One of the blights of Victorian times was a rapacious killer, that had arrived in the UK from Asia. It took out many thousands. It was a condition that particularly affected poorer communities and those who arrived from overseas – Sound familiar? The Cholera epidemic, was one of the defining moments of the […]
On the day `British deaths from COVID-19 become the highest in Europe we choose to reflect on problems, that existed before we dropped all other stories for Corona Virus. Girls are still being cut and married young; refugees are still fighting for space and recognition in camps; wives and mothers are being beaten – babies […]
On top of all the problems of the Coronavirus lockdown, it’s important not to forget that other challenges exist, many of them longer lasting than a virus. In Western Kenya climate change has brought another bout of flooding. Thousands of Kenyans have been displaced from their homes and are living in temporary camps, according to latest […]
I’m not pre-disposed to fear. But something is waking me, in the small hours, before the dawn chorus. Head working, heart racing, adrenalized and stuck. Like many I am defined by what I ‘do’, despite my efforts to just ‘be’. I have coped well so far with my impatience. But like the latter stages of […]
I am called to remember today that, amid the furore and drama of the COVID-crisis, human life continues – and in some cases stops. Children are born, people are getting ill (unrelated) others are dying (sometimes also unrelated). It’s come to pass in my family. My parents have been gone a long time. Mam passed […]
There has only been one topic of conversation now for WEEKS. We get it, of course! It’s a big topic. But at GRIOT CREATIVE we are striving to draw attention to the plight of those who were already in crisis, BEFORE COVID-19. As Collette Lette Batten-Turner writes, Refugees, in camps in Southern Europe have dropped off […]
In many parts of the world, where margins between survival and death are thin, the Coronavirus is throwing up some very different questions to those faced in Western Europe. A report in the Financial Times recently shone a bright light on the response across much of Africa – many would rather risk the virus than […]
One of the most bizarre stories to reach us at Griot during the Covid crisis has been that of the ‘vanishing leader.’ The one time poster child of the ‘poetic-revolution’ in Nicaragua has a habit of disappearance – but surely never at such a critical time. This week he resurfaced with just as much mystery. […]
Getting older is scary. It can be confusing, lonely, isolating. Many families live distant from aging relatives. The pace of 21st century life often leaves sons and daughters with the sad, but inevitable, choice of putting parents in a home. The only way out for most, is in a box, bound for a final resting place. […]
