Archive for September, 2008
Don’t miss the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning. We are all invited to join Mark Lazarowicz and Malcolm Chisholm, our MP and MSP, at the mammoth annual fundraising event which raised more than £7 million last year. Thanks to Tony Crolla of Vittoria’s the proceeds from every cup of coffee sold at the Edinburgh North and Leith event will be donated to Macmillans who are aiming to raise £8.5 million this year!
No need to book, just drop in to Vittoria’s Restaurant in Leith Walk between 10.30 am and 11.30 am on Friday 26 September.
September 13th, 2008
There are no right or wrong answers. But the questions speak volumes. For the first time the Scottish government is setting out to discover the diversity of Muslim communities in Scotland and how much they may be affected by Islamophobia. Questionnaires which will help to shape future policy on Islamophobia are now due in next Friday (19 September) so there is still time for you to take part.
The questionnaire has been circulated through the wide network of community groups. Unfortunately we did not receive details in time to include them in the last enewsletter but we have just been told that the deadline has been extended by a week to give people enough time to complete the forms.
Many of the questions in the survey echo concerns expressed at the first multicultural discussion event held by Leith Open Space in 2005. The first question in particular catches the eye:
Which groups of people, if any, are more likely to experience Islamophobia in Scotland? Women ? Muslims wearing religious dress? In the aftermath of the London bombings of 2005, most Muslim women attending the Open Space event, could give examples of what is known as ‘low level aggressions’ in shops and on buses. (You can read the report which we sent to government, media and voluntary agencies by clicking here).
As the government questionnaire notes, England and Wales have carried out surveys of Muslim communities but this is the first one to happen in Scotland. Kerstin Maier, of the Scottish Government Communities Analytical Services, explains:
“We are very keen to tackle Islamophobia where and when it happens, and the findings of this research will be used internally within the Scottish Government in order to improve the quality of engagement with Muslim communities, and more importantly, to inform future policies on Islamophobia. In this process, findings may be shared with the relevant Scottish Ministers. However, individual responses will remain confidential, anonymous, and unidentifiable at any stage, and the general findings will not be publicly available.”
And there are no right or wrong answers!
If you want to know more Kerstin says to call her on 0131 244 0681
September 12th, 2008
Here’s a bumper edition for you. Look for the Red Eye film club on Friday, listen to the Wind and Bamboo podcasts about Chinese culture in Edinburgh, catch a glimpse of China (and a very tall cellist) in Ocean Terminal, find Poetry in St Andrew Square (on Friday lunchtime), discover why we need gardens and green space more than ever and catch up with Opening Doors as we enter the climate change debate…if summer was a wash out there’s lots to look forward to in the autumn!
September 3rd, 2008
News just in from Francis Kahembwe, our Opening Doors participant, who is beginning a two month placement with Scottish Environment Link. That means (apart from climbing a lot of stairs to the office in the wonderful tower building on the Royal Mile) a fascinating glimpse of what it is like to be an environmental lobbyist. As Francis explains in his email, the first week started with the hottest issue of the moment, Climate Change…
“I started on the shadowing programme at Scottish Link last Wednesday. A desk and computer have been organised for me. On Wednesday we went through the monitoring system where they check what is happening at the Scottish Parliament on a daily basis and filter out those issues relevant to environment. I also had chance to read through the pack of information for the Link Climate change meeting that was scheduled for Thursday the next day in Perth.”
Many thanks to LINK for providing this exciting development for Francis who began by shadowing Sarah Boyack Labour spokesman on the Environment and Rural Affairs in the Scottish Parliament. As luck had it, his first day coincided with the Climate Change debate. Now, thanks to Scottish Environment Link, he gets a chance to see how policy and debate may be influenced by environmental agencies.
We are really delighted to get such enthusiastic support from LINK which is the forum for Scotland’s 33 voluntary agencies, covering a wide range of interests (from bats, birds and bumblebees to whales and snails; from ramblers associations and national heritage organisations to friends of the earth).
Francis will spend up to two days a week in the Edinburgh LINK office learning about the work of Susan Guest, Parliamentary Administration Officer and Eilidh Macpherson, Parliamentary Officer as they co-ordinate parliamentary briefings on such very topical issues as marine conservation and climate change.
September 3rd, 2008
Traditional Chinese music in Edinburgh’s Botanics
We might just as well ask, where is China now? In this fascinating podcast series Kimho Ip explains why you are more likely to find traditional Chinese culture in Edinburgh than the fast developing cities of China. His conversations with Stephen Blackmore, Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, find common interest in conserving the best of nature and human culture. You can download the podcasts free of charge.
To subscribe to all four podcasts, click here.
We are delighted to present this series which was produced for Kimho’s intercultural project, Dialogues of Wind and Bamboo, in the Botanics this summer. You can read more about that from our June blog or on the Dialogues of Wind and Bamboo website.
The Dialogues of Wind and Bamboo podcast series is produced by Inner Ear LTD
September 3rd, 2008
Volunteers digging for fun at Redbraes. Greenspace helps make people healthier and happier and builds stronger, safer communities too.
You may have noticed that gardens are beginning to take up more space in Leith Open Space newsletters. Perhaps that’s not surprising. According to a recent survey by Greener Leith, more people want to use the space in Leith Links for gardens and childrens play areas than for football, golf or, indeed, any other sport. But will the opinions of local people count for anything with planners and developers?
It certainly won’t be for lack of action by Greener Leith. Their Leith Links Ask gathered the views of 550 local people between May and August this year with the help of YouTube videos, emails and an interactive website as well as old fashioned leaflets and face to face questions at Leith Festival.
The answers were very clear. Children’s play areas, gardens and a cafe pavilion were the three top choices for improving Leith Links. And a wildlife area and mini nature reserve was a close fourth, with football, rubgy, tennis, bowls and cricket attracting much less interest. Golf was a definite no! (See full results on Greener Leith website).
Exactly what impact that will have remains to be seen. At the last planning committee meeting Greener Leith had just two minutes to make the case for green space in the Forth Ports development plans. “We left somewhat frustrated,” says Alistair Tibbitt of Greener Leith in his latest blog.
But the campaign continues. And if the gardens in our newsletter are anything to go by there is plenty of grassroots support for green space in the Leith area (and throughout the city). As a new Greenspace Scotland research report shows, there is good reason for this too. Green spaces make us healthier and happier and create stronger and safer communities.
Redbraes, Persevere Garden, Dalmeny Park and, now, the poetry garden in St Andrew Square are very different spaces but they all have one thing in common: an active group of local people getting involved with their environment.
September 3rd, 2008
He’s done it again. Following the spectacular show in the Botanics on that cold, wet midsummer night, Kimho Ip (that’s him on the right) brought music and dance to another unconventional venue as part of this year’s Mela festival. But this time it could rain as much as it liked because the performance took place in the shelter of Ocean Terminal. And, no, you are not imagining things, Louise Martin the cellist is enormously tall. With a little help from stilts hidden beneath that dress.
In Cathay Re-public, Kimho weaves together some of the talents he brought to Dialogues of Wind and Bamboo: a drummer, a dancer, a musician on stilts, a little electronic
sampling, some taichi, and the extraordinary soaring voice of the counter tenor Cheng-ying who stopped shoppers in their tracks on Friday night.
The shimmering sound of Kimho’s Chinese dulcimer (the yangchin) binds all these elements together.
Kimho is creative director of iMAP, intercultural music and arts project, and he is constantly blurring the lines between traditional culture and contemporary art and music, combining the best of western European and East-Asian arts today.
[In the picture Louise plays cello on stilts – she also plays a saw during this performance – while dancer Coral Lee waits in the wings]
Leith Open Space has a special connection with Kimho. We first met in 2005 when we were preparing for our very first Open Space multicultural discussion event in the (then) vast unused space at the top of Ocean Terminal, now being very actively used as an indoor skate park. Kimho arrived in the dark carrying a huge poster to help us decorate what was then a very daunting venue.
Coral and (behind her to the left) Jiang Li encourage audience participation with the help of two members of the audience on percussion and Kimho on yangchin
You can hear more from Kimho about his very innovative use of mult-media in a series of podcasts now on the Dialogues of Wind and Bamboo website.
September 3rd, 2008
Wring the Scottish rain clouds dry…Ron Butlin
Some hope. It rained of course but the sun shone too so Edinburgh’s new Makar, Ron Butlin, brought the perfect poem to launch Poetry in St Andrew Square: A Recipe for Whisky, laced with all the elements of Scotland’s weather. Come rain, hail, sleet or sun, the poetry garden is now open for business and waiting for you to help it grow…
The next event is on Friday 5 September when a lunch time Personal Poetry Shopper is open and free to anyone who happens to be in the garden at the time. Between 12.30 and 1.30, Reader in Residence, Ryan van Winkle (seen below) will help passers by to find a poem to read to suit their mood. And if it rains, well then, he will just lead a retreat to Tiles.
Kindred spirits
This is the spirit of Poetry in St Andrew Square launched on Monday 25 August by floating poetry on lotus blossoms
across the water. The opening of the poetry garden coincided with the last day of the book festival at the other end of George Street neatly making the point that creative life goes on even when the festivals have left town. With another nice coincidence both Richard Holloway, chair of the Scottish Arts Council (on the right), and Ron Butlin, the city’s poet laureate, chose whisky as their theme to celebrate the start of a bold new venture in the heart of Edinburgh.
For the first time in 230 years St Andrew Square is full of people. Dedicating the space to poetry, Richard Holloway said, ‘…the wonderful thing about having a poetry garden in a famous square in a beautiful city is the way it will help people to pause for a minute or two and let poetry into their lives.’
This is just the start of a public project led by Ewan Aitken (former council leader and city councillor for Restalrig) with support from the city’s literary groups (see the full list below) as well as Essential Edinburgh, the city’s first business improvement district, and Coffee Republic who host the bustling cafe in the square.
In October the poetry garden will celebrate National Poetry Day and after that, who knows? You can help to decide what happens by making a wish on the poetry postcard in Coffee Republic, or logging on to the City of Literature website which invites you to email them with your ideas to make poetry happen every day in the garden. As the website says, “It is your garden!”
Or in some of the words of the outgoing Makar Valerie Gillies (soon to be displayed in the coffee pavilion)
We wander through your windy mazes,
All our voices are flags on the high street.
From the sky’s edge to the grey firth
We are the city, you are within us.
Poetry in St Andrew Square is supported by: Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust, Essential Edinburgh, Ewan Aitken, Coffee Republic, Edinburgh International Book Festival, The Edinburgh Makar, Scottish Book Trust and The Writers’ Museum.
See also the excellent picture story by our own Leith Open Spacer, Nick Gardner
September 1st, 2008