Zinthiying Quetzal
Freedom Time - Revisited
September is always a special month. It is the beginning of the artistic season. In our family, it was always the month when my father would also present a new production.
For the first time, In September, this year, I am delivering a show - an exhibition to be exact called Stories of Change.
My brother is also opening the season with.a play called Catch! at Le Theatre de La Tempete directed by Clement Poiree and I shall join him in October to watch him.
The old man would be proud!
So yes, I feel supra connected to him this month at so many different levels.
On the 6th September 2018, I wrote an article called Freedom Time - We heard you. about a message my father passed to me and my mother in his cloud. The article included my response to his message.
He said: 'Why do you stay at home? You and Marie Toto. You have to come out of the house sometimes if you want to start collaborating with people.''
My response in summary was "at home I can be the whole me'', yet finished the article by saying that '' I heard you and I'll come out of my shell more, get my voice heard and become as organised as those waging the war of minds''
Now, I can say that I can collaborate from home, got my voice heard and that both inside and outside I am whole.
I pleased to say that a lot has changed since writing this article in my psyche and spirit. It is nice though to be reminded that our place for both my mother and I is outside of our house so we can find new collaboration to get our story and ideas to be heard.
Not at home...
Listen Lauryn Hill, Freedom Time
Lightseekers
Lightseekers is a creative social enterprise that uses photography and storytelling as a platform to learn about and engage with important social issues. They specialise in cross-cultural education and deliver thought provoking programmes to low-income areas, where creative engagement is low and students are likely to experience exclusion and discrimination.
How did I get involved with Lightseekers?
I started Yoga in 2019 while finishing my doctorate and I met Kajal Nisha Patel, founder of Lightseekers and yoga teacher at Nilu.Yoga. The rest is history. We became friends and collaborators through the Breaking the Silence Initiative at Quetzal. Over the pandemic, we discussed in great details the impacts of poor mental health on wellbeing and physical health. Through our discussion, a project started emerging that will become Ways to Wellbeing - a 9 online session programme providing the tools and knowledge to communities to enhance their wellbeing. She invited me to become a director at Lightseekers in 2021 and we delivered the project that same year.
Activities
2021
- Ways to Wellbeing
- Bhensexplaining Kitty Party
Learn more about Lightseekers
Academic Papers and Thesis
- Lefebvre, Marie; Lofthouse, Vicky; Wilson, Garrath (2018): Towards a circular economy: exploring factors to repair broken electrical and electronics products by users with pro-environmental inclination. Loughborough University. Conference contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/34474
- Lefebvre, Marie (2019): To repair or not to repair: an investigation of the factors influencing prosumer repair propensity. Loughborough University. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.26174/thesis.lboro.11365325.v1
Publishing Publishing Publishing
Climate Action Leicester Leicestershire, Climate Vigil Invitation Saturday 21st 12-1pm
- Climate Action Leicester Leicestershire for the launch of their Climate vigil on Saturday 21st 12-1pm at the Clock Tower, Gallowtree Gate in Leicester.
- The vigil are silent, wearing Black or White, and are to show and signal that local groups care and stand together about the issue of climate change and are concerned for all the people and places suffering from climate change across the world.
- Are you joining?
Mentoring is critical for leadership development
Ways To Wellbeing
Ways to Wellbeing is a 9 online session programme delivered by Lightseekers in May 2021 featuring 10 practitioners
The project aimed to equip communities with techniques, knowledge and information to support individuals and communities in their journey towards better mental, physical, social, environmental and spiritual wellbeing.
The project was funded by Near Neighbours.
Quetzal
Quetzal is a charity supporting female survivors of childhood sexual abuse aged 16 and above living in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland
More about the project
- visit Quetzal website
- Read our latest blog posts related to the project
- Quetzal on social media
- Update by Marlefeed
- Breaking the Silence Initiative 2019-2022
- Service Improvement
- Quetzal Heartbeat
- Event production
- Community Awareness-Raising Session
- Programme
- Breaking The Silence Initiative
- Resource design and development
- Self-Help Guide
- Quetzal Website
- Fundraising Campaigns
- Crush the Hush Covid-19 Edition
- Communication Campaign
- Let's Talk About Sexual Violence Online Exhibition Launch
- White Ribbon 2020
- Service Improvement
- Lamplight
- Event Production
- Bhensexplaining Kitty Party
- Breaking the Silence Key Learning Webinar
- Community discussion about what we can do better to support South Asian Female Survivors
- Ways To Wellbeing 9 session online programme
- Fundraising Campaign
- Crush The Hush with A Brush
- London Landmarks Marathon 2022
- Video Production
- Stories of Change Video
- Programmes
- Breaking the Silence Initiative 2019-2022
- Service Improvement
- Lamplight Implementation
- Quetzal Heartbeat 2
- Group Workshop
- Queen and I art project
- NCS Crush the Hush with a Brush - Mural at Quetzal
- Fusion Event
- Event Production
- Quetzal Stories of Change Exhibition
- Alive & Kicking Female in Coalville
- Queen and I Art Display & Exhibition
- Breaking the Silence Evaluation Webinar
- Video Production
- New Service Videos
- Programmes
- Breaking the Silence Initiative 2019-2022
- Leicestershire Outreach
- We will not be Silent
- Crush the Hush 16-24-year-old programme
- Fundraising Campaigns
- London Landmarks Half-Marathon
- Pay it Forward
- London Landmarks Marathon 2022
- Service Improvement
- Translate
- Improving Access to Psychotherapy for female survivors of childhood sexual abuse
-
Bitty Adrien
- 1995-2005
- Actor,
- Acting in various plays over Les Rencontres à La Cartoucherie de Vincennes
- Mefiez Vous de La Pierre à Barbe written by Ahmed Madani
- Le Songe d'une Nuit d'éte by Shakespeare
- 2009
- Communication & PR Assistant, Théatre de La Tempête
- Assistant, Poetry Event by Nazim Hikmet, with Carolyn Carlson directed by Philippe Adrien
- Exhibition for Eugénie Bitty, Maison de Houphouet Boigny, Paris
- 2021
- June, Collective Exhibition, Expo 3 Femmes 3 Artistes 3 Axes, Maison Muller, Paris
- December, Exhibition Solo, La Maison d'à Côté, Théatre de l'Épée de Bois, Cartoucherie de Vincennes, Paris
- December, Christmas Market with Eugénie Bitty Creation
- C'est Beau et C'est Triste à La Fois, lecture
Meeting with FlowFinder
Leicester Fixers met this week with FlowFinder to discuss areas of focus and next steps to consolidate what has been and do better moving forward.
In the next few months, Leicester Fixers will do the following activities:
- redefine their vision, mission, objectives and value with the input of all the fixers. Here is a first draft
- Consider their delivery focus against their aims, objectives, funding streams and operations
- Develop their delivery plans
Leicester Fixers
Leicester Fixers is a community of citizens that work together to mend the broken, reduce waste going into landfills, and campaign for the right to repair. We operate under the umbrella of Transition Leicester which aims to create more resilient and sustainable communities.
They do this by
- Sharing tips and suggestions on how to repair
- Promoting repair and upcycling businesses
- Organising Restart Parties and Festival - e.g. Green Festival of Making and Mending
- Delivering Outreach Programme to support citizens to start their own repair group - e.g. Leicestershire Community Repair Outreach Programme
- Delivering presentations and talks to inspire others to start their own repair community
- Contributing to research and discussion about the Right to Repair and the factors influencing prosumers to repair
- Delivering training and workshops
- Participating in National and International Days of Repair
- Founding Leicester Fixers
- Designing and delivering Leicester Fixers Restart Parties
- Green Festival of Making and Mending
- Restart Parties at the Leicester Hackspace
- Outreach in Leicester Wards
- Leicestershire Outreach
- Leicester Fixers Website
- St Matthews Big Green Swap Shop
Give us your views on the first draft of Leicester Fixers vision, mission, objectives and values
- To make repair always the best, easiest, cheapest option for citizens and their broken items in Leicester
- To empower individuals and organisations to repair and mend in Leicester
- Reduce Carbon Emissions
- Increase number of items repaired
- Improve Communities Connection and Wellbeing
- Improve Individual and Community Training
- Achieve Financial Sustainability
- Fairshare,
- People Care
- Earth Care
- Embrace an asset-based community approach where all are recognised and identified as having a gift that they can share with their community
About sending emails on Monday
I was asked to provide an update about My Monday Email Run
It is now my third week sending only emails on Monday. It remains very rewarding, though it is long stretch of work.
Today, I started replying to emails at 6am this morning. It is now 9pm and I am on the last stretch dealing with my personal emails. Why did it take me all that long? Well today, I changed slightly my schedule. I had a meeting with a coach to support Leicester Fixers - Durgha from Flow Finder (a bit about this in this Last Update). It meant that 3hours of my time were dedicated to travelling, chatting, planning and more.
Writing emails on Mondays also include writing articles, newsletters as well as updating websites including Quetzal and Marlefeed plus doing a bit of design work. It is required since I want to update my teams about upcoming events and resources to share. I am working towards writing most of the content to send on Monday - On Thursday instead so I can reduce the workload for Monday.
Once my Monday run is done. I have way more time to dedicate to writing, meeting with people and planning and I am well grateful for this.
During the week, I check my emails once a day between 12-1pm. If there is anything urgent, I reply straight away otherwise I snooze an email until the following week. If I have a meeting or discussion and I am invited to send an email to someone and it is not urgent, I use my asana and write that I need to send an email on Monday to so and so.
So this it, my update about My Monday Email Run.
I hope you find it useful
Marlene Reid Centre with Quetzal
Eugenie Bitty Arts - Developing Collaboration
Tools with Leicester Fixers
Leicester Stories: What conversations and discussions did you have with people living and working in Leicester?
Dr Rob Watson interviewed me as part of Leicester Stories series #BuildBackBetter in July 2021. Prior to the interview, he sent me few questions for me to prepare the interview and start thinking about what it means to Build Back Better post-pandemic. In the following post, I answer one of the questions augmented after reflecting upon the interview
R: I’d like to know what conversations and discussions people living and working in Leicester had during the lockdown, especially when these conversations started to focus on the idea of Building Back Better?
Through the lockdown, my discussion were upon the tools available to people to support their mental health and connections with others. In a trauma-informed programme, the first steps are stabilisation and regulation. In other words, if someone is in a state of shock, the first step is to ground them and help them manage their emotions. In our community, we experienced first hand what it is to be in a state of shock during the pandemic having experienced a health scare. Thankfully, we had access to alternative healing practices as well therapeutic and clinical support through this experience. We did everything in my power to navigate trauma and grow from it. This is not true for the everyone during the pandemic. At Quetzal, we did our best by providing counselling support remotely to female survivors. Many could not access it as they did not have the privacy within their home to receive the support they so much need it.
During the lockdown, I also had long conversation with Kajal Nisha Patel about what is to build trauma-informed communities, what are the tools, skills and abilities one need to acquire and more. Through the discussion, we eventually built a project called - Ways to Wellbeing - a 9 online session programme - to equip communities with the tools to take care of their wellbeing which we delivered in May 2021.
Another important conversation during the lockdown was how do we pass information when the access to the most low tech technology is limited. How do I create connections when I cannot visit people and speak to them directly. My uncle Emile Biti Abi fascinated by the Malian Empire told me that if we wanted to get information to reach Rome, we could just by using word of mouth. Sharing information with others is the most noble and caring things one can give to others, we do not need need high technology for this. Thankfully, community radios, social media and the telephone were accessible and we made the most of it.