Eco-Ramadan #1: Waste

I think I've written this more than once on this blog. 

But I just can't believe it's Ramadan again (almost).

This month of spiritual cleansing is one I look forward to every year and this year I have given myself an additional target:  to tell everybody about Oxfam's GROW campaign.

GROW is the project I've taken on this summer, which I'll post more about in detail later. In a nutshell it's about the global food crisis, in other words it's Oxfam's most ambitious campaign to feed the world by 2050. That's 9 billion people. And it will only happen through a vigorous change of the current food system which is complex and completely broken.

You may be wondering why I've chosen Ramadan of all months to promote this campaign. Well besides from it falling in the middle of my summer holidays which technically is the only time I'm free to do something like this, there's also this oh too familiar sight spurring me on:

Aha, the left overs from that iftar party at the mosque or friend's house. The iftar where there was too much food and not enough space in our now constricted stomachs to consume it. And not enough space in our fridges to take home and use for tomorrow's iftar, because they're already packed with yesterday's leftovers and the day before leftovers.

The Qur'an tells us something very simple about wastage: 

"Eat – But waste not by excess: for God does not love the wasters" (6:141).

  

But every Ramadan we seem to forget this message. Actually, food wastage is a HUGE problem in the UK with the average family losing £50 a month to food that's thrown away. We actually waste as much as a quarter of the food we buy. Somehow, in many Muslim households this issue worsens during Ramadan. If you write yourself a memo every time you throw something away in the first week of Ramadan and stick it on your fridge you'll see what I mean. 

Generally we all hate wastage and do as much as we can to avoid it. But EVERYONE has to been to a party or gathering where leftovers look something like the picture above. 

Oxfam's GROW campaign coincides perfectly with Ramadan. How can we waste £50 a month on food when in Chad families have as little as  $1.23 to spend on their weekly meals? How can we scrape  the leftovers of our iftar meals in the bin when some families have little more than a date to break their fasts with?
It's not fair and it's not right. The system is completely out of balance.
Keep checking this blog for updates on my campaign, in the mean time check out this website:
http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/
Please keep Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya in your prayers and donate to help alleviate the suffering of the drought.

The Road to Benghazi

The title of my post is the name of an incredible 7 minute video. The video is by the Libyan Youth Association, filmed by UK Libyan students who visited Libya in March.
 
  I've posted the video below. Please watch it and spread, it deserves every recognition.

www.shababliby.com

Visiting the Village

Today I spent the last sunny day of the week in a place called Penn. It has a pond, an old church and lots of greenery. But this is what draws me to it:

This little cottage is a treasure trove for book worms. There are more books then there is space to stand.

  Like in the Classics section. It's a tiny cupboard in the shop with thousands of books crammed floor to ceiling.

                                                  A conservatory dedicated entirely to Sci-fi

                                                      And books above the staircase

     There was a section dedicated entirely to Enid Blyton books

 And Maths books. 

And  special editions of childrens books

                          And piles of organised mess everywhere. This section was poetry I think.

 The long and short of it is I think every town should have a bookshop like this one. Then they'd be happy book worms all year round.

                            

Make Over! (again)

Hello/Salaam all,
Well any readers who have been following my blog will know why I always suddenly disappear for a few months around Easter time. But I'm back, and I've revamped this blog...yet again. Apologies for leaving it half complete and slightly bizarre for a few months back then. Be sure to expect background changes sometime in the future: it changes with my mood. And blog pictures >>
will change depending on what I'm involved in at the time.

That's all for now folks! But I WILL be posting again frequently :)