Inspiration

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Today I attended a Youth Climate change summit for Bath & North East Somerset. I saw some speakers and met some interesting people, sat on a panel discussion and then out of the blue, a young boy presented his school to an audience of 140 kids and numerous adults. What was amazing was not just that he was probably the most inspiring person that spoke that day but that he was one of many at his school. This school is the Blue School in Wells and it models something called the Blue School Council which is a self elected council of young people who form groups around there passions and deliver community projects in the school. Their tagline is “The Blue School – Because change doesn’t happen on it’s own”. For me that rocks and would be great if replicated.
For more information see http://blueschoolcouncil.org/ and http://www.learningtolead.org.uk/

Also found a clip on climate change produced by their students 3 years ago on Youtube which is an interesting example of the product of this creative approach.

Non Violent Communication

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I have just completed a 5 day Non Violent Communication retreat with one day taken out in the middle to parent. This is my fourth retreat and each time is such a radically different experience which always leaves me having my needs met. This is essentially what NVC is about for me at the moment, how can I communicate my needs and hear others needs in a way which creates peaceful negotiation and the equal valuing of needs.

So often there is a story and emotion attached to a request from my partner which does not allow me to see her need as a need that she has that I am not responsible for. I can however on request offer support to meet her need as long as it is not in immediate conflict with a need of my own. If it is I may need to check out what the conflict is and whether this resolvable. Often this sense of thought and consciousness is impossible to reach as I do not commit time and breath to it. I do however always have this choice and the NVC course reminds me of this.

My experience of this course was that I can choose to create reminders all over my house and develop a constant awareness of choosing how I feel and how this relates to my relationships and my productivity as a human being on a mission.

For more information on NVC please check out Marshall Rosenberg at

Quakers

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I went to a Quaker meeting yesterday and just an hour of meditation on a topic selected and grown by the group really shifted me from a mind set of victim to a mind set of gratitude and gentleness. I am thankful to have had the space to remind myself that change happens on the inside not outside.

http://www.quakers.org.uk

The Fear Factory: a new film on young people and the “justice” system

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http://www.thefearfactory.co.uk/

About the Film

Two decades of politicians playing the law and order ‘arms race’ have brought a criminal justice crisis to the UK.

Especially when it comes to our young – where we’re ultimately creating more of the very thing we fear… criminals.

Despite an all-time high for re-offending rates, despite prisons at bursting point – we plan to keep on building and continue to incarcerate more young people than any other country in Western Europe.

The public’s fear of youth crime bears little relation to reality and the young are more demonised, more alienated and more easily caught in a self-fulfilling prophesy of our own making…