Walking with a purpose has a profound meaning across time and culture. Walking has been used as a social, spiritual and political action, from pilgrimages to hunger marches. We can walk almost anywhere, we don’t need to be told how to do it, you can be unfit or energetic, and it’s free. We can walk for our own well-being, and we can walk for change. I do it because of what Gandhi says below. My walks are about inspiring actions for fair play, creating awareness through compelling stories of real life. They are about opportunity and hope.
Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result’.
I believe that when you join any campaign, you take the first step along a journey. The more people we can reach out to and connect with along the way, the faster we will reach our destination together.
About Push
Pushpanath – ‘Push’ – Krishnamurthy wears many hats. A British citizen, originally from Bangalore, India, Push spent three decades at the leading edge of development work across three continents, with NGOs such as Oxfam and Save the Children, and as a Senior Associate at the Indian non-profit organisation, Centre for Social Markets and Fairtrade work in India. At Oxfam he acquired legendary status for his pioneering work on campaigns, such as HIV/ AIDS, Make Trade Fair and Climate Change Hearings, which allowed ordinary people to tell policy makers about their direct experiences of climate change.
An accomplished communicator and vivid storyteller, adept at motivating highly diverse communities, Push is skilled at taking complex issues and popularizing them for grassroots constituencies, using a blend of traditional advocacy and new approaches.
In December 2009, Push embarked on his first long walk – his ‘Walk for Climate Justice’ – from Oxford, UK, to Copenhagen, Denmark, to raise awareness of the issues of climate change and poverty in advance of the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen, COP15. In 2011, he repeated this effort in another Walk for Climate Justice in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, to call attention to the plight of small producers such as coffee growers in an era of climate change. This walk was supported by the Karnataka Growers Federation (KGF) and Centre for Social Markets (CSM), and reached 30,000 people directly, and through radio he was able to reach a million listeners a day!
In 2012 he walked in the UK to promote Oxfam’s ‘Grow’ campaign on Fair Trade, telling the stories of Coffee Growers in India. He undertook another climate justice walk in India in 2015/16 during the Paris COP 21. This covered 450 km from the Bay of Bengal to the hills of Ooty, and resulted in the first Fair Trade towns being declared in India and in South Asia.
In the more than a decade since his first walk to Copenhagen he has taken over 31 million steps and reached over 400,000 people directly – farmers, teachers, lawyers, environmentalists, organic associations, fair trade supporters and schools and citizens. People all over the world have connected with him, including corporates.
Now 12 years on from his first walk, he is walking again during COP26, from London to Glasgow. On this journey, Push will join with others and he encourages others to walk with him.
He is looking to people, communities and citizens to host him for a night – a mat, a hot shower and a conversation is what he is looking for.
He is happy to share his stories with schools, churches, local community groups and anyone wanting to know or anyone who has a story to share on the issue, to encourage the many people, communities and agencies and councils working on climate change.
If you can help Push – invite him in to share his stories with your group or organisation, host him for a night, or walk with him – then please get in touch. Thank you!
For more information
Push can be contacted at:
www.gopushgo.co.uk
pu*********@gm***.com
For details of Push’s walks visit www.gopushgo.co.uk
