Decolonising Design | Key Note transcript | European Academy of Design | Dundee, Scotland | April 2019

One of the world’s most influential design conferences, in one of the world’s most interesting design cities. ‘Running with Scissors’ might imply recklessness, however, it can also suggest putting aside conventional wisdom, inevitably taking risks. 

We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking used when we created them (Einstein)

Decolonising Design: working towards a humanKINDER future 

Emma Barrett Palmer | Key Note | European Academy of Design | 2019

Emma brings passion, integrity, vision and creativity to the table, exploring and enhancing the possibilities of whole systems innovation. After ten years in the founding team then Lead at Social Innovation Lab Kent – the first for UK government – her experience in the Calais “jungle” compelled a professional change. In 2016 she founded conscious business humanKINDER Ltd with a mission to amplify silenced voices for systems change. She has just completed a 16,000-mile journey living in her van with her family and The Welcome Tent – a repurposed army catering tent from 1956 – cooking and sharing Recipes of HOPE with displaced people and activists across Europe.

Emma now lives in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc and is currently weaving together a Recipes of HOPE Manuscript.

We must acknowledge our History and build a stage for Herstory

We must ask questions about our shadows, but never forget to dance

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SLIDE 1: Please No Teargas - Emma Barrett Palmer - Calais, FRANCE (2015)

MUSIC PLAYING: The Evangelist Church Singers, The Calais Sessions

This music is the response of the women in the Calais Jungle, a place in 2015 and 2016 in Europe where teargas was used against families, children and adults who had not broken the law, who were fleeing conflict. A place where 10 million was found to build a new fence on the border between France and the UK. 

Good afternoon everybody. I wanted to share with you that clip of music with you to give you a moment to think and reflect about people beyond this room.  Because today I’m here to remind us all about the context in which we are working. And much of our world is in chaos. And chaotic times calls for bravery. And the women that you just heard singing in this clip here were recorded by a mobile recording studio in Calais Refugee Camp in early 2016 called Calais Sessions. And singing was these women’s response to finding out that their place of worship was to be demolished. Because the next day after that recording happened, the authorities came and flattened the church that this was recorded in. And in my opinion it is not acceptable for that to happen. And in my opinion, in 2015/6, in Europe, it is not acceptable for tear-gas to be used against families. 

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SLIDE 2 : humanKINDER Moon & Birds - ThisLakshmi, UK, 2017

So today I want to share a bit about my journey - how I switched sides - how I’ve gone from working in government and working within the system, and doing this stuff within the system and how you can find ways to do this, to working outside the system. And that’s want I  want to share with you today. 

You may have just spotted - those of you with the keen eye sight, the language on the previous slide. But do you know what I decided not to use photoshop to change it, because this is about real life. Some of this is not comfortable at all. I have put myself and other people have put themselves in very very uncomfortable positions because this needs to be about justice. Without having justice for all communities, there will be no peace. 

So first of all I want to say Thank You to Professors Leon and Louise who I met on that rainy day in Eindhoven over breakfast at Dutch Design Week. It wasn't just me. I was there with Dawit, who was my colleague, partner, film-maker, who I was working along at Dutch Design Week. And I will share some of Dawit’s story today, because he can’t be here. I will share more when I get to those slides. I want to thank you both for taking the risk in inviting me here because I have seen things that are difficult to unsee. 

Firstly, who am I? I’m a mum, a wife, a friend, daughter, musician, a facilitator. I’m many different things, different days mean different things, different hours mean different things to me. So I am trying to work beyond what we would have been taught that will restrict us - our current mindsets - to think beyond the boundaries, beyond the boxes that we have been defined within. I also need to acknowledge my own privilege, my own privilege as a White Woman, as someone with a passport, as someone who is able to travel. I also need to acknowledge my own privilege as someone who has had access to education; I have a background in Law, Languages, Education, Research. 

Unless I have been given permission to share, I will not share it. I will not speak for anyone else’s experience other than my own. I try to learn from every person that I meet. I am inspired by every person that I meet. Some days this work feels hopeful and other days this work feels hopeless. But my motivation to get up in the morning is to challenge what is unjust, to use the capabilities, skills and knowledge I have developed over the years to fight for a better future, for the people that I have met, every single person out there getting their hands dirty, doing this stuff, making mistakes, learning from them. Because it takes more courage to keep going than to give up. 

Today I want to share how I first used Design Principles in government; I’ll explain what compelled me to leave working in a government environment, to set up humanKINDER and why I would like to continue working using humanKINDER as a vehicle for systems change not just for people, but to do justice for people AND planet. 

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SLIDE 3 : 'The Making of The Dementia Diaries' - SILK & Matthew Snyman, Kent, UK, 2013

So, design thinking. 2007, quite a few years ago now, I was part of the Founding team that set up first social innovation lab in UK government. We were the prototype for the Civil Service Innovation Lab and in those first two years we did two demo projects, one was Online care and one was Just Coping families. We used both of those projects to co-create and co-design a methodology using design principles, but using methods that could be used within a participatory project process. 

Our aim was to work in a whole systems way, intercultural, cross-sector, in fact we were using design thinking to re-humanise government processes. We worked within policy; we developed projects within service design; but for me the critical one was community, because that felt to me like the holy grail. Because if you can create the conditions for people to actually learn about each other, work together, collaborate, to do things because they have chosen to do it, to acknowledge their own autonomy, ability, capability, knowledge, skills, then actually that’s brilliant. Enabling people to find their own way. 

For me it was about a process of reciprocity, a process of mutual value creation where a relationship was not about receiving something, it was about working together to create something together. The most significant thing about SILK became not the methods, it was about the values, about the principles, its about HOW you are working together, its about mutual Respect. And actually while we were working within government we managed to create a space - a whole space - for professionals wherever they worked, health, social service, community development, housing officers - to actually have mutual pathways of understanding alongside the citizens that we were working with. 

In every project we had a Reference Group of citizens with particular lived experience of what we were looking into - and they shared their experiences and the professionals shared their experiences - and together we worked on projects to find solutions which were then prototyped and then implemented, adapted and rolled out.

So this is one of my favourite projects - The Dementia Diaries. This was working with the grandchildren of people living with Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Because if you work with children they'll tell you the truth. They don't hold back, they tell you what its really like. We asked them: what do you need? We had a workshop and we brought together all the existing resources that we could find and we looked through them all together. And they said this is not good enough, this is not helping us. So we said what do you actually need? And Jack said, we want a book, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, where the facts are true and the feelings are real. And that was his ‘commission’ for us. 

Here is a picture of some of the families involved, they became the Editorial board, they chose how we did the project, where to share it, how to make it. They were our guide. That project now, you can find the book in every library in Kent, is used to used to teach Doctors and medical Professionals through the UK, its been to the G8 Summit and we are continuing to develop the resource in the U.S later this year. 

Then became the point. The point at which I wanted to break out that Design Diamond. I asked myself why am I working within a box, within a Diamond? I said what about a blank sheet? But some people can get scared of a blank sheet. Never the community though: I put a blank sheet in front of people in the community and they said, OK, right, now we are getting somewhere because Anything Is Possible. 

And that is where it gets exciting, where Anything is Possible. But I was finding the restrictions, the funding cycles, political game playing, all very difficult conditions to work in… 

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SLIDE 4: ‘Ginger Coffee in Calais’ - Emily Parish, Calais, FRANCE, 2015

And so in 2015, a friend Shernaz said “just go… just go and see what is happening in Calais”.  And I did. I went with two friends. And, if you remember this is just 23 miles from Kent. Not far. 23 miles from the UK. And what I saw in Calais, what I saw people experiencing, changed the direction of my journey, my career, where I was going, forever. and I would just like to read out, again with permission from Omer, his poem, that was shared with us on that first visit.

Refugee in the Jungle (Passionate in the Sea) - Mohammad Omer AKA The Dream

Blue, 

like the cloudless sky

on a sun-filled day

Soft, 

like the sleeping child 

in a rocking cradle

Voice,

like the sounds of grief

through her gritted teeth

Coffin,

like the skeleton carried

in my darkest, deepest sleep

Dream,

like the birth of my child

with a new mother tongue

Fear, 

like carrying a heaviness

over endless trials of fatigue

Hope,

of arriving in my home

where my tears are my own.

Omer was a Poet, a Linguist, he’d been to school, he had a family, he’d been to university. He, like so many others, had to leave his village because he was threatened that if he did not he would have to join the militia who would kill his family and other people in his village. 

This was someone who the first time I met him, with just the clothes on his back, invited us in to share his coffee. And it was that humanity, the humanity of someone with no material possessions, who shared everything, which touched me deep inside. 

And so I went back to Kent, and it started not to mean much anymore because here was an organisation which was part of a bigger government structure which was complicit in these injustices against humanity, because meanwhile a new ten million pound fence was being built between France and the UK in Calais, rather than ten million pounds being spent on finding solutions. 

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SLIDE 5: ‘The Lying Cockwombles v MILK cafe, a place of Welcome’ - Emma Barrett Palmer, London/Glasgow UK, 2016

Because this was happening… The politicians were creating a “hostile environment”. In my opinion, this was not about a “refugee crisis”, this was about a crisis of our humanitarian values, society’s humanitarian values and the people that we were seeing displaced by war and conflict and environmental changes were a symptom of our current system.

And so I continued to do another piece of research in Scotland, again finding more out about the procedural pathways of people both arriving into the the UK (building on the Reframing Migration work), their experiences of the services they received as they arrived in and the challenges around placement, moving and the “Home” office, although its not really a “Home” Office. 

And again and again, here were people that were legally, through international law, entitled to be protected and supported, and yet were being abandoned at the borders. And those that had managed to arrive into the country - to reach safety - were left “hanging” for months, years waiting for papers while often there was a deterioration of their mental health. People are still being put into Indefinite Detention and there are regular Illegal Deportations: where sometimes people arrive for a meeting and are then being arrested and deported.

So where the government infrastructure and larger agencies were failing, in contrast the community was stepping up. Community volunteers, activists, humanitarians, were filling the holes left by this failing infrastructure that should legally have been supporting people. And this is why I share with you with wonderful place in Govanhill, Glasgow, called MILK which represents this humanitarian movement and which epitomises for me a space where people are welcome, a space where people are able to start to pick up the pieces of their lives, people who have fled unimaginable conflict, can start to feel human again. 

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SLIDE 6: 'Sharing a meal on the Funny Farm’- Emma Barrett Palmer, Kent, UK, 2016

When we got a call from Omer at 1 am in the morning and he said “I’m in London”. What do you mean, you're in London. You made it! 

Because people wanting to claim asylum have to come onto British soil before they can make that claim. So people have to come across illegally if they don't have money to do so. So people have to come over hanging on under lorries, in the back of freezer lorries, its a terrible life - threatening risk. So actually it was very significant when we were reunited. A few months later we decided to host a welcome weekend at our home for our new friends. We did it with food, with music, we went to the beach, we had ice-cream. We went to a poetry festival.

And it was this relationship building which was where we realised that food really became somewhere that we could connect. Because food is more than the nutrients on your plate, food is the story, our history, our future, its our grandparents, our great-aunties, its a moment where you can actually feel yourself again. 

And so it at that point, the summer of 2016, that someone somehow in the ether got in touch and said we've got an old army catering tent would you like it? And suddenly what had become just a group of friends meeting and cooking together and sharing stories, took on a different aspect to it.. Within a few months we were invited to go to a Food Festival in Kent, and together we shared our friendships through food, and we had four demonstrations which we renamed cooking Showtimes because Abdulaziz said that the word demonstrations reminded him of the political demonstrations in Sudan.

So there we were using food as a connector, as a common ground, because actually this wasn't about people telling - being expected to tell - all the history that they had - instead it was just a moment to celebrate our shared humanity. 

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SLIDE 7: ‘Hope at Fifth School, Exarchia’ - Emma Barrett Palmer, Athens, GREECE, 2018

And then here we are in Greece in 2018. It seems pretty crazy now, but in early 2017 I realised I needed to find out more, I needed to know whether what was happening in Calais was just happening in Calais, or whether that was at every border in Europe. And for me, as I said at the beginning - chaos requires brave responses and courageous action. And so in 2017, my family - that is myself, my husband Sparky a chef, our 6 year old boy at the time and our Border Collie, left the UK. We put the tent on the top of the van, and we lived in our van for the next 16,000 miles. We didn't know that that van was going to survive the next 16,000 miles; we couldn't get any insurance, because no one insures for a trip where you don't know where you're going; we didn't have any funds because there wasn't time to do a crowd-fund: but we had goodwill. 

We had a lot of goodwill behind us, because everyone wants to make a difference, everybody wants to know, what can I do? I was at the Scottish government yesterday, sharing our journey and every single policy maker in that room said I want to make a difference, what can I do? 

Well this is what we could do. We wanted to use our skills, capabilities, experience, to actually do what we could. This picture is our final stop in Greece - this was a picture of hope - one of the squats in Exarcheia - an empty school, a public building, the door had to be knocked down. Because there were and are thousands of people arriving in to Greece, to Athens, with no where to live. So people are now living, families are now living in this old school, just one of many other places across the city. 

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SLIDE 8: ’Sixteen thousand mile journey from Calais to Greece in an ex-army catering tent repurposed for Peace’ - Emma Barrett Palmer, The Freedom Farm, GREECE, 2018

Exchanging Bread for Moonstone with Residents of Utopia

Healing with Real Remedies, Hot Baths and Chicken Broth

Eating like Kings and Queens out of bins

Crying with the Descendants of the victims of Auschwitz

Sharing poetry with Survivors of trafficking

Planting Seeds with Revolutionaries 

Cat-walking with Post-Capitalist Anarchists in Exarcheia

Hugging people who know how it feels to die

Realising how important it is to live.


And this is why when we travelled, when we went on this journey, it wasn’t planned. It was following the places where we needed to be, moments where we needed to be. and everywhere we went we documented our journey through the food that we ate and we called it recipes of HOPE. And everywhere we went we invited people to share food. If we could we would buy ingredients and the process of cooking together was how we built relationships, how we made friends. 
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SLIDE 9: 'Den Nye Havn - a new Harbour of HOPE in Denmark’ - Jørgen Bundsgaard, Aarhus, DENMARK, 2017

And we learned that across Europe in every one of the twelve countries that we went to, people, communities are welcoming those that are uprooted, people that are displaced, in every place that we went. This picture in Denmark where we collaborated with a wonderful project called Den Nye Havn which means The New Harbour, which had been set up by a Lawyer from Syria. He used to work for the UN while he was in Syria, but not allowed to work as a Lawyer in Denmark. So he set up this wonderful project which welcomes people and he described it as his world family. 

And actually I suppose The Welcome Tent is the methodology, because this is the space where people could be themselves, where people could choose how they wanted express themselves, food was the catalyst, that was how the relationships started but after that people could choose how much they wanted to be involved, how they participated, their choice, their timing, their moment. It was not planned, it was not predetermined, and most importantly a place where people could feel safe. 

Because not everyone wants to keep talking about what has happened to them, not everyone wants to keep recounting the bad parts of their story. I’d done the  research when I was back at Kent County Council, and the number of times people have to go to the same interview again and again and again and tell the same story, to how many different number of professionals again and again. And every time its a trigger. Well here we deliberately didn’t do that. There were no questions, no expectations -and in that space we met lawyers, teachers, shopkeepers, farmers, agricultural workers, students, children, all ages and backgrounds and everyone 'got it’. Someone described it as a home from home. whether it was two minutes or half an hour, or a whole day spent together, people got it.

Sometimes if you stand back, that is what enables connectivity, and that spontaneity is where the magic happens. 

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SLIDE 10: “Would you mind if I play?’ - Emma Barrett Palmer, Eindhoven, THE NETHERLANDS, 2017 

Spontaneity - how to create the conditions for spontaneous human connection. We didn’t know that piano player was going to turn up, but he did.

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SLIDE 11: “The House that Jacques Built’ - Emma Barrett Palmer, THE NETHERLANDS, 2017 

That was at Dutch Design Week in 2017 when we put the Tent up for the first time inside. We were invited to be part of Vreemdland which was a an exhibition hosted within a residential peoples home. A couple of years ago one of the residents said, this is my space, my home, but I don’t need all this, how can i share it with someone who needs it as much as I do. And he opened his doors - and he opened his doors and he had one student and another displaced person, and they came to live there, and this went really well. and the idea caught on and the whole of the residential block is now open door and so their canteen , their dining area, their art space, their sewing space, their music room with people who have nowhere else to go, people who are displaced and are looking for a new community to live in. 

We were living in the van outside, so we participated in the activities going on at Dutch Design Week, and then one night we were able to work with the people that we had met to prepare an Angolan Meal for eighty paying guests. Eighty people turned up and we actually smashed it; this was people that had never cooked together before in a professional sense, people who had lots going on outside the kitchen, but in the kitchen the team smashed it.  

That was in Eindhoven , and we continued the journey for another ten countries I think, but you’ll have to buy the book which I’m writing at the moment, to find out what happened in the other places. 

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SLIDE 12: ‘Press: If not us, then who?’ Emma Barrett Palmer - Eindhoven, THE NETHERLANDS, 2017

But then the following year at Dutch Design Week 2018, they launched their theme which was ‘If not us, then who?’ 

And that challenged me to ask myself, well OK, perhaps we could bring The Welcome Tent back to Dutch Design Week, but this time as something different. We would like to come with some of the people we had met the first year and come together as Evaluators, so that we can support your evaluation process. Because what we would like to do is make sure that ALL voices become part of the evaluation; we wanted to find ways to amplify voices that were less often heard in Evaluations. 

and we were given Press Passes - as you can see there me with Dawit. We weren’t paid, we didn’t have any budget and we slept on peoples floors. As I told you chaos and genuine innovation requires bravery. But we did it. 

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SLIDE 13: ’…I’ve totally got this’ - Emma Barrett Palmer - Eindhoven, THE NETHERLANDS, 2017 

and together we pushed through what was actually possible, and we decided to take a different approach - which was slightly wobbly riding on Refubikes sharing coffee with people, grabbing interviews on the street and in the exhibitions across the city. We spoke to a range of people we met during 4 days including representatives of the Dutch Design Week organising team and

(vid of cycling ..) You can see it was wobbly, but we managed to get out there, we used our existing networks, our existing platforms. and it was only in this way, by being authentic - but we weren’t trying to be anyone other than ourselves, and it was only in this way, that we met Muka. 

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SLIDE 14: 'MukaCariza - a little bit of luck’ - Emma Barrett Palmer - Eindhoven, THE NETHERLANDS, 2017 

Muka had been invited to Dutch Design Week by Jeanne Van der Beers to talk about her business, her range of accessories, her bags. and when we talked to Muka and she realised what we were trying to do, she seemed to change what she wanted to say. She had talked about her accessory range, she then said, today I would like to share something else, today I would like to share how I got here. 

My name is Muka, the mother of three children. I was born in Rwanda and adopted at twelve years by a Flemish family. I was paid for, it was like we were sweeties. 500 children taken from Rwanda to Belgium.

 MukaCariza is an amalgamation of two names of my original Rwandan (Africa) name. MukaCariza means "a little bit of luck" or "a push in the back”.

With MukaCariza I aim for independence and self-reliance. My designs consist of symbols that remind me of my childhood in Rwanda. The process of devising, designing and producing. My basis lies in thinking and designing. I get my inspiration from my childhood. I translate my memories from that time into my designs and try to apply them in fashion accessories.

My wishes and dreams for the future. To set up a sort of production company from my company, ultimately in Rwanda, for the local population. My biggest dream is that there is a MukaCariza product in every family.

And she was so brave to share that and she wanted me to share her story in my work. And the point I am making with that is that its not just about the output, its about the process, who’s in the room, how they got there, why they are there, their motivation. I don’t know what the trigger was for Muka to share that, but she shared that because she knew that is what we were trying to do.

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SLIDE 15: 'MukaCariza - where Africa meets Europe’ - Emma Barrett Palmer - Eindhoven, THE NETHERLANDS, 2018

MukaCariza takes you to Rwanda. To the sunset, fresh, bright and colourful, where the setting sun gives the beautiful green fields different shades of greens and yellow because of its light. And where the sunlight turns the water into indescribably beautiful blue tones. To Rwanda, where the sand and the earth turn red and orange through the same sun. MukaCariza brings you African warmth and colour in combination with European minimalism. MukaCariza, where Africa meets Europe.

Enjoy / Kwidagadura

And as I just said, this is about the process. And I want to tell you what happened next in our process. 

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SLIDE 16: ‘This is the truth’ - Emma Barrett Palmer - Eindhoven, THE NETHERLANDS, 2018

The next clip you may not be able to hear it very well, here is the transcript

And so I share Dawit in his own words: "This is the truth. I am from Ethiopia. I have been in Netherlands for 6 years. I am happy when I am together with people. That makes me happy. My ambition is one day , not to be famous , or to get lots of money, but just to be somebody. But if you don’t have any type of help, you will fall. And when you fall there is no one to pick you up”. 

Because my colleague at Dutch Design Week Dawit was also brought to The Netherlands, trafficked as a child against his will. And is still waiting for papers six years later because he cannot prove where he is from. And on his way home from Dutch Design Week, Dawit was arrested on the train because the police did not believe his truth. They did not believe his truth - they did not believe that he had been working with me at Dutch Design Week as an evaluator, they said its not possible, how could that be the truth? And so this is what he asked me to share in public.  

“I didn’t expect to be treated like that in a democratic country. These are things I only see in the movies, or in my own country. People need to know and wake the hell up. Everyone should be aware of how this is affecting our world. This is my first time arrested like this. Arrested on the train, thrown in jail, with no windows, no nothing. To hold me, without any convictions, without any problems. To be thrown in jail just because “we don’t know who you are”. At 3am they came in. We are taking your photo. We are taking you to another place at 5am. No sleep. My lawyer got me out the next day. I may have got lucky as I can speak the language fluently. What about others who don’t understand, who cannot explain. Now I am scared – everyday – to walk outside”.  Dawit Wolde Aregai, November 2018

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SLIDE 17: ‘Nobody’s free until everybody’s free’ - Emma Barrett Palmer, Mont Blanc, EUROPE, 2018

Dawit’s life changed forever on that day. and so when we think of designing for the future, we must truly comprehend the present. We must understand the context that we are working in. The injustices faced by humans, human beings all around us, rarely through fault of their own, but rather through the systemic structures that continue to oppress people and suppress people. We must acknowledge our civil duty of care to work harder to include and amplify voices that have been silent or silenced because we can talk about peace and inclusive practice but actually the structural and systemic oppression is still very much all around us. 

What happened to Dawit is an example of someone who is trying to contribute. Every single person who I met on the journey around Europe wanted to contribute, wanted to work or learn. Push back, know your place, know your place. And I share the words of Civil Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer: “Nobody is free until everybody is free” 

Because we are living in an age where there is enough evidence for Amnesty International to be certain that EU Leaders are complicit in the torture of refugees and migrants. 34,000 people have died in the Mediterranean in recent years. And I share a quote with you from Brendan Woodhouse, you may have seen him recently in the Fire Service in Nottingham, who spend his spare time volunteering in the Mediterranean, using his skills as a Fireman as a Rescue Worker to support and save people with SeaWatch. These are his words:

"Nobody can say that we did not know. Our politicians are completely complicit in this. And our people just shrug their shoulders and ignore their civil responsibility. We use our foreign aid budget to help make this happen. We buy the boats which capture and return people to slavery and torture, rape and persecution. We fund the detention centres where it happens. We turn a blind eye to organisations which say that it’s happening. We criminalise the NGOs which try to stop this happening. We remove the ships which will rescue the people trying to escape. We deny any responsibility in our funding of this happening at all. And our people too. Yes I’ll blame ordinary people.  Specifically, I blame the ones that write about their twisted beliefs, that there is an invasion. That they are something for us to be scared of. That somehow, all of this is justifiable”, Brendan Woodhouse, 2019

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SLIDE 18: ‘Walking from Afghanistan' - MyriamArt, Nottingham, UK, 2017

And I believe as a society we have huge questions to ask ourselves and reflect on about where we have come from, our colonial past and our colonial present, the presence of White Supremacy and growing fascism and how we continue to fund our infrastructure, where we are headed and how we want to get there. Because every single person hat we met has their own unique journey, a life, a family, a story, a dream. whether they be someone who has been displaced by conflict or someone who has left their comfortable life - an activist, a volunteer, someone using their own time to contribute, to support people in times of need. 

This was a live illustration drawn at the UK Welcome Tent in Nottingham in 2017, we documented it through illustration. This is the journey of Gulwali Passarlay - I recommend you read his book The Lightless Sky. he left Afghanistan as a child refugee and arrived into Kent and the authorities did not believe the age that he said he was. This remarkable man has just received a degree in International Politics, and set up his own organisation called My Bright Kite.

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SLIDE 19: ‘Universal Language of Smile’ - Emma Barrett Palmer, The Freedom Farm, GREECE, 2018

And throughout the year, I've talked about food, poetry, I've talked about music, I've shared music, I think there are languages that are universal. There are ways that we can communicate that absolutely cut across the boundaries, the borders that have been predefined for us, that we have been told we need to stay within. 

This for me is the universal language of ‘Smile’. This is Daniel. Daniel experienced the harshness of arriving as a young, single man into Athens. But this was his moment, this was his moment to jump out the tree, to swing form the branches. This was at the Freedom Farm, a farm in Greece which has been set up 200 acres, a collaboration between the local Greek community and the displaced community, because the people that were arriving into Athens said, we don’t want to be reliant on charity, we don’t want to be reliant on handouts, we want to grow our own food. And so they have set up the Refugee Farm for Freedom which we will be going to back to later this year and hope to be able to continue to support. 

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SLIDE 20: ‘Recovery journeys’ Emma Barrett Palmer, The Freedom Farm, GREECE, 2016

Because I believe that every one of us, if supported in the right way - whether as an individual or community - we can find our own sense of freedom through creative expression. There are ways to recover and it is that recovery where the strength lies, we need to acknowledge that there are huge systemic problems but unless we do something  - unless we start to try and figure out the how - nothing is going to change. I am also someone who has experienced recovery, having lived with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after the birth of my child. Its not easy. But I think we can learn from people who have been through extremely difficult circumstances because they are the toughest, most resilient, strongest people and communities on the planet. They are the ones that have lived through this, that are still living through this. These are the people that still dare to dream, believing in a hopeful future. 

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SLIDE 21: ‘Culture Clash’ - @WeMightyWomen, 2019

I started with: ‘How do we decolonise design? I’m not saying that is colonial, I’m far from saying that. But rather we must acknowledge and continue to fight against colonial values which I share here. We must continue to amplify the positive and genuine inclusive practice thats based on fairness, which aims to repair and replenish relationships, which challenges inequalities and which enables equitable participation. This slide has been kindly shared by @wemightywomen adapted form a list from the Seven Grandfather Teachings from the Anishinaabe Nation, an indigenous community. 

I'm talking about the kind of authentic design that is needed to build up from the rubble, the kind of design that is so solid in values that you can build a community out of sand. 

…………

SLIDE 22: ‘Which voices are missing from your work?’ - humanKINDER, 2019

So I would like you to ask yourself, which voices are missing from your work? How can you use your privilege and platform to amplify these voices? And how can you hand over the mic? Because this is not about us, this is about passing the mic so we can listen to others. and what I’ve shared today has been achieved after years of relationship building, but I believe understanding our collective context is vital for any future. 

………..

SLIDE 23: ‘Make a wish’ - Emma Barrett Palmer - Glasgow, SCOTLAND, 2016

Thank You. 

QUESTIONS…

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No one will be left behind...

In Geneva at the Department of the Director General for a meeting with the Sustainable Development Goals Lab to share humanKINDER’s mission, purpose and aspiration to amplify silenced voices for systems change. The SDG Lab was the brainchild of Director General Micheal Moller in 2016 - who together with the results of a mapping exercise by the International Institute for Sustainable Development - recognised that the organisation needed to move from single focus to look across all issues, finding solutions across systemic horizons. This hybrid innovation lab model sits in the office of the Director General and has all the benefits that come with that, but significantly does not have to adhere to legal protocols which gives it more flexibility. 

Peace, United Nations in Geneva, May 2019

Peace, United Nations in Geneva, May 2019

Before the SDGs, the UN aspired to the Millennial Development Goals, but with a focus on just “developing countries”: this unsurprisingly caused a divide. The SDGs are now applicable to all countries in the world - an approach which very much resonates with the whole systems approach of humanKINDER. They encompass a framework to address many of the themes emerging during last week’s World Health Assembly - gender, equality, empowerment, communities  - which are held precious to us at humanKINDER too.

The SDG Lab regularly hold ‘So What’ sessions which explore a couple of goals and their interrelationship in depth. For example Peace & Development or Gender & Sustainability. A main focus is bridging boundaries and building bridges - sometimes literally - in programmes of work which cut across different departments and areas of work. For example a recent project brought together members of the private financing district on the left bank of Lake Leman in Geneva together with professionals from the UN offices on the right bank. It had been a challenge to bring these two together, notably across the divide of water, but now they have a successful new programme of work which is already seeing new products in the fields of impact investing and blended finance models for good. 

The SDG Lab approach very much reminded me of my work in SILK, and notably the challenges of working using design-principles for horizontal human-centred work within the context of siloed teams/organisations/cultures/industries. It was reaffirming to share experiences, limitations and possibilities within this context, sharing the reasons why I felt it important to 'break out' from the institutional setting in order to go TO people rather than expect them to come to us.

For us at humanKINDER it is particularly important to understand what the SDG Lab and the UN mean by ‘inclusion’. We discussed this in depth within the framework of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Transforming our World; notably the pledge from 193 countries to ensure that “no one will be left behind”.

It was and inspiring and intriguing in similar measure inside the Palais des Nations, notably the historical weight of the Council Chamber where the League of Nations had first convened and where the walls were covered with the incredible works of Catalan artist José Maria Sert: studies of War and Peace, Progress of Humanity, Justice and International Law.

Mural by Catalan artist José Maria Sert, League of Nations Council Chamber

Mural by Catalan artist José Maria Sert, League of Nations Council Chamber

Source: www.humanKINDER.UK

Word on the street from 72nd World Health Assembly, Geneva, May 2019

Last week I was in Geneva for some of the side events at the 72nd World Health Assembly. The WHA is the supreme decision-making body for the World Health Organisation, attended by delegations from all 194 member states. There was big buzz around the event as people from all over the world convene to discuss global health solutions in our current turbulent world.

I was there to network, discover and test out some humanKINDER concepts against the ideas presented here, taking full advantage of all the great minds and organisations hosting side events at the WHA72. The days proved fruitful, providing plenty of contextual information for a couple of collaborative bids we have in the pipeline, one for Dundeed and the other an application for a panel at SWSX 2020 in the US next year. 

I often find the side ‘chat’ equally revealing and this time proved no different. In the street outside the Palais des Nations: “you know the reason they have the fountains in the square in front of the United Nations is to stop the protestors…” But the water did not stop the good people of Venezuala and Kurdistan who I saw one day out in force in front of the Palais Gates. Another day a very loud and disturbing mobile phone conversation from a self proclaimed Christian Fundamentalist - with “full coverage of the US airwaves" - which made my jaw drop. That moment was perhaps the closest I have had into first-hand insight of the moral blindness which evidently accompanies such fundamentalist thinking.

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Financing sustainable community health for all: the importance of Women Leaders, WHA72, Geneva

The trip started with a superb evening session celebrating and making the case for 'Financing Sustainable Community Health for All: The Importance of Women Leaders' organised by a partnership between Centre for Global Health and Diplomacy, Communities at the heart of UHC, Living Goods, Last Mile Health and the What to Expect Project.  The key message, which was emphasised by the Honourable Dr Ruth Aceng, Minister of Health for Uganda was that universal health coverage begins and ends in the communities. The first thing she did was emphasise the importance of listening and learning from the experiences of the frontline community health workers from Liberia and Uganda who had been first to speak.

Dr Aceng was keen to point out that there is a limit to voluntarism. Everyone wants to be able to put food on the table. This is what we are pushing for in Africa to the government. The community health workers must be a paid workforce. A motivated workforce, but with the support of complimentary volunteers. Emphasising the critical role of women she said that when they are fired up they will get things moving. Really pleased to hear that this week she has received a Heroine of Health Award from Women in Global Health.  

Geetha Tharmaratnam Partner for Africa and Head in Impact for LGT Impact shared an key insight that  where women are 30% more in senior leadership, these investments have outperformed. She said it is clear that the numbers and principles speak for themselves. Marie-Ange Saraka-Yao  raised close to $18 billion US dollars for Gavi between the years of 2011-2015. Our bottom line is saving lives she explained, explaining her work in setting up innovation incubators, raising funds for vaccinations, and testing the use of drones for the delivery medical essentials across Africa. Her closing words: Believe in your vision, be audacious, be innovative and be bold. 

The following morning I attended a Breakfast panel hosted by the World Economic Forum and chaired by Marie-Ange (Gavi) to explore Globalisation 4.0: shaping the future of health and healthcare. One of the opening remarks which had particular resonance with me in light of my own recent experiences travelling Europe with The Welcome Tent, was from Sir Jeremy Farrar, Director of The Wellcome Trust. The British passport comes with uncertainty and circumstances which now seem beyond our control, but which we profoundly regret.

Yet it was pleasing to hear that despite that weighted comment, he had chosen to focus on reemphasising the positives. Look at the progress we have made. The global health community are good at focussing on the challenges rather than on the progress. Don’t underestimate the ingenuity of people and communities… the youth, the drive the energy. Don’t give into the populist agenda. 

Nancy Brown Chief Executive Officer of the American Heart Assocation said that many in the US are troubled by the inequities of the healthcare system and Marie-Ange responded that in her recent experience travelling around the world there is a now a common aspiration in every country for equal access to health care. 

Farid Fezoua, President and CEO , GE Africa and GE Healthcare Africa said it is essential to engage commercial lenders/donors in different ways, notably PPPs in Africa especially Kenya demonstrate an appetite for this approach. He shared a programme of work focussing on the task shifting and education of midwives to address maternal and newborn health, explaining how technology can be leveraged to break down the barriers of distance and cost by focussing on design. 

The Director General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control emphasised the importance of agile leadership and financial savings where dispersed teams can prevent small outbreaks from turning into big outbreaks. Investing in a network of people as leaders, across the space - teams that can think, react and respond enables the optimisation of staff across the network. He reflected that of course this approach should expect some resistance from the status quo as it goes against the hierarchy and warned that change will not happen overnight. This issue particularly resonated with my experiences leading SILK in the UK, the first social innovation lab within UK government.  

His final heartfelt comment was significant. When receiving an invite from a group of young people in the organisation, he realised that the under 35s were organising a forum to support themselves, outside working hours. This nearly brought tears to my eyes he said because they are realising the responsibility that they have, realising that they have to have the confidence and competence to lead themselves.

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I next took a side step away from ‘Health’ into our other current field of work supporting and amplifying the experiences of displaced and refugee communities across Europe. If there was one criticism that could be leveraged against the WHA72 was that there was not enough diversity in the disciplines represented… With my social innovation hat on, I imagined what potential there could be if multiple perspectives - social scientists, urban planners, gamers etc - could all be brought together around global health issues.

It seemed rather appropriate that one of the first things I saw at the UN Refugee Agency was a photo of the refugee that is Einstein.

We cannot solve problems using the same thinking we used when we created them

Albert Einstein

I was glad to be able to attend an educational workshop led by Luc Brandt, Special Advisor, about his role and activities for the UNHCR. He shared a film about the history of the organisation, the legal framework for displaced and refugee communities and his personal experiences of working on the ground in Burundi. His talk was in French, of course, as Geneva is in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the one comment that really stood out for me and which I wholeheartedly agree with was “le système est en crise”. This was my first, but definitely not the last time I plan to visit.

Next I found myself in another building with iconic humanitarian status, the Museum of the Red Cross, for the launch of Prevention in an Ageing World by Baroness Greengross, the CEO of the International Longevity Centre, UK. The story behind the museum is fascinating and significant in humanitarian history. While on a business trip to secure a water concession with Napoleon III in Italy, Henry Dunant a Swiss Businessman found himself near the site of the Battle of Solferino on 24th June, 1859. Deeply shocked by the state of the wounded, and the fact no one was coming to their aid, he decided to treat them with the help of the local population ensuring each person was given the same care, regardless of their nationality. His memoirs inspired the creation of the International Commitee of the Red Cross (source Céleste magazine, Beau-Rivage, 2019).

Source: Céleste magazine, Beau-Rivage, 2019

Source: Céleste magazine, Beau-Rivage, 2019

Next was a Panel Discussion at the beautiful Beau-Rivage Hotel with its 160 Angels overlooking Lake Leman, hosted by Alzheimer’s Disease International and discussing why we all need to do more about dementia. Paolo Barbarino, CEO of ADI shared their new report From Plan to Impact II, the urgent need for action.

A highlight for me was a heartfelt presentation from Dr Salih Ali Al-Marri, Deputy Minister @MOPHQatar who shared his personal experiences of family members living with dementia. I can always feel their emotions whenever they are happy or whenever they are feeling their ups and downs. Dr Al-Marri has been the driving force behind Qatar being the first country in the world to have a National Dementia Strategy and Plan adopted after being a pilot country in the World Health Organisation Global Observatory in 2015.

Sharing The Dementia Diaries at WHA72

Sharing The Dementia Diaries at WHA72

From Plan to Impact II: the urgent need for action, Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2019

From Plan to Impact II: the urgent need for action, Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2019

From Plan to Impact II: the urgent need for action, Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2019

From Plan to Impact II: the urgent need for action, Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2019

From Plan to Impact II: the urgent need for action, Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2019

From Plan to Impact II: the urgent need for action, Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2019

The prevalence of dementia is not diminishing and it was this point that was captured so eloquently in the concluding remarks from Australian Kate Swaffer, Human Rights Activist and Founder of Dementia Alliance, the global voice of dementia, an international advocacy agency run by and for people living with Dementia.

We want to see action, not reports that sit on shelves

Kate Swaffer, Founder Dementia Alliance

Because for people living with dementia, their families and their loved ones, every day and every moment counts. Kate added that optimism is really important and that we must never give up - if Edison had given up we wouldn't have lights on in this room. It was a real honour to meet Kate and find out she already has a copy of our beloved book The Dementia Diaries which was co-developed with the grandchildren of people living with dementia in Kent, UK in 2013. We are currently working with Sophie Okolo to find a way to get this life-affirming educational resource into every school in California, US.

Source: Céleste magazine, Beau-Rivage, 2019

Source: Céleste magazine, Beau-Rivage, 2019

But it was only the next day after leaving this magical hotel that when reading the Beau-Rivage Hotel Magazine I found out something truly remarkable. Eleanor Roosevelt had actually drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights while temporarily living there in the 1940s. Wow.

I had picked up the magazine because rather fortuitously I spent those days in Geneva without a mobile phone. Because in our current world of chaos - information, data, fake news, institutionalisation, viruses, crashes - I have found myself caught up and sucked in by the screen. So I found it hugely helpful - liberating even - to remove myself from this and find myself next to a statue of Gandhi sitting and contemplating quietly in the park facing the gates of the Russian Embassy with the Palais des Nations over his shoulder.

May your actions speak so loud that I cannot hear what you are saying

Honourable Dr Ruth Aceng Minister of Health for Uganda

Photograph by Emma Barrett Palmer

Photograph by Emma Barrett Palmer

Source: www.humanKINDER.UK

The Dementia Diaries, finding its feet in Los Angeles, California.

Great to talk this week with Matthew Snyman and Sophie Okolo, calling in from France, UK and Los Angeles, California.

Watch this space for a revival of our groundbreaking resources for families living with dementia, with particular acknowledgement of the growing number of younger carers - notably millennials - who are finding themselves in caring roles for their loved ones in our ageing society.

You can see a short film of the families who kindly shared their stories and participated in the project advisory and editorial board here.

The specification we received at the time from young carers of family members with dementia was: “we want something like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, where the facts are true and the feelings are real”. Thanks Jack, we hope we did justice to your original words.

We are so proud that this project - the book and learning resource for children, families, communities and society - will now be finding its feet in the United States. If you are interested in collaborating, or able to offer any financial support for these next steps, we would love to hear from you.

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