Design 21: Social Design Network

Colalifehave put together this brilliant new video for Google’s Project 10^100 Goes Live. Good Luck Simon and Co.....!!

There are now over 40 Transition Towns in the UK, with more joining as the idea takes off. With little proactivity at government level, communities are taking matters into their own hands and acting locally. If your town is not a Transition Town, this upbeat guide offers you the tools for starting the process. It is a process which is, as Richard Heinberg writes in his Foreword, “more like a party than a protest march”.

Via Doors Report

Interestingly yesterday I had another article brought to my attention on the impact of our environment on our mental health. One finding was that people who live in neighbourhoods which are walkable have higher wellbeing. The article in Greater Good Magazine is called Sane in the City and well worth a read... particularly if you are living in a Transition Town or any town in fact.

The United Nations Foundation has just released a new report on trends in NGO use of wireless technology for social change.

The full paper which you download as some fascinating case studies including:

Connecting Youth to Sexual Health Information

Text Messaging to Save Trees

Protecting Wildlife and Human Wellbeing

A demonstration of a very high level social responsibility from Vodafone.

Martina Gruppo has recently started a wonderful community based business called The Coffee Fairy. Martina has worked to create small coffee growing collaboratives, buying the coffee direct and giving a percentage of all profits to the community to educate their children. Wow. I think this is just great.

A perfect example of a Social Business as described by Muhammad Yunus in his recently published book Creating a World Without Poverty.

Richard Reynolds, founder of Guerrilla Gardening has a new book out.

James David Morgan has written a great review of the Richard's story about his London based movement on the Groundswell Collective

The Polite Umbrella from Joo Youn Paek

Get London Reading is a campaign to um.... get London reading. They produced a great site with Rough Guide to London by the book, which you can download for free, and a really useful interactive online map

There was also a brilliant graffiti campaign across London in April, which included quotes from books stencilled all over the place. Lots more pics here on flickr Really beautiful...

Via One Floor UP

There are some great articles in latest issue of Greater Good Magazine on the importance of play, with some great advice for parents.

This quote from David Elkind:

"Over the last two decades alone, children have lost eight hours of free, unstructured, and spontaneous play a week. More than 30,000 schools in the United States have eliminated recess to make more time for academics. From 1997 to 2003, children's time spent outdoors fell 50 percent, according to a study by Sandra Hofferth at the University of Maryland. ...Decades of research has shown that play is crucial to physical, intellectual, and social-emotional development at all ages. This is especially true of the purest form of play: the unstructured, self-motivated, imaginative, independent kind, where children initiate their own games and even invent their own rules."

The new journal School Mental Health Promotion has made their inaugural issue available for free download.

One of their articles 'School Mental Health: Politics, Power and Practice' really struck a cord. I am very passionate about the methodologies of maximising student's mental health in schools, and in life in general. The article highlights some important issues I have been mulling over for some time. Many schools are very focused on interventions for students struggling emotionally and further single issue focus points, sex, nutrition and drug education. These should ideally be only part of a whole school approach to being well and creating a school environment for children to have the opportunity to thrive, rather than ones where they are coping, should be our vision for schools. I really believe that we can inject energy and wellness into schools without the usual negative analysis phase. It is what good leadership should be about.

To quote from the article:

"The school community's status as a 'healthy place' involves the culture and conditions in the physical and psychosocial environments of school for students, staff, parents and the wider community........"