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Fran Healey of Travis

Fran Healey, lead singer of Travis, after a trip he made to South Africa to visit the poor..

“It appeals to our ego to consider what ‘we’ have and what ‘they’ need. The people I met were extremely poor, conditions were basic; alcoholism was rife. My first impression was typical of a westerner: I thought “these poor people” and I thought about what ‘we’, in the prosperous north could offer to people in poor developing countries. But, by the time I left, having been invited into homes, eaten and laughed with both kids and adults, talked with folk wherever I went, I came away thinking more about what they had to offer us.

The visit made me realise that in our greedy pursuit of wealth we have lost a great deal of what money cannot buy. Our value system has gotten out of kilter with what is important in life. The people I met had an abundance of natural generosity, exuberence, lust for life, sense of community and family. I am now more worried for us and the road we are walking, blinded by unconscious greed because we always look after number one. We all, rich and poor alike, have something very valuable to gain if we share the world’s resources more fairly, and if we look again at what is really valuable in life.”

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