Getting creative

I totally caught the upcycling bug!

I dumpster dived a mirror for my bedroom, and then rolled-and-glued a frame out of old interior design magazines! 

Total cost: 50 cents (glue sticks + hot glue)

Total effort: about 20 hours

Arabic Scents pt II

(c) Gundega Šķēla, Annas Lindes Fonds

We repeated our "smelly baggy" workshop, this time in a lovely youth center in Valmiera, during the Grande Finale of the "Other Side of the Mediterranean" Festival. We even found time to enjoy some Egyptian pantomime, Turkish dancing and of course some good Moroccan food!

Adapting to Climate Change

Santa asked me to go to a two-day conference for scientists and policy makers from the three Baltic States. The presentations themselves were extremely boring, but I did meet some very interesting people and learned a lot about climate change and the things that various countries and cities are doing to prepare for it.

Arabic Scents

So not all workshops are easy to organize. How do you organize an authentic "Arabic night" for the Anna Lindh Foundation when, according to the census, only a couple of thousand "southern Mediterranean" people live in your country? And even the people working in the baklava shop and kebab restaurants are Latvian? And your presenter skips out on you at the last minute?

Luckily, we have iron nerves and super improvisation skills here at homo ecos:! I tapped into my knowledge of Arabic cooking, while Anna used her DIY-experience to teach our guests to make fragrant sachets with natural herbs and spices. 

Eurovision

Eurovision: the summit of European integration, collaboration and cultural exchange! This year, I had the honour to watch the Grand Finale with representatives from Latvia, Portugal, Ukraine, Italy and Austria (douze points!).

Rotterdam meets Kiyv

Anna and I hosted a semi-compulsory intercultural event for our colleagues: complete with Dutch speculaas, zoute drop, stroopwafels, boterhammen met hagelslag, and Ukrainian varenyki. We quizzed our colleagues on their knowledge of Dutch and Ukrainian politicians, artists and inventions, and we made them try the Dutch game spijkerpoepen and sing the Ukrainian folk song Shchendryk.