1. We’ve had a crazy couple of weeks at Otesha moving office to Toynbee Hall and getting settled in. Say hello to our new meeting room table and chairs. This is what happens when you put me in charge of furniture. Mwahaha.

2. Sending solidarity over to my friend Vi in San Francisco, who was out and about standing up against anti-abortionists this weekend. Standard.

3. Made an awesome discovery this week with my friend Cress – the Aubin Cinema in Shoreditch. We watched Shame, which was great, but bleak. However, our moods could not be tempered, because we were in the massive-ist, comfiest seats imaginable.

“We all know the classic scene from cartoons: The cat reaches a precipice, but it goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is no ground under its feet; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. What the protesters are doing is reminding those in power to look down.”

4. Read this article – The Violent Silence of a New Beginning – by Zizek on the Occupy movement. It’s brilliant.

5. Spent a substantial part of today making these cakes. The recipe is called Cake for Breakfast? YUP. (Also made this for dinner – proper yum).

6. I had a really nice time volunteering at The Ministry of Stories yesterday, mentoring a group of East London kids in creative writing. One of the kids on my table (age 8) wrote a story about a dog-monster called HOUNDOOM who was the devil’s pet. Houndoom ate fried dinosaur’s eggs for breakfast and travelled through a cloud of lightning bolts, which allowed him to pass through time (he also sucked out people’s souls by digging through their brains – eek). It was quietly hilarious. Also – want to know my 8 year old’s top tip for creative writing? “Let your mind go wild.”

7. Look at my smug new jumper face. £15 from UO Renewal. It’s GOLD. Yay.

hanna ♥

Beautiful clip of Stevie Nicks singing Wild Heart while she gets her make-up done for a Rolling Stone shoot. It’s been going round my head all day… Where is the reason, don’t blame it on me, blame it on my wild heart…

hanna ♥

p.s. a note about the highly unpredictable nature of posts at the moment. Another online project I used to work on, called The Multicultural Politic, is undergoing a really exciting redesign and launch, and I’m re-joining the team as Co-Editor. Once I’ve sorted out in my head which posts should go where, and who I want to read what, then things will sort themselves out! thanks for being patient x

2012 got off to a lovely start, with a couple of days up in Derbyshire for mountain walks, good food, good friends, good chats, and Bridget Jones (I somehow managed to watch it twice over Christmas. Didn’t mind. Also watched Pride and Prejudice… Firth quota for 2012 has already been met).

I’ve made all the usual resolutions – cook more, bike more, generally be all-round fantastic person. My one big resolution for this year though is to work hard and follow through all my professional goals for this year. I had an amazing time last year bringing together the East London Green Jobs Alliance – this year it’s all about delivery and making our vision reality. It’s tough in the current economic climate, but I am going to try my very best, and we’ll see what happens. I’m nervous, but excited for what this year will bring!

Here’s to an awesome 2012,

hanna ♥

So bloody cute. Happy New Year everyone!

hanna ♥

ANYWAY. Please indulge me whilst I recap my best memories from 2011:

- I had some amazing opportunities to travel this year, so I am a very lucky girl. I visited San Francisco in April for a couple of weeks and it was the BEST PLACE EVER. It is still my long-term dreeeaaam to move there one day. Cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge, wandering through the camellia gardens in Golden Gate park, photographing street art in the Mission, sing-a-long Wizard of Oz in the Castro, couch-surfing with the two best girls ever, meeting some super cute and amazing new friends, getting inspired by all the great green jobs work going on out there. It was just the best experience. I also had a couple of crazy / hilarious / sister-bonding / romantic trips to Paris which were incredible and filled with croissants, break-dancing, vintage shopping, and cocktails at the Ritz. Totes amaze.

- This year I also learned to love my own company. Even though I am now happily sharing with two lovely girls in London, living on my own in Brighton while I was doing my masters was one of the best choices I have ever made. I made a little haven for myself, indulged my love for baking, played music loud and danced around my living room. I was a pretty good roomie for myself, I have to say.

- I did a masters! In SCIENCE! I still find that hilarious. It was tough-going at times, but I’m proud of myself.

- The path my professional life has taken has been surprising and amazing this year. I could not have imagined at the beginning of the year where I would be now, back at The Otesha Project UK, leading on the East London Green Jobs Alliance. I have met some brilliant people and gained some excellent mentors. I got to speak at Glastonbury in the Leftfield tent (!! personal highlight), was an SMK Campaigner award finalist, and was a contributing author on an IPPR report. It’s been blimmin’ incredible. It also leaves me feeling absolutely terrified at following it all through next year, but you know, 2012 can deal with that one!

- I made some excellent make-up discoveries which I think deserve a mention – shu uemura eyelash curlers (SERIOUSLY), benefit eyebrow zings, mac lipsticks, lucas pawpaw ointment. If you’re into that stuff, get on it.

- I went on some excellent global protests! An anti-nuclear demo in Tokyo (most kawaii protest ever), pro-union protest in San Fran, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy London Stock Exchange, and to round it all off, the Fawcett Society anti-cuts march which ended with a pic of me and my sister in the Observer!

- But nothing, NOTHING, compares to seeing Beyonce live at Glastonbury, only 2 people from the front barrier. I almost died. In fact, I’m dead. (Mountain Goats in Brighton were also amaze).

This year was too good.

Resolutions will come all in good time, but for now, I’m just basking in the glow that was 2011.

1. I went to Papered Parlour over the weekend for their DIY Couture Make a Cloak workshop and it was great! A race against time admittedly, but I was very happy with the finished product, plus we got tea and cake. And now I can pretend to be from the 50s, or that I’m a BAT. Because capes are versatile like that.

2. Bento boxes are super. The BBC actually did a report on them, so it’s official.

3. I was interviewed for the Think Act Vote Futures series a while back, which was really nice.

4. You’ve seen Feminist Ryan Gosling. Now brace yourself for Handmade Ryan Gosling. It’s the future of swoon.

5. Talking of handmade, remember these that I made back in the spring? Well they have been selling like hotcakes! I have had orders and requests without expecting any, and I have done so much panic sewing that my left hand is all claw-like. Worth it though to think of these slogans adorning a few christmas trees this year. Haha.

6. I’ve been back at work full time for 2 weeks now as Green Jobs Director at The Otesha Project UK, and it’s nice to be getting back into the swing of things. The coolest thing is that we are trialling a flat, non-hierarchical structure. You can read about how it’s going here. I’d really recommend it, as it’s going super well so far!

7. By far the superest thing this week was Occupy Cop 17 at the UN climate talks in Durban. The outcome of the negotiations was not perfect, and in no way puts us on track for mitigating climate change, but the fact that they came away with ANYTHING was largely down to this protest. The negotiators overran the talks by 36 hours after this public show of dissent. It proves that protest does and can work. To read more about what happened at the negotiations, read this overview.

hanna ♥

A major criticism that has been levelled at Occupy LSX is that the movement has become an umbrella for too many issues. “What do they want?” our mainstream media asks, as a stroll through the camp makes it clear that democracy and corporate greed are not the only issues being debated. Linger around St. Pauls, or peek your head into the Tent City University, and you will soon find yourself debating and discussing issues of mental wellbeing, gender equality, class, the environment, parenting, and the role of religion, amongst many, many others. However, rather than betray a lack of focus, to me the diversity of topics being discussed means something quite different – that our movements for social and environmental justice are growing up, that we are seeing connections and joining the dots between issues, and that we recognise that we are most powerful when allied.

There is much that we can learn from each other, and the global Occupy / Indignados movement has provided us with the perfect opportunity to compare notes. What’s working, what isn’t? Are our demands aligned, and does that even matter? However, there is one area of discussion that certainly needs to be addressed by the environmental and Occupy movements together, and that is ‘what does transition look like’? We say that another way is possible, but what journey do we have to take to get there? How can we work together towards building a new low carbon economy, one that incorporates values of social justice, equity, and democracy? Of course this conversation is already well under way in many countries across the world, but different elements of our movement are in danger of pulling in very different directions. You might not think it, but transitioning away from a pollution-based economy and transitioning away from our current capitalist model do not necessarily have to have much in common.

Let’s not kid ourselves – the new, low-carbon economy could be one that retains all of the inequities and corporate greed of our current economic system. One where companies profit from the transition, while workers are stuck in green McJobs, doing the essential work of decarbonising our energy systems and retrofitting our homes but in a vicious circle of low pay and few opportunities for progression or training. Nor does the Anarcho-Marxist model of transition away from a capitalist state make any promises to those who are currently most underserved by our society. The end goal may be distribution of wealth and workers’ rights, but the requisite insurrection and ensuing chaos that it takes to get there may only end up harming those that need the most help. Indeed, members of our unions are concerned that significant periods of economic restructuring in the past have often happened in a chaotic fashion that has left ordinary workers, their families and communities, to bear the brunt. Indeed in the UK, many individuals and communities are still paying the price for the rapid shift away from industrial production over the last 30 years.

Perhaps there is a middle way, one that respects workers’ rights, the rights of the poor, and our planetary boundaries. This is where the idea of Just Transition may come in handy. Just Transition is a framework for a fair and sustainable shift to a low carbon economy, proposed by trades unions and supported by environmental NGOs, that seeks to prevent injustice becoming a feature of environmental transition. Just Transition recognises that support for environmental policies are conditional on a fair distribution of the costs and benefits of those policies across the economy, and on the creation of opportunities for active engagement by those affected in determining the future wellbeing of themselves and their families.

The framework is not fool-proof – it does not deal with the capitalism question, nor does it a build a comprehensive vision of a new world. Questions about growth, nuclear, and means of production go unanswered. However, it is the beginning of an essential conversation about how we can create a new system that is both economically and ecologically viable.

What is not questioned is the speed at which we must act. The need to transition away from our current economic and social model in this country and the rest of the developed world is an urgent one. We are experiencing rapidly rising levels of inequality and, according to the IEA, we have only an estimated 5 years before the fight to mitigate dangerous climate change becomes a fruitless one.

Yes, the challenge ahead is immense, but so is our movement. Who would have thought, just one year ago, that the world would be engaged in a global conversation about corporate greed and the terms of democracy? A fair society that respects our earth may seem out of reach, but that is all the more reason to keep striving for it. As David Harvey has said, “Of course this is utopian!  But so what!  We cannot afford not to be.”

1. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn - This was one of the first books that I downloaded onto my new Kindle because a) I have been wanting to read it for ages, and b) the book version must weigh around a kilogram so it’s a perfect choice for a portable e-reader. I am 7% through it so far according to my kindle and it’s everything I hoped it would be. Incredibly detailed and well-researched, it tells the story of those who have been historically written out, provides a counterbalance to the stuff we might have learnt in school, and meditates on the role and purpose of history and historians themselves.

2. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling – I read a hilarious extract of this book in the New Yorker so had to read the whole thing. Mindy Kaling writes and stars in the The Office: An American Workplace, and this book is as funny as you’d expect it to be.

3. Rad Dad – Tomas Moniz and Jeremy Adam Smith – I loooove this book. It’s a collection of the best articles from the Rad Dad zine, which I first came across in San Francisco this spring. It essentially deals with the struggles of fatherhood when you’re an activist working towards social justice. This subject is so interesting to me, not because I’m necessarily thinking of having kids anytime soon, but because I feel that the movements that I’m involved in are pretty exclusive against parents, and I have been wondering how I can help to remedy that. I think part of the answer is starting to take responsibility for the raising of the next generation, even if you’re not a parent – the whole ‘it takes a village’ approach. I regularly work with kids and young people, so it seems important for me to think about how I want to impart the knowledge I have, and how I can make the work I do more welcoming for those who are parents, as well as children. Anyway, recommended reading for all, parent or non-parent!

4. Where We Stand: Class Matters by Bell Hooks – This is the latest book by Bell Hooks I’m reading, I can also highly recommend Sisters of the Yam, and I have just bought All About Love. She is a very inspirational and important voice, innit.

5. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides – This is basically the best. book. EVAH. I can’t fault it, I enjoyed it so much, and when it finished I cried because it was so perfect and I didn’t want it to end. It is seamlessly structured (so CLEVER) and blah blah blah, enough, it’s just amazing. Go read it!

1. What a weekend! It was my birthday on Saturday and I welcomed in my 28th year by going on a feminist Fawcett Society march, as is tradition (in my world). It was great! I paraded my cupcakes around, and Lauren and I made Alicia Keys and Beyonce – themed signs which made national news! This last picture was featured on p.14 of the Observer, and is on the Metro, Sky News, and Huffington Post websites so far! Woo! You can do so much with a piece of cardboard.

2. After that we headed to afternoon tea at the Dean Street Townhouse, which was incredibly yummy and way too cool for us. A perfect combination.

3. And THEN we went out, met friends, had a lovely time and somewhere along the way got mauled by glitter cats at Passing Clouds in Dalston. So all in all, an amazing way to celebrate 28 years on this planet!

4. I’m super excited about a couple of ace presents I received – a make a cloak workshop at The Papered Parlour, and a Kindle! I’m going to be browsing the Emily Books website straightway.

5. What else, what else? I went to a brilliant YTFN event last week where I heard about two projects that I’m going to start volunteering for! One is the London Bike Kitchen and one is the People’s Kitchen – check them out, they are making the world better.

6. Been listening to the Tune Yards. Well good, innit. Fun video too.

7. I have new hair! It’s a little more goldeny. Quite super.

hanna ♥

Look! I made an edible protest sign for the Fawcett Society Don’t Turn Back Time march and rally on Saturday! It was pretty blimmin’ laborious, but I reckon it’s going to complement my 50s get up for the occasion perfectly! Come if you can, and tell David Cameron that we won’t go backwards on women’s equality!

hanna ♥