia Djebar and Elias Khoury.


	All the novels about Wallander take place in Ystad. Click here to read more about the Wallander book series. Or here to glance at the BBC Wallander movies. Are you interested in visiting Wallander's Ystad or just finding out more about him, download the application In The Footsteps of Wallander for Iphone and Android here.


	Lovisa af Sundsvall stops in Port Elizabeth in Memories Of a Dirty Angel, before continuing her journey home to Sweden and Sundsvall.


	Kanchepuram is the Indian village Henning Mankell has sponsered through the help organisation Hand in Hand


	In Kennedy's Brain, the archeolog Louise Cantor is working in Athens when she founds out that her son has been found dead in anapartment in Stockholm. She suspects he has been murdered.


	Traces after the dead son Henrik in Kennedy's Brain leads to a secret apartment in Barcelona...


	On the coast of the Italian island Lampedusa, refugees are found dead every day, people who have died trying to make their way to Europe. Click here to read about Henning Mankells play Lampedusa.


	The Shoemaker that appears in Italian Shoes worked for the legendary shoemaker Gatto in Rome.


	The Man from Beijing that partly takes place in London's Soho and Chinatown, begins with a brutal massmurder in a small village in Hälsingland, Sweden.


	In The Dogs in Riga, two dead men in a rescue raft floats a shore on the coast of Skåne. Kurt Wallander leaves Ystad for Riga to solve the case.


	In Copenhagen Henning Mankell's novel The Man from Beijing and the Wallander novel One Step Behind take place.


	Sveg is the place where Henning Mankell was raised. Two years ago a culture centre in his name was opened there. It holds a permanent exhibition about Mankell and his work.To find out go to Kulturcentrum Mankell. Henning Mankells books about the boy Joel takes place in Sveg, as well as the novel Italian Shoes.


	Henning Mankell was born in Stockholm on February 3rd 1948. In the last novel about Kurt Wallander, The Troubled Man, Wallander spends time in Stockholm to try to find out what has happened.


	In the last Wallander novel, The Troubled Man, Kurt Wallander is forced to travel to Berlin to meet with a former CIA agent.


	Sundsvall is the first city Hanna visits in the novel Memories Of a Dirty Angel. This is also where she sees the sea for the first time in her life and meets her best friend, Berta, before signing on the steamship Lovisa af Sundsvall – destination Australia.


	Right before Lovisa af Sundsvall enters the Bay of Biscay in Memories Of a Dirty Angel, Lundmark asks Hanna to marry him.


	Henning Mankell's play Night Hawks takes place in New York. Inspired by a painting by Edward Hopper Henning Mankell has written a play about working class people in the 50's.


	The course of events in The Man From Beijing travels from Beijing in the far east to San Fransisco in the west.


	I the novel Before The Frost, where the story initially takes place in Jonestown, Kurt's adughter Linda Wallander plays a central part thoughout the plot.


	On his journey with the Beagle, Charles Darwin visited the Galápagos islands. It was there he discovered that the finches appearence were different from one iland to the other. Click here to read about Henning Mankells play Darwin's Captain.


	In Kennedy's Brain Louise Cantor travels to Byron, a small town on the Australian east coast to follow a lead in the hunt for her son's killer.


	In Memories Of a Dirty Angel Lovisa af Sundsvall visits a port on the east side of Australia, maybe Perth or Port Adelaide, loaded with timber from northern Sweden.