March 2008
The fact is, we're not just walking the talk. We're also singing it, dancing it and generally prancing about with it.
Turn On Turn Off
She sells sustianable seafood on Mudcakes mean malnutrition
the Sainsbury's shop floor
Electrodes, Ecotricity and Energy
The latest chapter of the Otesha UK Handbook is sailing off into the wide seas of the world web. It’s about energy use in the home. We need all hands on deck (or keyboards) to fill our sails with energy saving shanties and the salty air of off shore wind. That’s extended metaphor code for "we want your stories about how you do or don’t use energy in your home". Read the book and get energised here and please do submit your stories here. If you were taken with any of our previous themes (Food, Money and Fashion) but didn’t quite get your opposable thumbs in gear to get anything in an email, never fear, we’d still love to read your tales on those themes too.
We’re all going on a Summer Holiday
And a fantastic one at that. One that’ll take us up and down and around the UK on our bikes with a bunch of other tikes. On the way we’ll be taking in some festivals, visiting some schools and delivering such delights as our very own play and some wicked workshops. If you’re 18-25 and want to come with (or you’re too old/ young/ out of shape to manage the ride but know someone who does) read more here.
Help us spread the word! Take a second to download our poster and splash it all around town.
The Diet of Fife
As a rule, we’re anti-diet. But we recently happened across the Fife Diet, of which we are fans, maybe even groupies. It’s a local food experiment in, unsurprisingly, Fife and a celebration of all things good and local rather than an drab diet of denial. Read all about this group of locavores as they discover if they can get through the year enjoying only the fruits Fife. Then gather together some local friends and food to eat, drink and be merry.
Wards Corner Community Coalition
Over to Tottenham, north London. Them in the community, not being too pleased with the council's’ plans to demolish the market and build a high-rise flats (a gated community no less- boo) and shopping precinct (double boo), have come up with an alternative plan. View the alternative community development plans here. Better still, sign their petition here.
Otesha ponders…
Why, when even the most careless, carnivorous consumers wouldn’t consider buying eggs laid by caged hens, it’s still the norm to find battery chickens in shops, supermarkets, cafés and restaurants? Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall is taking on the intensive chicken farming industry, and on TV no less. 27% of egg production in the UK is free range but the same applies to less than 5% of chickens bred for meat. It would seem that in this instance, the egg did come first.
And finally...
This month we’re excited about Cornelia Parker's interview with the writer Noam Chomsky, on show at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London throughout March.
Hope that was enough Otesha to see you through the next four weeks.
Jo, Barbora, Doudou & Liz
The Otesha Project UK
www.otesha.org.uk
P.S. We want to know what turns you on and what turns you off, where you've been and where you're going next. Drop us a line, we might even put you in our next newsletter.