Posts made in January, 2011
Silent Sunday – Urban Jungle
For more art found around London last weekend you can look here…
Closer to Nature – my chat with Chris Packham!
As anyone who reads this blog or sees my photographs will know, I’m a bit of a fan of the outside. I sometimes think that my entire natural skill as a parent lies in three areas – I’m pretty hopeless at most else, but when it comes to getting creative and making a mess, reading stories, and, most importantly, poking leafy, muddy things with sticks and jumping in puddles, I really start to shine as a mum.
A couple of weeks ago, the people at Arla contacted me about their Kids Closer to Nature Campaign, to see if I’d like to get involved, The campaign aims to encourage children to reconnect with the nature in their local areas by facilitating Closer to Nature Grants, allowing individuals, communities and families to work together to get our children out of the house and excited about nature.
As part of their work, Arla recently commissioned a report looking at “the population’s changing relationship with nature and the outdoors to show how factors of modern society have led people, specifically children, to be less connected to the natural world around them.” The results are staggering, revealing that almost a quarter of children rarely or never play outside, with the vast majority of children spending DOUBLE the time watching television than they do playing outside.
Parents’ reasons for this, including the social pressures of busy lives and concerns about safety, are valid but still fall short somehow. I myself know the pressure of trying to fit everything in into a day, and especially how lack of energy and a dozen things to get done can often make staying inside, TV on, the easier and seemingly less stressful option when you have a toddler. But do I really want Kai to grow up not knowing what it’s like to find conkers, or pick blackberries, or find a bird’s nest? No, I really, really don’t. Even as a parent usually keen to get outside and have Kai learn about nature not from a book or a TV show, but by getting his hands dirty, I’ve been challenged by the report’s results and started to rethink the balance of our inside-outside living. And I know I’m not alone – over 95% of parents when questioned agree that they think more time outside would make their children healthier and happier.
Last Friday I was delighted to have the chance to have a chat with none other than Chris Packham, TV naturalist, photographer and wildlife expert, who is backing Arla’s campaign, to talk about his frustration at the way in which our children seem to be losing their relationship with the natural world, and how we can overcome the apparent obstacles of modern society and our tendency for us to keep our children inside. Chris was lovely: full of passion and a practical, common-sense attitude about the whole thing which I really warmed to. I came off the phone inspired, with feet itching to don wellies and go get muddy with Kai.
As well as chatting about Chris’ childhood, growing up firmly rooted in the natural world around him, and how that has led to a lifelong passion for wildlife, Chris and I talked about his own top tips for parents to help get their own children enthused about nature.
1. Don’t let your appreciation of nature be “weather dependent”
It is all too easy to glance out of the window in the morning, see that it is cold and wet, and opt out of ‘outside’ for the day, moving our kids from inside space to inside space by way of the car. But as Chris rightly pointed out, we live in a country where it generally rains A LOT! This is our climate! We need to be teaching our children to enjoy nature in the country they live in – and that means getting wet! Children, generally, are far hardier than they we assume, and warm outdoor and wet-weather gear is usually affordable and easily available. One of Kai’s favourite activities is walking in the rain with his little umbrella, it’s ME that doesn’t enjoy it very much! This is a case of us as parents being hardier, and bringing up our children to be the same. If we forever wait for a dry day, chances are, for most of the year, our opportunities will be far and few between!
2. Have a healthy and common-sense attitude toward cleanliness – “cotton wool-ing” is not an answer.
Insisting that our children always have clean hands and a “don’t touch” mentality is only going to be barrier to our children properly enjoying nature – a look but don’t touch environment is no fun at all!. As Dr William Bird, the campaign’s independent adviser on the health benefits of nature points out, the development of a healthy immune system depends on exposure to natural bacteria. So let your children learn through touch, let them prod, poke, pick up and get mucky while they’re outside. It is the tactile, sensory experiences that children will remember and love the most.
3. Remember that nature isn’t dependent on where you live
Even in the heart of cities and busy towns there are ample opportunities for children to experience the natural world. Green spaces, footpaths and parks all provide environments that give children the chance to get close to nature and learn about wildlife where they live. Nature doesn’t always have to be exotic and wild, you don’t need to live in the middle of rolling countryside or right next to a nature reserve – encourage children to look for, and notice wildlife where they are because it IS there.
4. If you’re worried about your child’s saftey, make use of the many safe, supervised opportunities for them to be outside.
Youth and community groups and schools are a fantastic way for children to get outside within a secure, trusted environment, especially when our own time is often short. We should be working with our schools and communities to take a leading role in children’s nature education, getting children out of the classroom and outside as part of their day-to-day educational experience. Encouraging school involvement means that all sections of our society are covered – all children go to school meaning wherever you live, your child will get a chance to experience nature. Arla’s Back to Nature Grants, which anyone can apply for, are a fantastic way for us to help enhance our schools’ and communities’ nature resources, providing small-scale grants as well as larger grants up to £1500. Chris encouraged parents to talk their children and work with their teachers and community workers to help children come up with their own ideas about how to encourage nature in their area. Whether it’s just putting up some bird boxes, buying some allotment space for a school, or making a nature trail through local woodland, Back to Nature Grants provide everyone with the opportunity to do something.
To find our more about Arla’s Back to Nature Campaign and how to apply for a grant for a local nature project, have a look at their website for lots of encouragement and ideas.
Many thanks to Chris for his time. I narrowly missed out on a chance to meet him in person this time, but really hope to have another opportunity soon, so watch this space!
I’d love if you could help add to Chris’ top tips. What are your best ideas to encourage parents to get their children out of the house and discovering wildlife?
Read MoreWriting Workshop: Pull and Stretch
Bloggers! Before I introduce the workshop today, I wanted to use this opportunity to announce the exciting writers’ news I promised on Monday. It is an absolute pleasure to reveal details of Save The Children’s very first blogging conference on February 26th – a unique opportunity for people who, like me, love writing. Participation is open to bloggers from all walks of life with workshop sessions running all day. I will be there speaking at one of them, and, most excitingly, best-selling author Melvin Burgess will be presenting our key-note session.
Even better, Melvin will be running a special master-class with eight lucky bloggers, giving you an exclusive chance to learn some writing tips from one of the UK’s top authors.
To find out how to register your interest, and how to apply to win a place at Melvin’s master class, just click through here to find out more. Places at the conference are limited so act fast! I really hope to see lots of you there.
Now, time for our workshop… this week we’ve been going on a word hunt, using the words we see around us to inspire our writing.
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I can never quite get my head round the concept of the human heart. Sure, I get the biology bit, gleefully dissecting a pig’s heart at school to look in fascination at the muscular walls, arteries and ventricles, my hand against my chest to feel it thump, thumping away, something it has done, without pause, since not long after I was conceived.
What I don’t get is how there is obviously more to it than just gristle and blood. It seems to feel, this heart of ours, to have some kind of tie to our emotional self. I guess we don’t really know exactly how it came to be associated with love, but anyone that loves, or has loved, will know well that feeling, that swell, that tight pressure that we feel there, when love brings us joy, or brings us pain. There’s even a recognised medical condition called ‘broken heart syndrome’, where extreme grief and stress has been seen to lead to an actual, physical weakening of the heart muscle. Love really can HURT.
I have had a strange visual image of love lately, that of long lengths of elastic with tight clamps on each end, that join us, heart to heart, to those we care about. Sometimes the intensity of that love means that the elastic can never be short enough, pulling us closer and closer until we think we might die if we are not together. Other times it is long, stretchy, allowing us weeks or even years of separate exploration before it’s time to pull together again, yet still holding strong, still maintaining a connection. Other times what felt like the strongest elastic in the world, gradually frays and pulls until it disintegrates and we have to let somebody go. And sometimes, the worst times, it is wrenched from us, leaving a hole so deep it feels like it will bleed forever.
When Kai was born, he clamped down on my heart with a grip that would not let go, that will never let go. There was a fusing. It wasn’t instantaneous, and the process carried with it its own pain and adjustment as I learnt to get used to my new tether, and one belonging to a fiercely needy little boy that sometimes seemed to need more love that I had to give. To start with our ‘elastic’ was short, barely allowing for movement from arms or breast. Take Kai away from me, or me away from Kai, and quickly that stretch between us would start to hurt. I would feel it in my heart, that ache, that feeling of not-rightness, and Kai would scream and wail. It was physical, and it was exhausting, and it was overwhelming, but it would not be denied.
I think my entire journey as a parent since, and Kai’s journey from babyhood to toddlerhood, as been a process of pull and stretch. Little by little, I have had to learn how to encourage Kai to pull away a little, to stretch that bond. In fact, that’s something we’ve both had to learn, as I have had to learn to let go, too. At times we’ve pulled too hard and sprang back together painfully, but gradually, we’ve learnt to move further apart while still staying connected. Never before have we had to do so as much as we have had to in the last few months. I have had to learn to let him go, for my own sanity, and to encourage his independence, and to facilitate his relationship with his Dad, which is so important to me for Kai’s sake. And Kai has had to learn to rely on his other connections, his other heart-bonds, and to develop the confidence to stand alone sometimes. The separation of our family, the start of nursery for Kai, work trips away, have all meant a great deal of stretching, and it has been painful sometimes, infinitely so.
But the pride I felt yesterday morning, as I watched my beautiful, sensitive, needy boy, bravely walk into his nursery class, with bottom-lip trembling and eyes wet, his favourite toy clutched very firmly as he let go of me without a fight for the first time and wave goodbye… it made my heart ache in the good way, the way that makes the painful bits worth it one hundred times over. I felt that pull and stretch again, but it didn’t hurt, it just reminded me he was there, and made me so thankful that I got to be the one that loved him and watch him grow.
Love DOES hurt. But, God, is it worth it.
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Now it’s your turn. Have you spotted a good word or phrase this week?
Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) If you have the time it would be great if you could try and show your support to other participants by reading and commenting on at least two other entries.
If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve got another whole week to take part and enter your link so there’s plenty of time. Don’t forget that anyone can take part! Our next workshop will be in two week’s time, so I hope to see you back soon.
No Child #BornTo Die
If you’ve been following me on Twitter and Facebook, you’ll know that today I, along with my fellow Blogladesh buddies Sian and Eva, had the huge honour of attending the launch of Save The Children’s brand new campaign for 2011.
In the middle of Lincoln Inn Fields in London, surrounded by photographers, journalists and a whole host of inspirational people, the message was simple: no child is born to die.
Every year millions of children under 5 are still dying from easily preventable causes, from treatable childhood illnesses, lack of proper maternity and health care – it works out as one child every four seconds, a figure that still makes my heart hurt every time I hear it.
The key point here is that these deaths are preventable, EASILY. On our trip to Bangladesh last year we saw how simple, affordable solutions like immunisation programmes, (such as the ground breaking new pneumococcal vaccine), and on-the-ground, community-led health care and maternity workers, local people trained to take care of each other, can DRAMATICALLY reduce the child mortality rate in the areas in which these programmes are set up.
But these solutions take commitment. It takes pressure on world leaders to keep to promises they have made to help the world’s poorest children, it takes awareness raising to empower people to get on board and do their part, and it needs financing.
The Born To campaign aims to do all those things by utilising the British public’s own gifts and talents. We all have something we were born to do, and Save the Children are challenging and encouraging us to find ways to use those gifts to help the world’s children. Perhaps through fund-raising, sponsored events, giving up something little, or just helping to spread our message. By using what WE were born to do, in the privileged lives we lead, we have the chance to give children the world over the chance to live and discover their own potential, something we believe all children have the right to.
Today’s launch has had vast media coverage and was endorsed by some amazing celebrities – Helena Bonham Carter has lent her voice to the brand new TV advert, which you will start to see on your televisions from tonight, (but couldn’t make it today due to a fever – *sob!*), and the very beautiful Alexandra Burke, Natasha Kaplinsky, Amanda Mealing and Edith Bowman were all here today to give their own impassioned accounts of their work with Save the Children and the importance of this campaign to them. All have been out to see Save the Children’s work first 
hand, just like us, and spoke of similar experiences and feelings. Natasha’s moving presentation in which she said that “Reporting news is one thing-looking in a parent’s eyes who child has died is another” is something that especially struck a chord. I know myself how that experience changes you.
We were lucky enough to have a good length of time to sit and have a coffee and a chat (and some jellybabies) both with Holby Star Amanda and afterwards with Natasha (cue one slightly star-struck Josie, but man alive it was fun!)
Both are mothers themselves and spoke movingly of the effect their own trips have had on them. Amanda was really engaging and down to earth and full of passion. You could tell that she is someone who has thrown the full force of her weight behind the message she brings, proud to involve her family in joining with her in cause. Amanda has been to Bangladesh like us, and spoke of the shock of the sharp contrast between the freedom and privileges of her own children and the children she saw there. She joked that she was ‘born to tweet’ ( a sentiment we could get behind!) and about her desire to use her experiences to inspire people to try and make a difference.
One of the mos
t surreal experiences of my life was to have Natasha Kaplinsky come walking to into our interview room with the words “Oh I’ve heard so much about you!”. Natasha has just come back from a trip to India with Save the Children CEO Justin Forsyth, who champions us as his “mum army” and took the ground from beneath my feet today by telling us that it was our Blogladesh trip that directly inspired and launched this campaign. A huge, huge honour. I could barely speak for pride.
It was nice to get Natasha away from the cameras for a bit – she is the consummate professional and her news-reader persona incredible powerful, but it was lovely to get to know her more as a person and a mother. She talked of coming home from her trip and seeing with new eyes the things we so easily take for granted – being able to run her children a clean bath, knowing that healthcare would be just minutes or hours away if needed. I remember the same feelings coming home to Kai.
Sian, Eva and Me
Today was so exciting. The videos we watched, the people we heard speak… it has left me with a renewed fire in my belly. It brought back a lot of emotion too, and the train journey home was filled with vivid recollections of my time in Bangladesh and my desperate desire to continue the path I began there.
I believe I was born to write and to tell stories, and it is that gift I am planning on giving over to Save the Children this year to help them with their campaign, in every way I can. As part of that, I am so, so excited to be a part of an amazing opportunity for other bloggers, who, like me, love writing, with a best-selling author getting involved too. Details will be launched tomorrow, with news here on the blog too in the next couple of days so WATCH THIS SPACE!
Please, please, spend ten minutes here. Pledge your involvement on the Save the Children website, share the news of this campaign using my share buttons, and watch the fabulous video below which we saw premier today.
