Peace by Chocolate recognition

 

Peace by Chocolate

Good to see Peace by Chocolate got a mention in the June edition of National Geographic.  Its an amazing story of a Syrian refugee family rebuilding their lives through chocolate. They lost their chocolate business & home in Syria.  They have used their knowledge & skills to rebuild a chocolate business in Canada. They have been recognised by Justin Trudeau and there is a film being made of their story. 

Brunel zoom & webinars

 

Brunel University is my local university and when no pandemic I usually go on campus to enjoy lectures, conferences & events open to the public. Thank goodness for our amazing event organiser Seb, who has adapted to our lockdowns and been organising zoom & webinar events to share. It actually works well with a wider global audience attendence and sharing.  This last week I attended 3 good presentations from the Research festival all with the theme of Global climate crises and plastic waste.

On Tuesday 25th May Maria Kolokotoni looked at Retrofitting Residential Buildings to net Zero energy. Brunel Student Residences have been involved in this initiative.

When assessing net Zero energy you need to look at energy used and carbon released.  Ref: EU commission ReCO2ST.eu Grants ReCO2st.eu

ReCO2ST there are some implanted videos to explain the technology.

Here is the Link to Festival of Research there are recordings of lectures and some still to be uploaded so worth keep visiting. 

Wednesday 26th 2 good lecturers on the International Perspectives on the Global global challenge of plastics. Eventbrite summary

Prof Roland Geyer  

facts: 

1950 World Plastic Free

2021 10.1 billion metric tons  of primary fossil fuel plastics and secondary recycling. That is enough to cover Argentina ankle deep. Shell produce 1 million tons of polyethylene plastic.

I thought back to my first visit to India in 1991 and was fascinated by the use of natural resources such as banana leaves for wrapping lunch in. I see clearly in my memory of being on the early morning Brindivan express train from Madras (Chennai) to Bangalore. The train inspector sat next to me to eat the breakfast his wife had prepared wrapped in a banana leaf tied with coir string. After eating he threw the leaf out on to the track in the station where upon a wandering goat ate it. Rubbish sorted what rubbish gone! But on my return to live for periods of time in Bangalore in the city suburbs with the locals ...more and more plastic rubbish appeared in the streets and gutters.. unsightly mounds of caste away rubbish. 

Some savvy catering businesses offer Tiffin delivery of food to offices. A tiffin is a stainless steel tiered tin with an handle. Layer for curry layer for chapatti layer for sweet desert. The tiffin is collected after use, sterilized for next day use.

The lecture on plastic waste highlights the shifting of waste mounds by ship to other lands for recycling. 

Waste can be landfilled, incinerated or recycled.

Brunel Sustainable Plastics Research Group I am also going to add a link to one of our graduates work on Mycelium digestion pf plastics and using waste for building material Biohm 

Rose Boswell then looked at the effects on oceans of plastics referring to world ocean day. 

Facts: 

Plastics 50yrs in ocean takes 1,000 years to mineralise.

She highlighted behaviour patterns of "developed"  my " " contribution to plastic waste. That with growing middle classes more plastic use. It is both a technological issue and behavioural problem 

But given my narration above on my experience in India .. is a shift from natural biodegrable resources to plastic pollution a " developed" attribute. My feeling is devolution.. Homo Sapiens becoming Homo Stupidus..so stupid to put our one planet home at risk of being unable to support life! 

Rose pointed out about the growing use of water in plastics bottles in hot climatic countries..but when I thought on this there are seaweed biodegrable water capsules that can be used. Seaweed water capsules we must think on this and maybe farm grow seaweed rather than denude oceans. Everything we develop, all technologies must think about the effects on the ecosystem! 

It was highlighted that not only individual behaviour needs to change but policy makers must see the crisis & need to urgently think about our planet. 

Later that day we had a worrying lecture by John Englander author researcher of two books I am ordering to read more on 

Moving to Higher Ground 

High Tide on Main Street. 

We have assumed land & sea fixed entities. But there are changes as sea levels rise and coastal erosion is occuring. He made a good point that humans & their behavour in the past did not have a dramatic effect on the planet. But now with increase in population and behaviour we are changing earths characteristics. We are on the cusp of a new era. Ice masses hold key to our future land masses.  Sea level was assummed to be static but not. We have satellite information to verify. The last 30yrs seen a rise in levels 

Communities, Economics, Engineering & politics need urgent review.

We have to realise that models are projections not predictions from variables. Models ref: Nature Magazine Models on sea level rise..

Rising seas pose Engineering challenges. We need R& D investment into Geoengineering to cool the planet. 

At this point I wondered if tectonic plate shifts an issue. Some of earth heat is this from internal core temperatures from magma? I wondered if fracking an issue also underground atomic testing?  John pointed out the fact that as ice melts, the weight on the poles is lifted..may lead to tectonic shift. 

30 million years of ice caps are disappearing!

Every 100 year experience of flooding now occuring every 2 years.

More landslides and tsunami to be experienced.

Gee this really does make the British ISLES look very vulnerable. 

Baby pepper

Just enough left over

just enough twinkle wool left over to make this sleeveless bolero.. so from 2 balls made an Angel Top and this bolero. Well pleased 

Counterpoints workshop prepare Refugee Week

 

On Monday this week I attended the second zoom workshop to prepare for the Refugee Week. The workshop was held by Counterpoints to see how to augment the voices of refugees and help understanding. Refugee Week 14th - 20th June.

I have captured the above interactive model as it sums up all the complexity of caring for refugees and helping to get voices heard.

The central core is to develop trust of the traumatised refugee uprooted from their motherland through conflict; and more being seen because of climate crisis. There is a need to connect with communities in the host country, with this the host community to connect with the needs of the refugee. Through connection it leads to inclusion and with this acceptance. 

Volunteer carers, NGOs, local councils & communities need to help heal. Healing comes through listening, hearing the stories & voices of refugees. Then healing is a 2 way to heal rifts or misunderstanding of communities that are resistant to accepting new members of society. 

Weaving ..those helping refugees can act as facilitators to create bridges of understanding. This will need translation of stories in instances where language skills of the host country is not yet mastered.

Building understanding comes through investing time and energy to aid integration and to amplify voices. Shaking or I would say shaping community integration by bearing witness, being an advocate and dissipating disputes.

On the subject of disputes and negative thoughts on refugees we looked at how to handle social media threads of conversations that may have trolls and deliberate aggitators.  Try to create a space for different perspectives to be heard. With this  augment the stories of the people.

We recognised that refugees out of fear of persecution and continued threat from those they are running from, may need identities protected. So insights to lives can be through storytelling, writing novels or short essays or poems. This helps to draw the reader in to the characters & situation to be able to feel and experience the pain & trauma of uprooting, losing families or be in forced separation.

Art can be a tool of impact to help others see the journey to safety.

Most of all I feel, is that whilst we are using the label of refugee, is to important to see the person beyond the label. To see that we are all a Global Family with feelings, problems to solve, needing support and understanding. We all have dreams, ambitions and desires for life dignity to be able to express our creativity and skills. 

As I write this I am reminded of a Syrian refugee here in London, a dentist by profession that in the midst of the war helped those with facial injuries. He now is a surgeon that specialises in facial reconstruction not only of trauma victims but cancer patients. How we have an amazing resource of people amongst our refugees with skills & knowledge to help the host communities. With that be an integrated valued member of that community.

Only "helping"

 More knitting on the go for my Family Link Up Project Lulu helping to measure lol 

Bee being acrobatically busy

 

Wednesday morning checking on my drenched garden from days of rainfall. I was fascinated how my rhododendron was opening its blooms in a crown.  While photographing, a bee came working its way round all the open flower trumpets. Was amusing to watch as at one point hanging on to a petal edge to keep its balance. I videoed it to show my princesses in my Family Link Up project and was able to discuss with Leen in the afternoon facetime call. 

Pink flower Strawberry plant in the rain today

 

Garden share

 

This Clematis above is called Marjorie and my grandson got me for my birthday.

The bees zooming in on newly opened rhododendron blooms 

Kitchen Sharing to understand

 

Food sharing sitting round a table leads to heart sharing, talking, listening and understanding.

It has been majorly distressing seeing the flare up of attacks on Gaza again. I could see through deliberate aggitators from extremists "settlers" in Jerusalem..sad in words settle means to feel safe and in harmony and salem means peace in the name Jerusalem. The added ongoing problem of land taking without prior agreement leads to conflict.  The pen is mightier than the sword but when it draws lines on a map then it leads to swords being drawn! Especially when the original border lines are breached and results in illegal occupation! When will homo sapiens be truly Sapiens wise and maturely evolve into peaceful beings and respect one another and this one planet home we all share. Every living creature shares too ..yet we are being homo stupidus to behave in a way that destroys and could destroy our one planet home! 

I have been checking in daily to my Palestinian nurse in Gaza that I mentored through his BSc Nursing he now is BSc MSc and wishing to study for a PhD.  He works hard in oncology and volunteers for Medicin Sans Frontiere.. His wife a maths teacher.

Yesterday I sat with his wife and messenger chatted over coffee..She in Gaza me here in UK.  She was telling me she can't get the sound of explosions out of her head and felt dizzy with stress. So we came together woman to woman sharing.  I sent her photos of my flowers in my garden to restore beauty into her mind.. and reconnect to the beauty of creation. This is something my Syrian refugees do too. Important to buffer the ugliness of war with beauty. We also talked about things we like to do ..she is learning knitting and was showing me a jumper she is trying to knit her husband.. my graduate nurse. I shared patterns and the clothes I knit my refugees. I get frustrated as I cannot get parcels in to Gaza...nor visit them.  This is the worrying fact the people of Gaza cannot get out by land or sea..and visitors cannot visit freely. It even took a lot of talking to get a humanitarian corridor open after the ceasefire! 

Most people of the world do want to share with one another and care for one another. 

We can share food, heartfelt talks and listen to one another. 

Salem Shalom Peace Om Shanti 

Global warming

Attended a great online meeting 14th May  with doctors in USA addressing the effects of climate change on public health.  Urban & Rural Heat Resilience Strategies 

Medical Societies for Climate Health  The USA is experiencing a high number of climate crisis migration in to the states from central & south American countries, yet the US too is being affected by Global warming.  Hot days and hot nights can have serious effects on the lungs. Overheating of the body leads to heat exhaustion & death.  There is the added problem of poverty and with this struggle to pay electric bills for necessary air conditioning. We also heard of low paid farmer workers out in intense sun. Doctors have been monitoring core temperatures through a sample consented workers swallowing a special pill that links to a database. There is monitoring by actigraphs, cardiac monitoring & renal function tests. Heat exhaustion can lead to renal damage.

Florida Clinicians for Climate Action 

Dr Cheryl Holder TED lecture on The link between climate change health and poverty 

 

Evans-Sahnoun lecture

More on this when I have digested all the amazing points on the Responsibility to Protect.  Mme Bensouda the Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is an amazing speaker and actioner to bring to accountability those that commit atrocities against humanity.

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect..recording now available see link

Lecture analysis with recording

Stockley Park

This is the place for my vaccinations.... such a lovely healing place.  The NHS volunteers so kindly.  Thank you Stockley Park for your care. I have been today for a stroll round and thinking of enrolling at the Health Club.

 

Here and Now

 Santa Montefiore books just finished reading this novel Here and Now...Santa Montefiore has crafted this book with expert skill. It takes the reader into the life of the main character Marigold and her journey into the world of losing memory in the developing dementia. Now you would think this a dark journey of a read..but the skill is the way Santa's research on facts has be woven into a beautiful story. She so cleverly uses the characters of Marigold's family and the community she belongs too. The result a mosaic of insights into other characters loves, tribulations and feuds. Feuds that shrink in significance to bring resolution as life becomes precious in them seeing a loved member of the community decline into the shadows of a mind losing its power to remember & make sense of surroundings. 

You will as I have cry, but you will smile and laugh at some of the characters traits. There is a wonderful way of seeing how the family cope and are set free to find their life pathways with their loves. I love the way the village community come together to help try to keep memories alive and show how much Marigold meant to them. 

There is love and courtship of Marigold's daughters. Even taking you into time out of the deep storyline to the sparkle of Toronto.

To say more would spoil your journey reading this book. But as a retired nurse midwife facing my older vulnerable years it has helped me. I also feel that this book should be recommended in nurse training and health care assistant training. There is much to learn and grow in understanding of dementia to ensure dignity & respect for all affected and ways to help... the key love wins through.

La Fille mal gardée – The Maypole Dance Act I scene II (The Royal Ballet)

Maypole dance

Serendipity Corner facebook

Happy Beltane May 1st ( May Day )

A seasonal celebration held half way between the Spring equinox and the Summer solstice . It is a time to welcome abundance to our now fertile earth after April showers have passed .

Usually held right after sunrise , a ritual Maypole dance is performed , holding the focus on fertility .

Art by Phoebe Wahl ~

this reminds me of as child the Maypole dancers came round street to street to perform.

Angel tops

 

Lockdown Knitting

Garden blooms

 

 

7