2014 was a pretty memorable year for me, so Im going back through my calendar before I put it behind me. The year began in Paris with my closest family and friends, then a stay in Miami with my sister and her family. After work in Belize and Haiti, I joined the GT Recyclers float in the Mashramani parade in Georgetown Guyana, which won 2nd prize in the Small Float category and got a full-page photo spread in the national newspaper the next day. After Salvador and work in Brasilia and Mozambique, I got to present our Guyana work at the IAIA conference in Chile. Then a great solid waste workshop in Argentina, a beautiful involuntary resettlement workshop in Mozambique, a horizontal knowledge sharing event with the Guatemala waste pickers and the fantastic Silvio Ruiz Grisales from Colombia, our first safeguards workshop with the NGO FUNBIO in Rio and a 2-week involuntary resettlement course in Haiti - all ending in a much needed 5-day retreat with Eckhart Tolle in upstate New York. Back home in Salvador, I got to see the admirable US loss to Germany with my daughter (no mentions of any less admirable losses to Germany please), more work in Rio and another beautiful horizontal knowledge sharing workshop, this time in Guyana with the amazing Sebastião Carlos dos Santos, including the presentation of official cooperative status at a ceremony at the landfill including 3 Ministers, 2 country representatives of major international agencies and local pop star Vanilla. But it was July and events in Gaza were taking up more and more of my attention. The June 3rd announcement of the Unity Government, the kidnapping-murder 9 days later, and the brutal Israeli Sweep through in the West Bank that followed which soon led to Operation Protective Edge drew me onto the Internet, as it did many of you, in search of reliable news and analysis and like-minded people to share our horror and frustration with. I began reading constantly and posting regularly and my friends list quickly grew from 500 something to more than 1000. I followed people I already new like Pamela Olson, and new ones, like Denny Cormier. As things continued to degenerate in Gaza, I began discussing with various people, such as Israa Thiab, concrete actions we could take to support Gaza and Palestine. The idea of taking action, and developing focused teams, and of partnerships to do that, was born. Some of my posts began to go viral and people started asking me to change my privacy settings. I was also starting to get my first hate mail from Zionists, so decided to move the entire Palestine discussion from this page to a separate group. Two days later that group became Humanity for Palestine. Some of the early people were Rina Idrus, Maya Mohamed, Alex Zan, Oumme, Robert Rope, Kato Lee and Selma Bakr. One of our first concrete actions was the gathering of more than 2000 condolence messages for 4-year-old martyr Inas khalil, that was made into a 10x4-ft. banner by Teresa Rosamondo and delivered with flowers from Naomi Wolf by Hamdi Abu Rahma and Robert Martin, with help from Gisèle Dussault and Kay Gardner. Another solid waste presentation at ISWA in São Paulo, where I saw many old friends LIKE Jeroen Ijgosse, Jane Olley and Ricardo Valencia, and just how much the practice on the incorporation of waste pickers had evolved. On to DC, New York, and visiting dear old friends in Amsterdam. Attended the Russell Tribunal in Brussels where I got to meet more amazing people, including Ronnie Barkan, Max Blumenthal, David Sheen, Dan Cohen, Mads Gilbert, Vandana Shiva and Olga Cera from PCRF. Then another presentation of waste picker work in Jamaica, Guyana, another very successful waste picker workshop in Belize, and up to DC for the H4P photography exhibition and a beautiful dinner, just as our first fundraising drive was finishing with a total of more than $25,000 raised to buy coats for children in Gaza. A fantastic H4P dinner in London, with 20 beautiful people, including Jafar Ramini, Maida Mohammed, Fozea Boudjellel, Zareen Hasan, and Andrew Nelis and Conor Cusack of OAP. Then off to Cairo for a presentation to the Egyptian government of the waste picker project that first got me to Palestine, and a chance to see my old Palestinian boss from that project. Then a meeting of the CWG, Where I saw more old friends, like Sonia Dias and Leila Iskandar, whod since become a Minister, and got to participate in the development of a cutting edge agenda around the circular economy. In Cairo I also finally met Israa, after months of conspiring online, went on to Amman and then through the craziness of Israeli borders to Bilin, Palestine, where I was graciously received by Hamde Abu Rahma and met Imad and Iyad Burnat and pretty much the entire cast of 5 Broken Cameras. Back through Cairo, where I met our web designer, Adam Clark Miller, and made it back to Salvador for my nieces 15th birthday and here we are. In 2014 I got to meet, know better, and reconnect with so many amazing people. there were people I already admired, like Ilan Pappe, Tangerine Bolen, Dahlia Wasfi, and Hedy Epstien; people I already knew but got to finally meet in flesh or know better, like Ellie Green, Avigail Abarbanel and Mary Ellen Bennett; people I hadnt known at all, like Andre Khoury, Theo Horesh, Nagham Yacoub, Ricki Landers Suhair Kassis Davidson, and Aaron Dover. Old friends and colleagues like Arai Monteforte got involved. Melody Elizabeth, Shawn Robinson, Rochelle Santos, Eiman, Zaina Masri, Stefanie Eisgrou... Theres simply no way to name them all, so please no one feel offended through omission, but I am truly blessed to know you all. Yes the world is speeding toward collapse in more ways then one, as anyone whos not in total denial knows, but there are so many great people out there and good things being done. The future really is in our hands. Happy 2015
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 05:00:23 +0000
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