Category Archives: Children

SISTERS – The Green Edition: Faith, Families and Features

Posted on April 1, 2013 | 1 Comment

Screen shot 2013-03-26 at 20.27.29After lots of work and even more enthusiasm (well done Brooke!) the very lovely and very special green issue of SISTERS is out. It’s bursting with green quizzes, features, top tips for your home and also a round up of some great eco-Muslims organisations. I’ve  contributed an article on the issue of population growth and ask the whether large Muslim families are a blessing or a curse. Read on for more and also to download or buy your own copy.

Large Families SISTERS page 1Large families SISTERS page 2

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Posted in Children, climate change, Climate Justice, Economy, Environment, Ethical, Fashion, Food, Green, Hijab, Islam, Mosques, Muslims, Women, Youth

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MCM: “Little Green Feats” – AfSL’s Interactive #Sustainability Workshop for Kids

Posted on February 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

Shireen-Malik-and-her-sons-form-a-production-line-to-produce-600-badges-300x179I caught up with AfSL volunteer Shireen Malik to talk about the sustainability workshop she developed to help inform children about environmental issues in a fun and interactive way. Shireen will be holding the workshops in Manchester until February 2014, so get in touch if you are interested or know someone who is.

Tell us a little about yourself and how you got involved with AfSL?

I’m a full-time mum of three children (aged 9, 7 and 3). I first became involved with AfSL by coming along to a local project of theirs, Old Moat Gardeners (OMG), which was an allotment they had set up in a back garden of a house that was being renovating. I received a letter in my son’s school bag and thought that this would be a fabulous opportunity for my kids to learn about growing own our food! They loved it, especially the younger two. After approximately 2/3 months of going the Local Project Managers of OMG were leaving Manchester and asked if I would be interested in taking over. AfSL offered training, which I completed, and as a result Little Green Feats was born!!

What are the workshop’s aims and why did you want it to be targeted at kids?

The workshops are aimed at children aged 9-11. I have been volunteering in school for some time before I became a Local Project Managers (LPM), and was aware of the ability of this age group so I geared my workshop for them. I have also volunteered for an Islamic charity, the Islamic Society of Britain, in which I delivered workshops to teach children of this age group about Islam which have been very successful. So, I thought why not teach children about sustainability?!

I aimed it at children because they are in their prime for learning, and ideas and thoughts are developed at this time. I also remember where my interest in sustainability came from, and it was by watching Blue Peter when I was at school age! Children are custodians of the future, and I feel that by teaching them how they can make their world better for their future, is important for them. Continue reading →

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Posted in Children, climate change, Environment, Green, Muslims, Youth

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Discover: Do’s & Don’t's for an Eco-friendly Hajj

Posted on December 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

This is OFFICIALLY the first article I’ve ever written for children and I can honestly say, it was lots of fun. It was difficult to really really tone down the vocabulary and say things simply and clearly but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to speak to young Muslims about the environment. A great opportunity from an up and coming magazine called Discover. Check it out here. To read the article, just click on the image above.

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Posted in Children, climate change, Environment, Ethical, Green, Islam, Muslims, Youth

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The Majalla: E-waste, Egypt and the Digital Divide

Posted on January 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

Around two months ago, 170 nations met in Spain for a UN environmental conference and agreed to accelerate a ban on exporting e-waste from rich nations to the developing world. For green campaigners and the marginalised poor forced to sort toxic e-waste in developing countries, this was a resounding success. This hard-won victory, however, wasn’t celebrated by all.

Some e-waste campaigners raised concerns that a blanket ban would in fact starve highly skilled repairers in the developing world of vital resources. This in turn would mean more e-waste was sent to landfills rather than being re-used and access to computers for those less well-off in developing countries would be undermined.

E-waste, or electronic waste, is believed to be the largest illegally traded toxic hazardous waste in the world. The UN estimates that up to 50 million tonnes of electrical and electronic goods are thrown away every year and this figure is set to rise to 73 million by 2015. Part of the reason for the continued rise is that emerging economies have flourishing consumer electronic markets but lack the infrastructure to dispose of e-waste effectively. Continue reading →

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Posted in Children, climate change, Climate Justice, Development, Economy, Environment, Ethical, Green, Human Rights, Middle East, Recycling

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MRH: The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Centre

Posted on August 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

Set up in 1999, the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Centre was named after a Bangladeshi boy murdered in a racially motivated attack in Burnage in 1986. It is a resource centre on everything from the criminal justice system in the United States to the history of the local Pakistani community of Manchester.

Louis Kushnick OBE is the driving force behind the centre and has been involved in race relation issues in Manchester since the late 1960s. It was his personal collection of books, journals, articles and news cuttings that formed the basis of the archive which is located in the University of Manchester campus today. Arwa Aburawa spoke to him about the history of the centre, the projects it has worked on, the changes he has witnessed in the education system and the impact of the recent government cuts on the centre’s future. Continue reading →

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Posted in Children, Council, Crime, History, Identity, Manchester, Protest, Public Sphere, Youth

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Leaf Street: Radical Gardening In The City

Posted on May 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

The Leaf Street Community Garden in Hulme was set up in 2000 when local residents from the Bentley House (‘Redbricks’) estate decided to transform a grassed-over pathway between two rows of three-storey flats into a communal garden. After a 72-hour permaculture course and community consultation, the layout of the community garden was decided and locals got on with making the garden a reality. Although they have faced opposition from the council, which has threatened to turf over the garden on a couple of occasions, as well as leadership issues, the garden remains an example of successful radical gardening in Manchester. Read full article at Manchester’s Radical History.

:Image via northern green  pixie/flickr.

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Posted in Children, climate change, Climate Justice, Ethical, Food, Green, Manchester, Water

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Green Prophet: The Do’s and Don’ts of Green Blogging for Muslims

Posted on May 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

Need some ideas to help inspire Muslims on environmental issues? Here are my ten top tips…

As much as I’d like to tell you that there is an easy and foolproof way to capture the imagination of every Muslim when talking about the environment, the reality isn’t so simple. Sadly, there’s no magic formula to dazzle every Muslim into going green or at least I haven’t found it yet! Fear not though, intrepid blogger, because there is something you can do to improve your chances of firstly tapping into a Muslim readership and secondly, encouraging them to green their way of life.

1.  Do Your Research- Whilst no one expects you to be an expert in Islamic jurisprudence, a basic understanding of Islam and Muslim culture will help you when you are blogging. Doing your research about the topic you’re discussing and referring to Green Islamic principles will show the reader that you’re serious about green Muslims and consequently they’ll take your work seriously. Continue reading →

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Posted in Architecture, Art, Book Review, Cartoons, Children, climate change, Climate Justice, Economy, Environment, Ethical, Fashion, Food, Green, Green Energy, History, Identity, Islam, Journalism, Middle East, Mosques, Ramadan, Recycling, Water, Women, Youth

Aquila Asia Mag: Besa and Muslims Who Saved Jews from Hitler

Posted on April 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

Tadaa! The article on the Muslims who saved Jews during world war two that I was working on for Aquila Mag is now out- go and get yourself a copy. I wrote a little teaser back in January when it was Holocaust memorial day but this the whole story as well as a chat with Norman Gershman who photographed families involved in the event. I actually wrote two features for the magazine and they also have a mug shot of me for their green muslims feature… Well, you can’t win them all.

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Posted in Algeria, Children, Crime, History, Human Rights, Identity, Islam, Middle East, Muslims, Women, Youth

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A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Posted on May 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

On the 20th of July 1969 as Neil Armstrong took his giant leap for mankind on the moon, Mark Edwards was lost in his own lunar landscape of the Sahara Desert. The aspiring photographer had graduated from art school with a great curiosity to see the world and ended up completely lost in the deserts of Niger. Luckily for him he was rescued by a Tuareg nomad who not only saved his life but also inspired a forty-year project which culminated in his ‘Hard Rain’ exhibition which was at Copenhagen during the climate change summit and more recently on display at the London School of Economics university.

Getting lost in the Sahara, admits Edwards, is not particularly difficult especially as there are no signposts or even roads. Even so, relief is probably the only word to describe how he felt after he was found by the Tuareg nomad. “He took me back to his people and reappeared from a tiny little hut with two bits of wood and a beaten up cassette player, “ he recalls.

“He put the wood together and made a fire and we had a nice cup of tea. Then he warmed the cassette batteries, turned it on and Bob Dylan sang a hard rains gonna fall. I was just astonished by the lyrics in this song, by the presentation of it- one of the things that Dylan does is to conjure up with very few words, very vivid images. I just got the idea to illustrate each line and over the years I did it.”

‘Hard Rain: Our headlong collision with nature’, which has been seen by over 12 million people and displayed in the United Nations headquarter building in New York, sets powerful photos of environmental degradation and its impact on the poorest against lyrics from Bob Dylan’s famous song. Forest destruction in Haiti, oil spills and urbanisation all sit alongside kids swimming to polluted water for plastic to recycle and Bangladeshi refugees. For Edwards, climate change is handcuffed to poverty.

Edwards was also keen not to just show beautiful abstract pictures but also their context: how did we get here and what do we need to do next. “We are in the art school now and there is an exhibition of great, big, beautifully printed photographs but they have no content. It’s art. I don’t want ‘Hard Rain’ to be seen like that, it is not art. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle of pictures that define the challenges of the twenty first century held together by Bob Dylan’s lyrics. So, it’s not art.”

The exhibition is accompanied by 5,000 words of text so that people can read that if we keep burning fossil fuels, ice on land will melt causing sea levels to rise, and if the sea level rose by just one metre it would make 20 million people homeless in Bangladesh and India alone. “Where will they go?” he asks during the slide-show presentation at Manchester Metropolitan University. “There is nowhere for 20 million people to go,” he responds.

Picture after picture is shown of the devastation humans have wreaked on this planet; how fragile it is and how fragile our existence is. Edwards insists that we need to change the way we think for there to be real change. We have to realise that we are all interdependent. There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ he reminds us- there is only us and we all running out of time. Change can either be bloody or beautiful and the choice is ours. Coming to the end of his presentation, Edwards asks the audience not to applaud and tension of what we have just seen- our choices laid out in such stark terms- stays with us.

Inspired by the likes of Cartier-Bresson and Andre Kertesz, classic masters of reportage, Edwards also boldly claims that ‘Hard Rain’ gave him the opportunity to present the pictures in a way that was honest to his own experience. Something, he says, he never had the chance to do working in the media as an environmental photographer. “I’ve never came back from a picture story with a journalist and felt that we told the full story,” he admits.

“Rather than the well crafted photo which might deceive people, it’s the story that is too neat. When you are out in a difficult situation, its all got jagged edges, it’s not clear cut and journalists make out, in my mind, that the story is clear cut. So, I just felt that we had these stories that were too neat, with a neat beginning, a cover, continuity pictures, a coherent story and the conclusion. You know, it wasn’t like that at all. We were left with lots of question marks.”

In fact, Edwards does have a few gripes with the press and says he sees through the media games played around Copenhagen which have been lowering expectations so that leaders can say that we all did well at the climate summit this December. “All silly stuff,” he remarks. To counter this, Edwards hopes that his book and exhibition, which will be on display during the climate talks, will help focus people’s attention on decisions that need to be made in Copenhagen and put pressure on our leaders to make sure that they make the right ones.

So what does he believe should come out of Copenhagen? Edwards replies that he simply wants our government to start listening to the scientists. “What they are saying is that what governments have to do is get down to pre-industrial levels of CO2 emissions. When scientists say something to government, give a directive like what to do in the BSE crisis, they follow it. It’s not a decision that we have to make. We can’t disobey science or what our scientists are saying.”

Copenhagen, Edwards states, is the last opportunity for government to govern on the issue and if they fail, it becomes a citizens imperative to take action. “Those of us who have seen the effects of climate change, which we are beginning to see in Africa and tropical countries, have a responsibility … I mean I’m not an expert- I am a witness.” Seeing the exhibition makes us all witnesses in a way and in the words of Bob Dylan, now ‘what’ll you do?’

by Arwa Aburawa

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Posted in Children, climate change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen, Environment, Green, Human Rights, India, Water, Women

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Blogging beneath the Bombs: Interview with Sharyn Lock

Posted on January 4, 2010 | Leave a comment

The Electronic Intifada, 30 December 2009

Israel has many weapons that it deploys against the Palestinian national movement and one of them is a powerful public relations machine. For years, it has allowed Israel to extend illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, demolish homes, erode the rights of Palestinians and imprison and torture them, all in the name of democracy and security. In the days leading up to last winter’s attacks on Gaza, Israel’s public relations machine was oiled up to give its version of events and without the watchful eye of journalists — who were denied entry into the territory — and it appeared likely to succeed. Yet Palestinians “citizen journalists” in Gaza and a few internationals living in the middle of the conflict decided to report a very different story than the carefully controlled Israeli narrative. Sharyn Lock was one of these voices.

Originally from Australia but now living in the UK, Lock has worked in Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) since 2002 when she shot by an Israeli soldier in the stomach. After being refused entry into Palestine from 2005 to 2006, Lock finally made it back to Gaza on the first “Break the Siege” boat sponsored by the Free Gaza Movement. She was in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s 22-day invasion last winter and her blog “Tales to Tell” documented the daily events she witnessed during the conflict not only with humanity but also humor. These posts have recently been published in the short book Gaza: Beneath the Bombs. The following is an edited interview with Lock about her experience in Gaza and why she feels privileged to have spent time with Palestinians there.

Arwa Aburawa: Why did you decide to stay during the attacks?

Sharyn Lock: With the announcement from Israel for internationals to leave, we assumed — correctly, as it turned out — that this was the start of the land incursion which followed the air attacks which had become regular. ISM were there mainly because of the isolation and the dreadful siege and so at a time when Israel wanted to isolate the Palestinians more, we made a decision that we didn’t want to leave. Also the fact that Israel wanted internationals to leave made us think, well, what is it you don’t want us to see, what is it you don’t want us to document? Whatever that is we want to be here for it.

AA: Did you realize at the time that you were one of very voices few coming from Gaza?

SL: It took a while for me to realize that I was seeing things that nobody else was seeing and that I needed to write them down. We didn’t have anyone telling us what to do and so we just got in the middle of things and were able to able to document them. It was up-to-the-minute reporting and I would try to get to a computer at the end of every day so that what I wrote would have been what I’d seen in the last hours. And once again, it was the least that we could do and it was really encouraging that people used it and responded to it by holding vigils and taking action based on the information that we were getting out to them.

AA: As your book is focused on the war in Gaza, was it hard to talk about anything but the suffering?

SL: It was important for me to portray the humanity and not just the suffering because that is the [story of the] Palestinians. That’s why I go, that’s why it’s a privilege to be there and to spend time with these people who just face something that we would just be crushed by, with courage and determination to keep hold of the things that they value. Basically, that’s what’s made it all possible and worthwhile, the negative experiences were totally outweighed by the positive experiences. That’s not to say that if you’re Palestinian, you wouldn’t want to get the hell out of somewhere where you have to battle to just exist, but people do it with courage and grace and manage to find humor. I guess that’s one of the ways that they survive.

AA: Did any of the events you witness and write about truly shock you?

SL: I am not sure if I can answer that question as all the things that happen all across the world seem to be near me, in front of me and I’m a witness to them even if I am not there. So, I tend to live in this state of mind and so nothing surprises me. Like the fact that civilians were so targeted in these attacks, that’s been Israeli policy for a long time and nothing stops them. And so when people were saying “this is horrifying, this is shocking,” it’s only a continuation of a policy that has existed for a long time.

There was one particular image which stunned people and that was of the baby that some of my medic colleagues retrieved which had been burned and chewed out by probably Israeli army dogs. And that’s a terrible image of something to happen to a child. But I wasn’t shocked by what I saw because that’s what this occupation is and it’s what we currently accept is going on. Also when these things get written up as evidence of war crimes, I do get a little confused as I’m thinking, “well, this was happening at the time and you’re speaking about war crimes now?” I just wish we realized things at the point at which we could try and stop them.

AA: What do you hope for the future of Gaza?

SL: I want to see the occupation end, I want to see the siege end. Weirdly, there was a CIA report that came out when I was there that predicted that in 20 years there would be one state for what is now Israel and Palestine. I feel like that’s what I want to hope for and certainly the Palestinians that I have spoken to have said that that’s what they hope for. Some Palestinians have said to me, “I don’t care whether it’s one state or two states, I just want to be on what’s historically our land, in peace, with equal rights to whoever is living with us and we don’t mind who that is.” There isn’t a sense that it’s us against them, they just want there to be justice for all.

Arwa Aburawa (http://arwafreelance.wordpress.com/) is a freelance journalist based in the UK.

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Posted in Apartheid, Architecture, Book Review, Children, Ethical, History, Human Rights, Identity, IDF, Israel, Middle East, Muslims, Occupation, Palestine, Protest, Refugees, Separation Wall, Stop the Wall, Uncategorized, West Bank, Women, Youth

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