Social Issue Archives - Page 16 of 16

16/03/201621/03/2017

Art Bikes Revealed

Sunday was the revealing of the Bicycles Create Change Summer Program Art Bike Project – and what a success it was!

It was a relaxed, colourful and highly informative session and not even the small amount of rain that came could dampen our enthusiasm. I picked the team up early and everyone was in good spirits as we headed to the Community Gardens. Then the heavens opened and a few worried looks were exchanged. Nevertheless, as always, the sun shone through intermittently and then we had a burst of beautiful blue sky, right on cue as we had our bikes in hand and were rolling out to go and set up. As we walked our ART BIKES down to Bethania Street Community Gardens, we received a few locals honking and shouting out well wishes for our presentation. We arrived in plenty of time to set up and get ready.

The proceedings

We had nine attend, which was perfect (I was aiming for between 5 and 15 for the audience) so there were enough seats. It also meant that when it rained a little at the start, there was enough room for the audience, presenters and all the bikes to fit comfortably under the pavilion. Quickly after that, the weather turned it on and we had gorgeous sunshine for the rest of our time there. After a quick welcome, the order of proceedings and topics for the Art Bikes were:

Sachie – Gender Equality

Juliet – Women’s Emancipation and changing roles

Gabriel – The importance of bicycles in Cameroon Culture

Mauricio – Corruption

Nina – Child Labour

The presenters introduced themselves, their topic/issue and their bike, then discussed how their bike was symbolic of the issue they had chosen. At the end of each bike, the audience asked questions and gave feedback – which was fantastic as there were some very interesting insights and ideas raised.

We then had a brief close and thank you. It was great to see people milling around and making the effort to go and speak to each art bike artist to discuss their own reaction, interpretations and feelings about some of the issues raised during the presentations. It was very relaxed and friendly, with lots of jovial chatting. Conversations that were more profound emerged later on. Thank you very much to the locals and friends who came on the day to participate – your good company and input were very much appreciated.

Garden Butterflies

It was also heart-warming to see people drifting off into the garden to look at what was in bloom and finding something to munch on. I was especially pleased to see how excited Gabriel was to spot cassava growing there – he was delighted to see such a familiar staple food from Africa there, what made it even more awesome was that he had not idea it grew here – GOLD!

Congrats to all!

I was very impressed by the thought, effort and research that each team member had put into their bikes. The symbolism, motifs, creativity and explanations that were demonstrated showed a depth of critical thinking and careful judgement that surpassed expectations and made for a very enjoyable and stimulating morning. The presentations themselves were witty, engaging and well structured. I was incredibly proud of our team and was thrilled to be part of such a meaningful, worthwhile and illuminating event. We plan to have each artist share their bike creation and development process in a guest post on this blog.

Congratulations to the wonderful team members who have worked so hard for so long – I am so proud of you!

12/03/201620/06/2017

World Naked Bike Ride Day

There have been many culture shocks for me moving from Melbourne to Brisbane, but none more so than daily being confronted by the restrictive, narrow-minded, risk-adverse and controlling authority that Queensland has over its residents. In every other major city around the world, today is the World Naked Bike Ride Day 2016. This is a peaceful political demonstration to protest against the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, as well as promoting naturism, biketivism and environmentalism (all the best -isms!).

Only In Brisbane

I laughed myself into a stitch, when I inquired about the event last week about the WNBR Brisbane chapter. I read that in Queensland, ONLY women can ride completely nude. For reasons of ‘indecency’, men had to wear a G-string – WTF!!!

No other city I know of has this rule – and I mean nowhere around the WORLD that I can find!

(Having said that, if I was a man who wanted to participate in the Brisbane ride – personally, I would wear the G-string on my head, around my wrist or my ankle).

Talk about ridiculous laws!!

Authority control = no Brisbane WNBR

Not only that, but the route that the WNBR Brisbane was to take, was deemed to have too much ‘exposure’ (teehee) to the general public as it tool in taking in parts of the M1. So the police knocked back the proposal. This sparked a series of run arounds for the organisers by police, local officials and council – so much so, that the process and permit got bound up so tightly (and effectively) that the event in Brisbane had to be cancelled.

What a crock!

That meant that the closest WNBR event for Brisbanites was in Byron Bay – 2 hours away!

Brisbane is notorious for previously having a pitiful turnout for this event because the participants get such a hard time when it does go ahead.

This year it was a definitive and flat out red-ribbon stitch-up for good. Problem sorted.

Queensland is old-fashioned, risk-adverse and draconian – and quietly but effectively, authorities are pairing back on civil liberties one small step at a time. Not enough that people get concerned, but just enough to ever so convincingly restrict locals’ choices in lifestyle, activities and access.

Whether you agree or not with the World Naked Bike Ride, in Australia we supposedly have ‘the right’ to hold and/or participate in this event.

I think if people want to cycle nude to highlight what they feel is an important social issue, all the more power to them!

But the way Queensland authorities handled this event – flat out sucks!

What a good job of cutting Brisbane out of one of the most fun, colourful and popular international peaceful bike protests.

Well, kudos to every other cosmopolitan, contemporary, inclusive, progressive and intelligent city in the world who enjoyed a gorgeous day of free speech, community participation and environmental awareness. I hope you had a massive blast, got your message out there and bless you brave souls and awesome supporters who attended!!

I hope all those beautiful riders had a massive blast, got thier message out there.less you brave souls and awesome supporters who attended!!

Bless those brave souls and awesome supporters who attended!!

It is days like this that I sorely miss living in Melbourne.

I was genuinely sorry to have missed out on supporting one of my favourite lively, refreshing and community-driven annual biking events.

If Cape Town in South Africa (see video below) can still manage do it in the midst of all their economic, political and social issues – then shame on you Brisbane. You are miles behind the times!!!

08/03/201621/03/2017

International Women’s Day

Happy International Women’s Day! There is much going on internationally to celebrate this day. I was very impressed with the diverse and comprehensive coverage that the ABC had on offer for the whole week, in fact, to draw attention to all manner of issues relating to gender, women and equality.

Filipino and Timorese experiences

Given my specific interest in gender education, this day provides a great platform to access and interact with the political and social milieu surrounding women’s issues. It is troubling that so much of the discourse surrounding gender issues is interrelated with other sociocultural problems such as poverty and violence. I caught an interesting item from RN Breakfast, where a former Filipino politician Liza Maza was being interviewed about the state of women in her country, which has seen an increase by 200% of violence against women and children in the last 5 years.

In many places around the world, many of these issues are systemic, ingrained and normalised. When I was working in Timor-Leste, I remember hearing a Development Facilitator tell his story of introducing and running a Gender Mainstreaming Program there. It was very well received and involved a lot of topics related to gender sensitivity. The workshop had great attendance and interest by community leaders and locals – both men and women. At the end of this intensive course, during the debriefing session when they were reflecting about the most significant changes and outcomes, one male participant said that it had all been very interesting, but that the biggest change for him was that he had to ‘beat his wife more now than before’ because the workshop had given her ‘ideas’.

These Filipino and Timorese realities are so far outside my own daily experience, yet it is paramount to be mindful that such situations occur daily for other women – and to do what little we can in our own way to effect positive change for all. I heard a call to action during Liza Mazza’s interview for people to do one thing each day that moves us towards some kind of positive change.

Salute the strong men!

My one activity to bring about change in light of insurmountable and devastating statistics about gender-based violence elsewhere in the world is to recognize and move towards the positive – and to thank the beautiful, brave and progressive men around the world who support and champion women’s issues, in little and big ways. On days such as this one, when the focus is squarely on women, I’d like to give my sincere gratitude to the amazing men around the world – many of whose names we will never know, but who, in their own small ways have done some action to support the women in their lives and communities.

To these strong and honorable men – I salute and thank you!

Source: Dining for Women

05/03/201621/03/2017

Monitoring Child Labour on Bikes

The Art Bike that I have been working on for Sunday’s presentation is about Child Labour. I’ve been looking into the global statistics and issues involved with child labour and it is not surprising that poverty and circumstance play a massive role.

Child labour is a very difficult phenomena to quantify and collect accurate data on – and often results from different sources can be quite different.

The basis for my Art Bike is that 780 million children worldwide are engaged in some form of illicit labour work. Child labor, as defined by the International Labor Organization, is “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.”

The current situation

How is this linked to our experience? Matt Berg of the Borgen Project outlines that:

Australia annually imports $16 million worth of tobacco produced by child labor, including tobacco produced in the U.S. Tobacco cultivation is extremely labor intensive and children are often subjected to serious health risks including nicotine poisoning.
Most cigarette smokers in Australia are unaware of the origins of the tobacco they consume.
According to the ILO, 168 million children worldwide are engaged in child labor as of 2013.Of these 168 million children, 85 million are engaged in what the ILO deems “hazardous work.”
According to a study conducted by the ILO in 2004, the benefits of eradicating child labor would “outweigh costs by nearly six to one.”The sub-Saharan African region has the second highest number of child laborers in the world; about 59 million in 2012.
According to the Pew Research Center, children aged five to 17, or 21.4 percent, are involved in child labor while 10.4 percent are engaged in hazardous work.
Agriculture accounts for 60 percent of child labor according to the ILO.Only one out of five children involved in child labor is paid for his or her work.The majority of children in child labor perform unpaid family work.
About 60 percent of children in Ethiopia are engaged in some form of child labor. Many of these children work in the mining industry; an industry that poses some of the biggest dangers for child labourers.

The ECLT Foundation

The problem is often culturally systemic and driven by lack of access and opportunities to alternatives. However, there are a number of organisations that are working hard to address these issues – and most interestingly for me, is an outfit in Tanzania called the ECLT Foundation (Eliminating Child Labour in the Tobacco Industry Foundation.

Tanzania is interesting, because, although it is not in the current top 10 countries for child labour, its data on child labour is staggering. Agriculture is one of its primary and major industries, so one in every three Tanzanian children work to contribute to their family’s household income – and this is even more alarming as most child labourers live in rural or remote areas where most are engaged in hazardous conditions.

Child labour in the Tanzanian tobacco industry.

According to ECLT:

84% of the parents of children working on the tobacco farms come from poor and very poor socio-economic backgrounds.
According to the 2006 Tanzania Labour Force Survey, 20.7% of children are engaged in child labour in Tanzania.
Tanzania’s main tobacco-producing areas tend to have low primary school enrolment.
Most child labourers in Tanzania are unpaid family workers and work in addition to attending school.

To address such critical issues and to protect vulnerable children, the ECLT partnered with Winrock International and the International Labor Organisation to sponsor a conference convened by the Tanzania government—resulting in a commitment to action to end child labour in agriculture.

Using bikes to monitor and report on child labour.

Most interestingly (as I have highlighted in the quote), the ECLT ‘formed and supported Village Child Labour Committees on issues of child labour, identification, and monitoring. Because it is common for families to live six hours by foot from the nearest village, we also provided bicycles to committee members so that they could reach as many children as possible’ (ECLT.org). Yet again another incredibly worthwhile and productive use of bicycles to crest significant positive change for not just individual children, but families and communities alike. Bravo!!

Source: ECLT.org

21/02/201621/03/2017

This bike has Multiple Sclerosis

This remarkable health education initiative really personifies how bicycles can innovate positive social change – in this case, raising awareness about Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

MS Community Education

This initiative brilliantly mixes science, bicycle design, expert collaboration and cyclists to produce a community education campaign where a normal bicycle was augmented in a variety of ways to represent the MS symptoms.

To achieve this, each of the major executive functions on the bike such as the fork, handlebars, seat, frame and gears were altered so that the impact of the disease could be experienced first hand when you try to ride the bike – thus demonstrating the daily challenges that suffers have trying to operate their bodies as this autoimmune disease destroys their nervous system.

Ad Week promoted this ad campaign by giving it international recognition for its ingenuity and creative approach – and very effectively linked this issue to the lived experience of Penelope Conway who is an MS Suffer and informatively and humorously writes about what Multiple Sclerosis really feels like.

The Ad

This bike has Multiple Sclerosis video (2 mins) explains the rationale and research that has gone into the strategic design of this bike.

This community awareness campaign is not only effective in reaching a wide audience and communicating its message, but it is clear and has immediate impact. One of the best aspects is that it is specifically designed to be experiential and engaging for the public.

This campaign is a great example of how a creative approach to presenting a public health issue can generate excitement, consideration and interest about an issue such as MS. In doing so, it is highly successful in prompting public education and discussion about what MS is – and the metaphor of a ‘rider’ trying to ‘control a bike’ as being similar to what an MS suffer experiences to control their body, is a stroke of genius. Most people who have no contact or exposure to MS, will be able to easily relate to how difficult it can be to ride a bike if there are mechanical problems.

If only there were more interactive, dynamic and enterprising projects such as this one that can equally correlate the public’s normative experience (of riding a bike) with a emerging/public issue (MS Awareness).

Want to try riding it?

Those in Melbourne next month (March 2016), will have the opportunity to try to ride this bike for yourself at the MS Melbourne Cycle on March 6, 2016 by registering at bike@thisbikehasMS.com.

The team

14/12/201506/03/2017

CONS-U-ME BLUES Art Bike

The pre-loved high-end bike in the picture below was on sale at a property auction. No one wanted it – it was too old and daggy and from the reaction of the crowd appeared in no way cool enough to buy, let alone ride. I looked at this forlorn bike and thought of the previous owner who had purchased, loved (I hoped), and ridden this bike – then it has been cast out after however long and was now forgotten and miserable. It was a sorry sight to see; as it seemed that there was still so much more spunky and happy times to be had with it– yet here it was discarded and sad long before its expiry date.

Considering how rapidly bike technology, marketing and styles change, my heart broke: that no-one wanted this bike anymore, that this bike had been so quickly and uncaringly superseded – and although it was in perfect working order at auction, was regarded as objectionable and obsolete.

So I took pity on it and was the only person who bid on it – and got it for 50c.

On my way home from the auction, I found a bag of clothes someone had tossed on the side of the road. All the clothes were brand new – tags still attached, never worn. Amongst the clothes were a set of blue athletic work out tracksuits, not dissimilar to those I’ve seen people wear on an exercise bike. It felt very serendipitous and ironic acquiring these two items.

I was inspired to create this art bike as I acquired both passion (bicycle) and fashion (clothes) items on precisely the same day. As well, both were items I have bought on a number of occasions elsewhere. However, on this day, I was even more strongly, blatantly reminded of the immensely wasteful and consumeristic society we live in; personified by these two items presenting themselves so closely and prominently within the same hour. It was both saddening and humbling.

So I refashioned these two items together to generate a new, valued and wanted artefact, that urges us to be more mindful of products we buy and to be more prudent with our passion and fashion purchases.

As the title of this art bike CONS_U_ME BLUES identifies, this bike highlights how often our CONSUMErist society CONS YOU and ME into buying more and more products – the result of which, when honestly critiqued, makes many of us quite depressed and BLUE.

Please be more mindful and responsible with your purchases.

Art bike: CONS U ME BLUES by Nina Ginsberg

28/11/201513/02/2017

Brisbane Climate Change Rally 2015

Today I joined the Brisbane Climate Change Rally 2015. It was a fun, colourful, purposeful, but hot day. I went with two friends and took Leki with me (who was a smash hit with the crowd because of her colourful flowers). We had a great time chatting to people around us before we took to the streets – I had a conversation with the bicycle cops about their work on two wheels, had a chance to tell ‘Tony Abbott’ what I really thought and got interviewed by Channel 9 News – all in a day’s work when promoting bicycles!!

Who was there?

There were a lot of political groups, vegan promoters, animal rights groups, cultural and social action organisations, wildlife conservationists and speciality interest and focus groups. I couldn’t see a bicycle specific cohort, although lots of people there said it was cool I brought my bike and was promoting cycling at a climate change rally. There were lots of positive comments about reducing fossil fuel emissions and keeping society fit and healthy.

We heard speeches and saw performances on the main stage, which was interesting and necessary, but as minutes ticked on it got hotter and hotter. I could see the poor older people struggling to stand in the heat for so long – we were still yet to march. All benches and shade were taken, and I thought the crowd did well to hear out the speeches before finally getting the go-ahead to hit the street and march.

Let’s hit the streets!

This is always my favorite part of a Rally – the actual march through the city. I positioned our group close to the drumming band and we shadowed them the whole way. It is always easier to march when you have funky music to move to. I left fly with Leki’s bells so I was jamming with the percussionists. We were shaking a leg alongside, adding to the happy noise. The people surrounding us were grinning from amusement given the raucous entertainment we were providing – good olde harmless fun. So, we slowly peeled away from Martin Place to head off through the city.

We had a great time: we danced, joked, made up chants, found new friends, kept ourselves hydrated and entertained. It was a long march and totally worth it to exercise our civic rights, to voice our concerns about politics, to get amongst other like-minded community members and to have some damn good fun. We ended up back at the rendezvous point, happy, hoarse and satiated. Just as before we headed off for some well deserved cool drinks in the shade to wind-down, take a load off our feet and reflect on the day.