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From Uganda to Dundee: How charity addresses city hunger based on experiences overseas

Kerry Dixon, founder of Signpost International, and Jamie Morrison, chief executive. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.
Kerry Dixon, founder of Signpost International, and Jamie Morrison, chief executive. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

Bosses at a Dundee charity have told how projects in developing countries across the world have helped them address hunger problems in their home city.

Signpost International was set up in 1992 by Kerry Dixon, who at the time was working as a minister in Cambridgeshire.

It started by helping people living in poverty overseas – focusing on food and nutrition, sustainable livelihoods, access to clean water and helping people understand their rights.

But in an attempt to improve support here in the UK, Kerry relocated the charity from its affluent English base to the Hilltown in 2002.

Kerry moved the charity from Cambridgeshire to Dundee. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

Speaking as he marked three decades of running Signpost International, Kerry told The Courier: “When we started to work in Africa we were based in one of the richest parts of the UK – John Major lived in the village, so it was very well-off.

“We had an aspiration to be based in a poorer community so that what we learned overseas we could also bring there.

“We had a small office in Dundee through the Gate church on Perth Road and then we were gifted the former Baptist church on Ann Street.

“Me, my wife and five children moved into the Hilltown from rural Cambridgeshire and we then began to do community projects in the Hilltown as well as overseas.”

‘Working in Dundee grounds us’

Since then, the charity has applied its knowledge from working abroad to helping people in Dundee.

In 2014, the organisation moved to the former social work building known as the Roundhouse in Whitfield, where it operates most of its Dundee projects from today.

Jamie Morrison, chief executive, said: “I think working in Dundee grounds us.

“It’s about being in the communities that we work in, knowing their stories and understanding their struggles.

Jamie says the charity’s work is “quite unique”. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

“Charity begins at home but while people are experiencing poverty here, there are also people struggling across the world.

“For us to do both, it is quite unique.”

Jamie says the charity has worked in communities in the likes of the Philippines, India, Rwanda, Russia, Tanzania, Pakistan, Burma and most recently, east Africa – where it still works today.

He said: “Where we work in east Africa, there are really rural areas with no electricity and no water.

Dundee community kitchen and sustainable cafe

“People are struggling to look after themselves and their children and hoping for a different future.

“When you experience poverty, it robs you of your opportunity of choices.”

Among Signpost International’s main projects in Dundee is its community kitchen and its sustainable cafe.

Since last summer alone, the charity has turned nine tons of food waste that would have gone to landfill into 13,000 meals for disadvantaged people.

People enjoying lunch at the sustainable cafe at Signpost International. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

Jamie said: “For around three years we have been working to provide hot meals to people in Dundee.

“We take surplus food from markets and turn it into healthy, nutritious meal packages and then take them to foodbanks and larders around the city.

“That way, we tackle food insecurity as well as waste.”

While much of the charity’s funding comes from overseas projects, it receives support from about 600 regular donors at home and from the National Lottery.

Signpost International plans for Dundee learning centre

Signpost International is now looking to open a learning centre in the Roundhouse, where it hopes to show visitors firsthand how people live in developing countries.

The centre – which will launch in the next six months – will feature virtual reality headsets that allow people to ‘visit’ the charity’s projects overseas.

Further down the line, the organisation plans to launch a similar learning centre in Uganda that will show people there what life is like in Dundee.

Signpost International celebrating its 30th birthday. Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson.

Jamie added: “I’m certainly confident we’ll be here in the next 30 years.

“We have a great team of staff and volunteers, and in our cafe and in the last six months has really started to grow.

“We’re just trying to find out more about what support our community needs.”

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