Public Meeting: Nicola Peel – Amazon Activist and Solutionologist

Afri

Nicola Peel

Amazon Activist and Solutionologist

Venue: the Teacher’s Club, Dublin

Date:  Monday, August 13th  

Time: 7.30pm

(Admission free, donations welcomed)

Nicola Peel is an award winning environmentalist, filmmaker, speaker and solutionist. Nicola has been working in the Ecuadorian Amazon for 18 years on a number of environmental and social projects. Finding solutions to oil spills with fungi, building rainwater systems for indigenous people suffering from contamination due to the oil industry, training farmers in agroforestry to prevent the slash and burn of tropical rain forests and cleaning the beaches of tons of plastic, turning rubbish into a resource.

Nicola’s focus has been to find practical solutions to respond to those in need who are suffering due to resource extraction, poverty and climate change. 

She believes that ‘nature is our greatest teacher’ and during her presentation she will give examples on some of the solutions found in Nature.

During her visit to Ireland Nicola will be speaking in:

Just A Second! Afri’s Schools Project

Afri

The theme of our education programme is ‘Just a Second’ and it focuses on the absurdity of the choices that we make – or that are made on our behalf by governments and corporations. For example, it is a fact that in excess of €40,000 is spent every second on war and weapons while a billion people suffer from hunger, lack of clean water and adequate housing.  Recently the Afri team visited Galway as part of the ‘Just A Second!’ schools project, holding a number of events including a Famine Walk to the Celia Griffin Memorial in Salthill, a book launch and a development education seminar.  This short film (above) produced by Dave Donnellan gives a flavour of that visit.

A second film (below – also by Dave Donnellan) focuses on the launch of an educational resource (Just A Second! Exploring Global Issues Through Drama and Theatre written by Pete Mullineaux in the course of the project) which offers teachers, school groups and facilitators an accessible guide to exploring global issues through drama and theatre.  This book is available to buy from Afri – please contact Afri (admin@afri.ie or 01 8827563) to find out more.

The third film in the Just A Second! series is made by RoJ Whelan and this takes a look at an event held at the Celia Griffin memorial in Salthill as well as a development education workshop, which was the finale of the project.  It includes contributions from Mark Kennedy (who championed the idea of the Celia Griffin memorial),  Choctaw artist Gary White Deer, Sakhile Heron (South Africa), music, graphic harvesting, the words of Malala Yousafzai, as well as reflections from teachers and students involved in the project.

Funded by Irish Aid’s World Wise Global Schools

Just A Second! – New Development Education Resource Published

Afri

 

Just A Second coverJust A Second! Exploring Global Issues Through Drama and Theatre is a development education resources offering school groups an accessible guide to exploring global issues through drama and theatre. The book opens with coverage of Afri’s 2013-2014 ‘Just A Second!’ project which focused on the theme of militarisation. This is followed by the full texts of five mini-plays that were devised with young people taking part in Afri initiated development education projects in primary and secondary schools during the years 2005-2011.

These plays can be read or acted out, but more importantly are designed to act as a stimulus for further drama exploration, discussion and debate. With this in mind they are accompanied by multiple suggestions for follow-up activities, linking across the curriculum so that schools groups, youth theatres, college students and others can explore the themes and issues raised for themselves.

Pete Mullineaux is an Arts facilitator currently working on Afri’s ‘Just A Second!’ schools programme in secondary schools in Galway.

If you are interested in this publication please contact the Afri office: ph: 01 8827563 or admin@afri.ie

This publication received funding from Irish Aid’s WorldWise Global Schools and Concern WorldWide.

Just A Second Schools Project Film

Afri

While many are aware of Afri’s work through our annual Famine Walk, Féile Bríde and Hedge School as well as our solidarity work with the Kenya Pastoralists Journalist Network and the community under siege in Erris County Mayo among many other activities, perhaps less are aware of Afri’s ongoing ‘education for liberation’ work with secondary schools. This work is supported by the WorldWise Global Schools and is carried out mainly by our development education manager Rose Kelly and dramatist Pete Mullineaux.

The theme of our education programme is ‘Just a Second’ and it focuses on the absurdity of the choices that we make or that are made on our behalf by governments and corporations. For example, the fact that in excess of €40,000 is spent every second on war and weapons while a billion people suffer from hunger, lack of clean water and adequate housing.

The film below, made by Dave Donnellan, is a snapshot of the development education work that went on in the ‘Just A Second’ project.

Just A Second! Exploring Disarmament for Development

Afri
Students participating in Afri's 'Just a Second' schools project, holding up a banner to raise awareness about the Global Day of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS)
Students participating in Afri’s ‘Just a Second’ schools project, holding up a banner to raise awareness about the Global Day of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS)

Report by Rose Kelly, Afri Development Education Co-ordinator, 6th May 2014

‘Out beyond notions of wrong-doing and right- doing there is a field, I’ll meet you there.’ ~ Rumi

These were the favourite lines from poetry of young peace activist Aseel Asleh.

Aseel, who described himself as a ‘Palestininan citizen of Israel’, was a member of the international organisation Seeds of Peace .With his fellow members of that organisation, Aseel worked towards the manifestation of such a ‘field’ as Rumi describes. At 17 years of age, while attending a Seeds of Peace event, Aseel was shot and killed by Israeli security forces.

On the 29th April 2014, Afri facilitated a World Cafe event in St. Enda’s College Galway for over 70 young people all of whom are around the age Aseel would have been when he was shot and killed. The young people came from St. Enda’s, Salerno and Gort Community College. The session was the culmination of months of work involving a wide range of activities including art, story, drama, discussion, creative writing and imagining, as part of the Afri ‘Just a Second’ project.

The intention of the ‘Just a Second’ project was , starting with a focus on the amount of money spent on militarisation every second, to consider the real cost of war and militarisation; to imagine the alternatives; and to come up with ways in which we can work together to help bring about this alternative.

Symbols and story played a significant part in the unfolding of the project. At the event on the 29th April, we had several of these symbols in evidence eg peace cranes, dreamcatchers and St. Brigid’s Peace Crosses. Likewise, into the mix , we brought the stories of child/teenage victims of militarisation. Through their stories, we brought their presence into the room both as witnesses and inspiration. Six years old Celia Griffin who starved to death during An Gorta Mór, Ten years old Sadako Sasaki who died of Leukaemia, ( the A-bomb disease ) a decade after the bombing of Hiroshima and Aseel Asleh. We did our best to manifest Rumi’s field in the bright and spacious gym hall.

The three ‘questions’ up for discussion at the World Cafe were…

What are the real costs of militarsation?

How can we create an alternative Dream?

What am I/we going to do to make this happen?

What the young people came up with together was heart-warming and hopeful.

The event finished with the participants writing a message for peace on large sheets of paper which were then photographed as a contribution to the International Peace Bureau’s Global Day Against Military Spending.(GDAMS)

I began this piece with a reference to Rumi and to Aseel Asleh, not just because we included his story on the day but because, with a spine-tingling serendipity, as I opened my laptop to begin writing, waiting for me was a message from one of Aseel’s good friends, Jen Marlow. Today would have been Aseel’s Asleh’s 31st birthday.