It's been a long time, a long time coming...

I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ev'r since
It's been a long time, a long time coming
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will

Sam Cook lyrics, performed by Brian Owens Soul

The Black Lives Matter protests we are seeing across the globe are a pivotal turning point in our history. Black bodies have been at the front-line of injustice around the world for over 400 years. This moment, an opportunity presented to us, is a chance to save our planet, by embracing unity and building community. 

I think of our current system like an apple tree. As the protests shine a light on the rotten foundations of our global system, it is as if they are the rotting roots of an apple tree. This system of oppression, set up 400 years ago on the backs of slaves and powered by the Western World’s shameful colonial history, has been working exactly as it was designed: imposing divisions and hierarchy based on skin colour, gender, birthplace etc, generating wealth for “the haves” through exploitation of “the have-nots” (Marx).

It is almost impossible to save a tree which is dying from the inside. We can learn lessons from eating its fruit, but there is only so long we can trim or whittle away at dead wood. Some people may suggest to spray it with fungicide or insecticide, try scraping out the rot, or even fill the holes with concrete. Not me. I believe it is time to plant a new tree.

“It always seems impossible until it’s done”, Nelson Mandela. I N T H E S E H A N D S by Emma Barrett Palmer | Parliament Square - London | 2016

Those of us with white skin have been beneficiaries of this system - with enough privilege to be able to ignore the rot. But now we must use our privileged positions to root it out, by dismantling all processes and procedures which perpetuate white supremacy in all its forms.

As white people we must stop placing labour expectations for solving systemic racism on Black and Brown communities: it’s our turn now, it’s on us. First and foremost, we must listen and learn from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) and be humble as we are guided towards a new way which is fair and just for everyone.

This is not easy work and there are no quick fix solutions - it requires inter-generational lifetimes’ of work which can only be achieved by working together beyond our present realities. It requires a transformation of leadership to embrace humanitarian, ecological and spiritual aspects of the whole system. Most importantly, we must not make the same errors in the rebuild that have dominated the last 400 years.

The “Me and White Supremacy” Instagram Challenge was a profound turning point in my own personal learning in the summer of 2018 and is now powering a global movement. As the visionary author @laylafsaad said a few days ago:

The revolution will not be colonised

Layla F. Saad

We need a common language to bring us all to the same page. After a 16,000 mile journey, cooking and sharing food with uprooted and displaced communities across Europe, I conclude this is Food, a global language of love, life, justice and survival. Seeds will be our new currency.

Using principles from the circular economy model, we could transform access to food, production, distribution and consumption, ensuring ethical, transparent and inclusive processes at every stage of the supply chain. We must turn our attention from monetary banks and markets to food banks and markets which focus on true-cost accounting. This approach has the potential to be a health and wealth generator, reconnecting whole communities and enabling everyone to participate, with a bellyful.

“The tried to bury us - they didn’t know we were seeds”, Dinos Christianopoulos — P A Z by Emma Barrett Palmer | Exarchia - Athens | 2018

As we decolonise our white mindsets, conditioned over centuries, we must really listen to people’s truths in whichever form they choose to share them. The truths of creativity, in ally-ship with Mother Earth; of art, song, poetry, music, which tell us so much more than ticks in boxes. Truths enabling equitable representation of voice, from which we can work towards an evidence based systems rebuild, prioritising humanitarian and ecological protection and recovery.

So let us keep planting seeds and grafting our rootstocks, so that our collective future becomes an orchard of apple trees, healthy roots digging deep, while branches stand tall, proud, strong and defiant in the storms, leaves shining as they reflect rainbows across the sky.

“Your pilot light … that is the torch that you are going to bring to the battle”, Desiree Burch, a New York-based solo performance artist, comedian, writer, actress, and educator.

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Gospel Song written by Harry Dixon Loes; civil rights context explored by Eric Deggans here.

Thank-you to Ella Matheson, Founder of Peace in the City, for sharing this version of A Change Is Gonna Come.

Thank-you to Christine Davies for sharing Desiree Burch at TedX and other members of the Happiness All Around crew.

Thank-you to Sophie Okolo, Founder of Global Health Aging, for believing in Recipes of HOPE.

All contributions towards the publication costs of our forthcoming book gratefully received at www.paypal.me/humanKINDER

Emma Barrett Palmer, Founder. Contact emma@humanKINDER.UK

No one will be left behind...

In Geneva at the Department of the Director General for a meeting with the Sustainable Development Goals Lab to share humanKINDER’s mission, purpose and aspiration to amplify silenced voices for systems change. The SDG Lab was the brainchild of Director General Micheal Moller in 2016 - who together with the results of a mapping exercise by the International Institute for Sustainable Development - recognised that the organisation needed to move from single focus to look across all issues, finding solutions across systemic horizons. This hybrid innovation lab model sits in the office of the Director General and has all the benefits that come with that, but significantly does not have to adhere to legal protocols which gives it more flexibility. 

Peace, United Nations in Geneva, May 2019

Before the SDGs, the UN aspired to the Millennial Development Goals, but with a focus on just “developing countries”: this unsurprisingly caused a divide. The SDGs are now applicable to all countries in the world - an approach which very much resonates with the whole systems approach of humanKINDER. They encompass a framework to address many of the themes emerging during last week’s World Health Assembly - gender, equality, empowerment, communities  - which are held precious to us at humanKINDER too.

The SDG Lab regularly hold ‘So What’ sessions which explore a couple of goals and their interrelationship in depth. For example Peace & Development or Gender & Sustainability. A main focus is bridging boundaries and building bridges - sometimes literally - in programmes of work which cut across different departments and areas of work. For example a recent project brought together members of the private financing district on the left bank of Lake Leman in Geneva together with professionals from the UN offices on the right bank. It had been a challenge to bring these two together, notably across the divide of water, but now they have a successful new programme of work which is already seeing new products in the fields of impact investing and blended finance models for good. 

The SDG Lab approach very much reminded me of my work in SILK, and notably the challenges of working using design-principles for horizontal human-centred work within the context of siloed teams/organisations/cultures/industries. It was reaffirming to share experiences, limitations and possibilities within this context, sharing the reasons why I felt it important to 'break out' from the institutional setting in order to go TO people rather than expect them to come to us.

For us at humanKINDER it is particularly important to understand what the SDG Lab and the UN mean by ‘inclusion’. We discussed this in depth within the framework of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Transforming our World; notably the pledge from 193 countries to ensure that “no one will be left behind”.

It was and inspiring and intriguing in similar measure inside the Palais des Nations, notably the historical weight of the Council Chamber where the League of Nations had first convened and where the walls were covered with the incredible works of Catalan artist José Maria Sert: studies of War and Peace, Progress of Humanity, Justice and International Law.

Mural by Catalan artist José Maria Sert, League of Nations Council Chamber

"Where Africa meets Europe" meeting Muka and reflections on Dutch Design Week 2018

Dawit and Emma first met at Dutch Design Week in 2017 cooking “recipes of HOPE” together in The Welcome Tent, a repurposed army catering tent from 1956. One year and 16k miles later, Emma was back in Eindhoven working alongside Dawit, having successfully pitched together to the Dutch Design Foundation in response to their 2018 Theme “If not us, then who?”.

They had first connected while sharing poetry and discussing Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel’s statement “no human being is illegal” in The Welcome Tent. Dawit’s parting gift to Emma’s family for their journey was a lamp, designed and made by him at RefuBikes from repurposed bicycle parts, a humanitarian design project offering educational opportunities, purpose and community for displaced people arriving in Eindhoven. 

“Together we decide how the world will look” said DDW Director Martijn Paulen. At humanKINDER we wanted to prototype an evaluation approach so that “together” could include even voices that have been silent for so long.

Dawit and Emma proposed an evaluation methodology that they hoped would shine a light on some of the less heard perspectives, a mobile and spontaneous approach which was creative, agile and relevant, offering a street view from a RefuBike Perspective. This was about building relationships and trust.

“We would love to work with the DDW team, as we recognize the success and influence of this event as it already stands. We come to you with a full comprehension of the urgency of a humanitarian angle as a necessity in the evaluation of such renowned world-class events in the global calendar”. Further motivation was found in Dutch Design Ambassador Ravi Naidoo, Founder of Design Indaba in South Africa, internationally renowned for connecting creativity and activism with social issues.

Dawit, whose homeland is Ethiopia, was brought against his will to The Netherlands before he reached adulthood. For the last six years he has been waiting for his papers.  He has been actively involved in community at Huiskamer and Refubikes and recently become a Dad, yet still faces uncertainty without legal stability in either Ethiopia or The Netherlands. He is an accomplished poet, film-maker and is now studying an application programming course at the Eindhoven University of Technology.

 After leading the first Social Innovation Lab in UK government, Emma’s experiences as a volunteer in the Calais “jungle” compelled her to quit and go independent as Founder of humanitarian enterprise humanKINDER. Emma has previously attended DDW as an expert in social innovation, invited by John Thackera to present The Dementia Diaries and BrainCell Boogie at the World Design Forum; facilitated workshops to support Leon Cruickshank, Professor of Design and Creative Exchange Research at Lancaster University and co-hosted The Welcome Tent as part of the VREEMDLAND at Huiskamer DDW 2017. 

Meeting Muka this year, the Founder of MukaCariza - an exclusive, handmade bag brand “where Europe meets Africa” - was an incredibly moving and special moment for both Dawit and Emma because it validated their approach.

Muka had been invited to share the story of her business at the Dutch Design Week Storytelling Sessions at Huiskamer, yet spontaneously she shared the story of her life for the first time in public. As a child, Muka and her sister were falsely adopted from their homeland in Rwanda by the Catholic Church - even though her Father was still alive - and taken to Belgium. Over the next few years they experienced horrendous abuse from which they eventually managed to escape and live on the streets, while continuing to go to school. As yet Muka has never been able to return to her homeland: for those that have made the return trip they have discovered that all evidence of this modern-day-slavery has been destroyed.

Emma believes we must take a more inclusive and agile approach to evaluation - which may have more impact reframed in the “media” sphere - if we are to challenge systemic injustice, enabling the participation and elevation of all voices. This is not merely advocating on behalf of people, but rather creating a platform where people can advocate for themselves, through their chosen form of creative expression. We can only improve our outdated systems if we elevate and listen to all voices, including those like Muka’s that have been silent/silenced for many years. For Dawit and other people at the Huiskamer - a welcoming community for displaced people arriving in Eindhoven - Muka’s story was hugely powerful because she was also telling their story, validating many of their own experiences.

Muka now has three children and a successful business. It was an honour for us to meet you and listen and learn from you. Thankyou.

Excerpts from Muka’s story and other people we spoke to at Dutch Design Week 2018 will feature our forthcoming film.

“when that day comes, people are going to be amazed. People are going to say, ah he grew in three weeks. They don’t know the past, the struggles, the five years you have been watering and nurturing your plan”

— Dawit Wolde Aregai

humanKINDER logo or vision?

It seems a while ago now that I first sketched out this idea. I initially thought I was creating a logo, after many years working alongside some great service designers, but… as time has come to pass I’ve realised that actually what I wanted to share – and celebrate through imagery - was not a logo, but a vision. A vision is not designed, rather it emerges over time, in my case by listening to others and through personal experience and reflection.

So what is the story behind this vision?

In 2014, while still working in government, I attended a Mental Health Conference as a ‘Professional’. It was at this event there was a performance by an incredible young singer Natalie who had faced and was overcoming her own challenges by finding her voice - her own expression of self - in a way that was breathtaking.

There are a few things that clicked into place that day. Once you start meeting and understanding how people – myself included – have learned to live through traumatic conditions, accidents or illnesses which affect how their brain works day-to-day; how we think, see, feel and experience with heightened perception, a new world opens.  

On that day I walked out the building and took a quick snapshot of a bird flying overhead. But when I looked at the photo it was not a single bird, it was the bird and its shadow. The camera had caught something that in our ‘reality’ arguably was not possible, yet in my mind, the image of this bird and its shadow stayed absolutely stuck in my head.

Over the coming weeks it brought to the fore all of the other images of birds that I’d been seeing in the art and stories of freedom, from incredible people who I’d met over the years who’d defiantly chosen to LIVE despite the challenges and struggles they faced daily.

People who have found freedom in their own minds, expressed through their art, by believing in their own and others’ imagination and potential. At that time, this resonated personally with my own need to rid myself of the invisible boulders I was carrying on my weary back, day in, day out from a yet-to-be-diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the birth of my son. It was this yearning for freedom – a freedom of spirit – that inspired the humanKINDER vision.

I knew this moment was important, but not yet certain how, or what form that it would take.

In the following months I talked to friends and played around with the image. My friend Joshi told me about a friend of hers who was also drawing birds. And this was how the early conceptual idea was shared with the hugely talented This Lakshmi who transformed the image into a beautiful, strong and timeless vision of freedom that inspires everyday.

Emma Barrett Palmer, Founder