Category: alternative media

Archive for the ‘alternative media’ Category

One Day Without Shoes

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Today I walked 9kms from my house to work in barefeet. It took me 2 hours. It hurt a lot and I have one blister on the sole of my foot. But I did it to raise awareness of children in countries that live everyday without shoes. A fact that creates many social issues for these children and their families. Issues that we don’t have to face here in Australia. I was planning to catch the train home barefoot and walk the last part home but thought better of it as I probably wouldn’t have been able to work tomorrow.

Facts from the One Day Without Shoes website…

In some developing nations, children must walk for miles to school, clean water and to seek medical help.
Cuts and sores on feet can lead to serious infection.
Often, children cannot attend school barefoot.
In Ethiopia, approximately one million people are suffering from Podoconiosis, a debilitating and disfiguring disease caused by walking barefoot in volcanic soil.
Podoconiosis is 100% preventable with basic foot hygiene and wearing shoes.

Awareness is nice but how do we help these children? By buying a pair of shoes from TOMS SHOES. You see “TOMS was founded on a simple premise: For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need. One for One.”

So it’s fashionably easy to help put a pair of shoes on a child’s feet.

One Day Without Shoes
TOMS SHOES

Posted in alternative media, environment, inspiring, social responsibility | No Comments »

The Story of Bottled Water

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

I promise that the next Urban Grind will not sell bottled water. I have cared about this for a while and it is time I got serious about it too. The whole bottled water thing really is crazy. Just the price we pay is crazy enough. But thanks (again) to Annie Leonard we have a great little animation that spells out the situation to make it easy for us to make the decision to stop drinking bottled water. I really do hope that you check out The Story of Bottled Water. I also can’t wait to see a Doco called Tapped on the same subject.

Posted in alternative media, design, environment, inspiring, movies, urban grind, zeroWaste | 1 Comment »

TEDx Brisbane Update

Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

TEDx Brisbane was nothing short of a raging success. It was a big day for all but the coffee flowed well with a lot of help from friends and the wonderful team (also friends) at Di Bella Coffee who donated their time to support TEDx Brisbane. A big well done and thank you has to go out to Paul Fairweather and Carl Lindgren who put the whole event together. Simply an amazing job.

Posted in alternative media, friends, inspiring, local community, peace, urban grind | No Comments »

TEDx Brisbane next weekend.

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

So TEDx Brisbane is almost here and they have just released the Speaker List and it is a cracker. This is going to be a great TED event and right in our back yard. Very sad if you are a TED fan that missed out. I can sympathize with you as Urban Grind in partnership with Di Bella Coffee is sponsoring the event with free coffees for attendees which means that I will be lucky to see any of the talks on the day. I am honoured to be able to support such an event as this but have you seen that speaker list? It is going to be an inspiring day. And we have Carl Lindgren & Paul Fairweather to thank. They have done an amazing job putting it all together.

If you do have a ticket. Be sure to get there early and register first. Once registered you can head down to the Ideas Worth Spreading Tent and get a free coffee. Coffee will also be offered free for both morning tea and lunch time breaks.

To get in the mood for TEDx you could check out this amazing talk by Aimee Mullins. Such an amazing women.

“Adversity is just change that we have not adapted to yet.”

Aimee Mullins: The opportunity of adversity

Posted in alternative media, design, environment, friends, inspiring, local community, personal, urban grind | 2 Comments »

Education Quality

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Education is important and as my son will be starting his school-based education in a little over a year I find myself with a keen eye for discussion on the topic of education quality. I was lucky enough to leave school thinking that school failed me but those not so lucky more often leave school feeling like they failed school and this belief one way or another can set you up for life.

So if you too find the topic interesting I recommend having a read of this short blog post by Max Wind-Cowie of the Demos Think-Tank blog: Education is a high-stakes game

This TEDtalk from Bill Gates is also very interesting. I think it is in the second half where he talks about quality of education.