Footpaths Leicester

Footpaths Leicester is a way for people to meet and support each other to reduce their personal carbon footprints. It offers a structured, supportive and fun environment in which people can work out what they want to change in your life to reduce your carbon footprint - and a community of like minded people to do it with. 

They provide a structure course of eight meetings with two facilitators and people to do it with. Beyond the course, Footpaths provide support to support people to continue on improving their personal carbon footprint, through one off events, workshops and get together.

How did I get involved with Footpaths Leicester?

I wanted to find out how grassroots organisation support people through change to facilitate the transition towards a sustainable system of consumption and production. It was after joining Transition Leicester and starting a Positive Money project to improve literacy about the money system that I eventually met with Zina Zelter, founder of Footpaths Leicester. 

What did I do with Footpaths Leicester?

I trained to become a facilitator for the Footpaths course, I delivered a eight course sessions. I also collaborated to design and deliver two money workshops. Finally, one of our biggest project was the Green Festival of Making and Mending which led to the creation of Leicester Fixers. I also carried out a survey at the festival for my doctoral thesis about the factors influencing prosumer repair propensity.

An important thing I did with Footpaths is work on reducing my carbon footprint. I reduced my meat, electricity and water consumption. I started growing my own food and take up on cycling. I also joining a bulk buying group to buy ethical food in bulk. A doctoral thesis by Fisher (2014) measuring the impacts of Footpaths course on personal carbon footprint demonstrated long term behaviour change in participants who continued making efforts in reducing their carbon footprint outside of the course setting. I can confirm that is true as I continue as of today to find ways to reduce my carbon footprint further.

It was a great experience to be part of Footpaths Leicester as I developed my skills both as a teacher and facilitator as well as a project manager

To Learn more about Footpaths Leicester

Their Facebook Page

This is a blog for you if

This is blog is for you if you are serving families, mother, father, children in Leicestershire to
- To take care of what we have in common: The planet
- To encourage them to be open and inclusive of others
- To support them in sharing their gifts for the local economy to be more resilient.

If you tick more than one of this boxes, i am inviting you
- To Get inspired by the stories of people who are in Leicestershire trying to enact change and empowered people to direct their lives
- To share those stories to people around you so they can get inspired
- To submit your story.

Why? Because the power of stories can change the world as long as they are shared widely.

So get sharing!

About me

My name is Marie. I live in Leicestershire since 2012. In my first year of arrival, i engaged with Transition Leicester, Positive Money and Footpaths Leicester. I ran the positive money leicester group.  I organised events, a discussion group and the Money workshop to help people reflect upon their relationship with money. I also train as a facilitator to run a Footpaths group to support group and families to reduce their carbon footprint. End of 2014, Zina Zelter from Footpaths and I, we decided to run a year of events culmutating into a day of festival: The Green Festival of Making and Mending. From the festival, Leicester Fixers emerged and has been running Restart Parties since May 2015. In 2018, The project received a grant from Leicestershire County Council to help set up 6 repair communities across Leicestershire. It is currently the main project I am working on.

Apart from those projects, I work and study. I freelance for The Crop Club a social enterprise which supports people to grow food. I have a certificate in Permaculture and teaches from time to time at the Permaculture course in Leicester. I am also a doctorate from Loughborough Design School. My thesis is on the factors influencing user repair propensity. I support students with their work.

Outside of it all, i am a keen dancer (salsa), a beginner violonist, i draw with wax crayons and garden. I live with my husband, embrace our mixed heritage and spend lot of time with our family.

in facilitating a Footpaths Leicester grouprun projects to engage family's members with different communities of knowledge and this mainly through events.

The blog provide an account of the progress of some of the projects and how you can get involved and it features different initiatives in Leicestershire that engage the public on enbironmental and social

Facilitation training

We will be holding our next Footpaths facilitation training on the 12th and 13th Jan, possibly in Leicester, maybe elsewhere. If you know anyone in some other part of the country who would be interested in finding the people for and facilitating a Footpaths group, please do give them my phone number (0116 2899074) or direct them to our website ( http://www.leicesterfootpaths.org.uk ).

Blacklist

It may be time to create a blacklist of companies to avoid and definitely refuse to  work for:
- Those which are more than 3 miles than my home
- Those which does not allow me to work from home
- Those which does not allow me to work fewer hours
- Those which pollute with no sorry
- Those with negative employee reviews
- Those which do not design products that are repairable
- Those which do not put the wellbeing of their staff first
what else, add to the list

Mustard Seed Gathering - Are you a gardener or a litterer

I went to the beach with approximately 500 people who were all part of the same community of church goers from the Mustard Seed Chapel International

It was my first time witnessing how church communities organise themselves and I was well impressed by the community feel, the love and support they give to one another.
I found myself with people coming from different corners of England to meet on Bridlington Beach in North Yorkshire.

The beach was beautiful and calm as we arrived. Before we knew it, music was blasting, children were laughing, waste was everywhere to be found, barbecues were smoking.

Pure process of destruction before my eyes.

At the day drew to an end and the fellows left the beach. Their presence was still felt as we could find plastic bags, food, children toys everywhere.

I was disappointed and groaned: ''How unthoughtful?''

I liaised back the information to my friend and her leader.

I was met with the questions '' Are you an environmentalist? ''

I paused...

''Most people do not think environmentally..''

 I answered

''Most people thought that church goers were the most thoughtful and wise individuals respecting the planet on which they are on and their fellow humans...Aren't you the gardeners of the eden park growing and harvesting the souls?... dear friend, it is becoming dry, hell on earth is coming!''

Part 3: No Water to Draw with or the Colours of Water

The Cosmic Blink
It was in a blink of an eye that a cosmic change happened.
Something changed.
Something got broken.
A water pipe in their neighbourhood burst, letting out a rainbow of colours.

1,2,3 blink, they wake up, walk like a zombie to the bathroom, no water.
1,2,3 blink, they change their mind, they change the way they see the world, the world has changed
They are now faced with a cosmos of possibilities and uncertainties.
A Rainbow of colours

One by one asks: Do we have water in the cupboard?
One by one walks to the corner shop: Do they still have water?
Blood is boiling inside their vessel as one by one, transparent bottles are travelling out of the store.
Questions spiral out of order in their black box:
How long is it going to last for? Who would help me if things get worse!

1,2,3, blink,  they buy two bottles, they walk up to their neighbour, they stand in front of their door.
1,2,3, blink, they change their mind, they change the way they see the stranger, they are me, I am they.
They can only see one way
A light with no fractal

One by one, they knock on their neighbour door
One by one, they are welcomed with a smile and a thank you.
The water comes back
The world has not collapsed
The relief they feel.

1,2,3, blink, the neighbour brings them some chocolate cake to thank them for their kindness.
1,2,3, blink, What they knew was dead, they changed when reaching out, The Cosmos was reconfigured

in a blink...

When there were no water on Braunstone Frith, 30th July 2018

Part 2: The Colours of Water or No Water to Draw with

Having identified, the colourless, blue, deeper blue, red and green colours of water, let share another shade and tone.

When there is no water to draw, one can see brown. The world turns upside down.

It is exactly what happened when upon going to the toilet to do number two, she realises that there is no water. She thought that having a dried toilet outside would have been good to have right now. But when she talked about it in the past, he thought that this was too unconventional and people would think that they were weirdos. So it was never put in place. As for now, the conversation goes:

W: ''I have a dilemma''
M: ''Which one?''
W: ''I need to go to the toilet to fulfil my needs but there is no water so the brown will not disappear''
M: ''You were right, we shall I built a toilet facility outside''
W: ''Thanks for recognising the value of my third eye for disaster''
M: ''What to do then?''
W: ''We will have a levitating shade of brown until the water comes back''
M: ''if water does come back...'
W: ''Let's hope so, in the meantime, let's build the dry toilet''

When there was no water in Braunstone Frith Leicester on 30th July 2015

Part 4: The Colours of Water or No Water to Draw with

Selah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPkcpGmflE

Part 1 : No Water to Draw with or the Colours of Water

While relatively small quantities of water appear to be colourless, pure water has a slight blue colour that becomes a deeper blue as the thickness of the observed sample increases. The blue hue of water is an intrinsic property and is caused by selective absorption and scattering of white light.

When there is no water to draw, one can see blood. 
The world turns upside down.

It is exactly what happened when upon getting into the shower, he realises that there is no water. He goes down to the kitchen, no water. He goes up to the sink tap, no water.


M: ''I love my water''
W: ''Do you?''
M:''Yes, I like the feel on my skin, I like my big shower, It is like being in Africa right now.''
W: ''We have a bottle of water downstairs, you can brush your teeth with''
M: ''Thanks. Did I take a shower last night? Yes I did!''
W: ''Moving forward, let's buy some water bottles, so we are ok when there is no supply''
M: ''Good idea''
W: ''This gives me one more reason to collect water from our roof plus our greywater, I'll call the plumber today''
M: ''Good idea''
W: ''So the garden stays green when it dries up and your eyes do not turn red when there is no more''
M: ''I like my big shower, the transparent droplet of water on my skin, it gets me calm like the deep blue at sea''.



When there was no water in Braunstone Frith Leicester on 30th July 2015

Bin the bin! Can you? Not yet, Join Footpaths Leicester

Movement of zero waste bloggers, forums of discussion is everywhere to be found. 

They probably multiply faster than the waste in your home.

Why?

Because it is time to take responsibilities for the plastic, fabric and other material resources in our home.

If you do not need those stuff, why have it in the first place? Bin your bin instead.

You cannot yet.

Start easy and follow the 5 Rs. In order:

Refuse what you do not need.

Reduce what you do not need

Reuse by using reusable

Recycle what you cannot refuse, reduce or reuse

Rot (compost the rest)

and if it is too hard to do it on your own, join others on a journey of self-discovery.

My own journey started with Footpaths, a carbon reduction programme, which allowed me to meet people and get support to reduce my personal footprint. Waste was part of the course and well did I change indeed. Have a look.

Let's live together

Most families around the world live in communities. 

In the western world, this concept has been replaced by a single-family household. Yet, the latter struggle to meet their needs through the ages. With a young family, parents are overstretched with family and work commitment. The olds struggle with illnesses and social isolation. 

What can possibly be done? Well, let's live together. 

Look up co-housing and specifically retrofit co-housing so we can start where we are to build the community that we dream of.

Benefits of growing your own fruits and vegetables

There are many benefits to start growing your own fruits and vegetables.

For you and your family, the benefits are as follow: 

• Fresh and nutritious fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables from your own garden are higher in nutrients than the ones that have travelled several thousand miles to get to your grocery store.
• Having your children assist you in the garden can increase the chance that they will eat more of the fruits and vegetables they have helped to grow
• Growing your own fruits and vegetables can offer you the opportunity to reduce the amount of pesticides that you use in your garden, making them healthier.
• Growing your own fruits and vegetables will save your money at the grocery store.
• Gardening increases physical activity. It is a great way to engage the whole family in physical activity and lets them help to take responsibility for the garden.
• The fruits and vegetables grown in your garden will promote health because they are rich in nutrients, especially in phytochemicals, anti-oxidants, vitamin C, vitamin A and folate.
• Gardening gives you’re a real sense of appreciation when you can see the bounty of your efforts.
• Growing a garden gives you a new appreciation for nature when you can have the opportunity to see how things grow.
• Gardening may stimulate many new interests. You may want to learn more about botany, landscape architecture, photography, nutrition, and farmer’s markets.
• Gardening gives you the opportunity to give back. If you have an abundant garden, you might give some of your produce to the local soup kitchen or food bank.
• This can be a great time to create memories with your children, memories that can last a lifetime.
• Your garden can lead to new skills, and knowledge for you and your family, your child may have a new found interest to become a chef

Society and Community 

• Gardens can foster a great sense of community through parent to parent connections, teacher to student or student to student.
• Schools and community may decide to build a community or school garden. This is a tremendous learning tool for all involved as well a providing a source of nutritious fruits and vegetables.
• A community/school garden can help to foster and motivate future leaders (e.g., 4-H afterschool programs).
• Neighbourhood Community Gardens beautify the landscape, support local farmers, can create a food secure community where residents do not need to rely on vendors to supply fresh produce.

Environment 
• Tall fruit trees provide shade.
• You can use less pesticides or use natural pesticides and this will be less contamination to the environment.
• Produce peels and waste can create a lot of green waste and takes up a lot of space in the garbage can. Recycle them to make your own compost. It is less expensive than buying fertilizers.
• Turn unsightly lands into attractive landscapes.
• Get creative. There is a potential to grow an innovative garden like futuristic horticulture gardens that are very cost-effective and require substantially less space.

Ingenious humility changes everything - This Changes Everything Showing Aftermath

Published on Footpaths Leicester

The room was full of people ready to witness images of people across the world fighting to live in a world where the land from which they sustain themselves from can be protected and cared for.

This Changes Everything documentary is a snapshot of the battle between capitalism and climate, between capitalism and people as described in more details in the book 'This Changes Everything' by Naomi Klein.

Forget Short Showers

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday; or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons; or that dancing around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”? Why are these “solutions” not sufficient? But most importantly, what can be done instead to actually stop the murder of the planet?

The description of the video 'Forget Short Showers' just reminded me how insane I am and how a lot of people are too (Inside Voice: just look around you for a minute, they are all craaayyy, they don't want to admit it, what abt you?)

The insanity can be summarised into keeping ourselves busy with personal endeavour to tackle climate change (embracing simple eco-living with low carbon footprint impact) instead of joining the climate resistance movement making corporations and governments more accountable and ensuring that they are not destroying environmental habitats from which human beings sustain themselves from. Simple living is good but for systemic change to occur at all levels needs to be combined with political actions.

Watch the video and have a think about what you do everyday to be more in touch with the reality of how social change happens...Video Link > https://youtu.be/m2TbrtCGbhQ

Repair - Diary Entry (1) Green Festival of Making & Mending Leicester

Since September 2014, My main project focus has been on repair.

I have been working with Zina, founder of Footpaths, a carbon reduction project in Leicester to organise the Green Festival of Making & Mending on the 31st October 2015 and a serie of events throughout 2015. Our main aim was to introduce people to ingenious ideas to repair and upcycle items in an environmentally friendly way. The event idea stemmed the recognition of our own vulnerabilities. Zina and I were not really the creative/diy type. For me, personally, my hands were only used as so far for typing and some random drawing but never to make something tangible. Maybe they were but I never appreciated their magnificence.

Is gold in our hands?

A year working on festival and following up to that, I mended all my clothes, darned socks and gloves, repaired a mobile phone, made a rag rug and a banner, painted signs, made sculptures out of papers and christmas decorations, repaired pieces of furnitures, shortened curtains.

My hands saved pennies and more...

They connected me to so many people with the skills in Leicester that are willing to share their knowledge and crafts.

I wish they would save the many people across the planet sewing and making clothes and homeware , making furnitures and electrical items everyday for pennies. But the day will come,- I am sure.

To learn more about Footpaths - www.leicesterfootpaths.org.uk

Becoming an investor for a fairer world

After having written a piece on how my relationship with capitalism affects my carbon footprint? and receiving feedback indicating that my individualistic goals to want to purchase solar panels were not good enough to facilitate the transition towards a sustainable system of production and consumption, because it encourages me to serve a system that exploit resources and labour and not supporting others in changing their behaviour.

I started to wonder.

It is true unfortunately as long as there are no other alternatives of production and consumption that is fairer, more caring towards the environment and the people that inhabit the earth, we will be stuck in an endless and vicious circle of guilt and blame.

There is no way that we can move towards an ideal world of fairness without having to dance with the devil, hence working for corporations that pollute, exploit and influence for us to extract value which can be re-invested into a greener future

To change the deal, I have to extract value and re-invest it in something I believe.

I have to become an investor.

You see an employee has very little say in the way businesses and government decide to direct sustainable actions and they earn very little.
A self-employed person still remains at the grip of what corporations decide to do. They exchange value through the number of hours they put in but what happen if they burn out,  disappear...
A business owner works with other people to create value and has a lot more influence in relation to sustainability goals.
An investor win it all.

My solar panels is a form of investment and it will allow me to create value economically, environmentally and socially.

I want to invest more in green schemes but for that I need the mean of exchange that is at play in our current system i.e. money.  Money is a mean of exchange and it homogenises behaviour across the world. If all the money is earned and redistributed towards creating an environment that is fairer and more beautiful, why not?

We all need to extract value from the current destructive capitalist system and reinvest it into green schemes.

No one should make me feel guilty or blame me to want to re-invest my power into something I believe in, they should blame people who buy clothes and fancy cars instead.

How my relationship with capitalism is impacting my carbon footprint?

Published on Footpaths Leicester

Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. My carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of my activities. My activities serve capitalism. They serve private owners for profit at the expense of natural resources and human beings. I am trapped and enslaved by capitalism, this is my relationship with it and it impacts dearly on my carbon footprint but also on my wellbeing and sense of belonginess.

Everything wrong with Environmentalism - Bitesizevegan did it - Is it the start of a vegan journey?

I browsed my Facebook Feed. Mo posted the following video 'Everything wrong with environmentalism in 11 minutes'.

.

I watched the whole 11 minutes. I asked myself why animal agriculture and its impacts on the environment is not further talked about in environmental campaigning. Later that day, I went to a peer to peer support group on reducing our carbon footprint supported by Footpaths. The session focused on home energy, the food session is to come later. I'll reserve my conclusions by then and maybe also talk about methane and other dangerous gases. I am still not clear on my position on 'what is wrong with environmentalism?' The video keeps playing in my mind.

I am a meat-eater. I reduced my meat intake in the past but I have been slacking recently as families and some peers are not really supportive on the vegan/vegetarian lifestyles. I do like the taste of meat, I cannot lie.

In the evening, I watched the video a second time with my partner, I read a few vegan stories (glowingfridge, huffpost, joyfulvegan). They mentioned the documentary 'Vegucated' which affected them so much that they embrace a vegan lifestyle.

I watched it the following morning. It worked. I am disgust by animal agriculture practices. I order a vegan kit from PETA, signed up to a number of online communities. Is it the beginning of something? I am not sure. I learnt today that there is animal products in cigarettes from bitesize vegan. Smoking dead animals' ashes (WTF).

...

Marie's Making Moment

Published on Footpaths Leicester

The Green Festival of Making and Mending is 5 weeks away and last week I finally had my making moment.

Zina and I have been working relentlessly in the organisation of the festival and its pre-festival events to enthuse people to make and mend in an ingeneous, creative and more environmentally friendly way. The experience has taught me many skills, from communication to project management. I kept unfortunately my spirit away from engaging with the craft of making and mending.

Footpaths Challenge - Changing direction

For this week letter, I have decided to change my direction quite profoundly and share with you all some of my feelings about change for sustainability.

I am doing currently my Ph.D around Design for Sustainable Behaviour. It is already agreed that products, services and systems strive to influence people's behaviour. But to do it consciously is another matter. Design for sustainable behaviour attempts to change people behaviour as they are interacting with product. The designer become the person responsible in this endeavour. There are a number of ethical issues surrounding such topic which is completely understandable. Giving control to technology to change our behaviour is quite dramatic, yet it is what is happening on the daily basis. We battle our way against technologies in our life.