What would the world be like if it were a small community of 100 people?

Moringa- The Miracle Plant!

This plant has some amazing properties- it grows in Latin America and in Africa and is used by various projects because one little branch can offer so much!
The program doesn't include the notes from the presentation but hopefully you can still get an idea of how great this is.

Moringa!

View more presentations from andramlowe.

Composting- A Magic Trick

Today was another GAIA action day, where we participate in activities here at the school that help us to be more sustainable and with the water tank finished (for now), and the weather as cold as it is, there isn't a whole lot that can be done. However, the tasks for today were extremely valuable. We started with a little over view of composting and how it works, and then went out to tend to the compost that we have here at the school.

My parent's had composting off and on at our house, but I never really cared much about it- all I knew was that it was stinky, and that was enough for me to let my parents handle it themselves.
Being here at IICD and continuing to learn more about our planet's conditions and the future that we face, I am becoming more and more aware of how necessary sustainability is, as well as how easy it can be to start making changes, and how important it is to make the changes now, not later.
There are bins that you can buy from home improvement stores, but I would bet you that building your own is cheaper, and more fun! Our compost here at IICD is above the ground, but you can also dig a pit and your composting underground. We have three compartments: the first one is where all of your food scraps go. You can put all organic material in here (not organic as in organic produce, but as in material that will break down) including egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, leftover food, and even cooking oil. The only reason you should not put something in the compost is dependent on where you live. Cooked food can attract animals that is something you should consider when you plan your compost. The only maintenance that is required with this pile is to occasionally go in and chop up the food. By breaking it down into smaller pieces, it will break down faster. You want to this pile to remain moist and juicy.
The second pile, you want to layer this moist food with dry material. For this you can use recycled newspaper, shredded paper, all of the dry leaves from you yard, the grass you collect when mowing, and any other branches or twigs you have. Now, instead of having to pay to get all of this stuff thrown out or taken away by the city recycling, you can put it to good use in your yard! You layer the dry materials with the wet mush and then leave it. You want to keep it covered so that it can stay warm inside. Over time, it will break down and compact, and you can keep piling more and more.
The third pile is where you put this dry wet mixture after it has broken down and mixed together. It sits in this third bin to finish the process, and to be stored until ready to use!
Today, after we chopped and transferred, we brought buckets of the compost inside and layered it with the regular soil and planted some vegetables and beans in pots to have for the winter. We also looked up what vegetables like to grow together, and planted ours accordingly.
Compost soil is so dark and rich- it looks like the stuff people buy in the stores for a lot money- but better! When we have gardens, the plants use the nutrients from the soil to grow. So when we go to plant new stuff, we need to put nutrients back into the soil. Rather then paying money for someone to take away your food scraps that will go sit in a landfill, and then go spend more money for "good soil", why not save all of that money and use the food to enrich the soil for the new food!?
I know it is winter, and most people are happy for the excuse to not think about their gardens for a while. But now is the perfect time to build your compost and start collecting food. Although it won't break down while its cold, once it starts to warm up, the process will begin and by the time you are ready to plant in your garden, you will have this beautiful nutritious soil to use!

Here are some picture of the process:

Compost

Regular Soil (with water on it)












Compost Soil! Rich and Luscious!













Our indoor garden!

Our Garden Plan- So we know what we planted, where!

Thursday and Friday Promotions in Kalamazoo and South Bend

These past two days Andra and I have been venturing out to promote IICDs open house on January 22nd and our programs in Kalamazoo, MI and South Bend, IN. The areas we focused on were the university's, libraries and local businesses.

The first day we went to Kalamazoo, it was a gorgeous city with three universities literally right next to each other. The biggest of the three is Western Michigan University and we spent nearly 2 hours around the campus posting at all the various kiosks outside and a little inside the building, but those weren't the prime spots. It was kind of miserable because it was below freezing and also because Andra gets below freezing around 60F and she's not a happy camper when she's cold at all haha.

I think one of the highlights was going to a local all Spanish shop and using the very little Espanol I know to ask "Donde esta la Biblioteque (Library)." Very gratifying. After that we posted nearly half the material in a local giant community college, there was nearly a board to post on every twenty feet.

Today was amazing as well. South Bend is a beautiful city but a bit banky and suity if you know what I mean. But even though it was mula snob heaven there was some sincere looking places we went into to talk with the employees and post our materials. A few coffee shops , some restaurants and a little Irish bookstore in which we purchased a few old cheap books mostly which discussed the theories of Herr Charlie Marx.

The highlight though was going to Notre Dame University, my god it was so beautiful it nearly made me want to go to church again!!! We spent nearly three hours promoting in all the buildings, site seeing and taking pictures (which should be up). At one point we walked into what seemed to be the mother ship of all the structures, with gorgeous gothic architecture with a giant gold dome and a golden maiden mounted on the nipple of the golden breast. Inside there was a celebration, not sure what it was for. When we walked in there was murals on the walls depicting the savior and godfather of all humanity, Christopher Columbus (no sarcasm of course). Singing rang through the halls "all blah blah to the mountain over the hills and everywhere!" It was beautiful, it was a choir on the third floor of the innards of this mother ship. We entered into the festivities immediately and savagely tore through the amazing, delicious pigs in the blanket, fried chicken, fresh veggies and cold punch. We were starving to say the least. Then we went up the stairs, more food! Then up one more flight to the angels who bellowed out to the heavens! And guess what MORE FOOD!

It was a truly amazing day, I should say more but I'm very tired and need sleep. So until next time, solidarity towards all and to all a good night.

Update on the personal ban of High Fructose Corn Syrup

Oh goodness, what is there to say other than my idea of having 28 days of freedom from HFCS being in my body has utterly failed.
I mentioned in the blog post that I wrote when starting this challenge that one of the hardest yet still rewarding things was going to be having to read the labels of all of the food I eat. Well, I was right about this being a challenge- in numerous ways.
First of all, reading the labels of things that I was used to just consuming unconsciously was quite the task, one that I only remembered to do part of the time, rather than all of the time. For instance, I went and made a sandwich, and reached for the 100% whole wheat bread, feeling proud that I had chosen the healthy option and had so easily passed over the moist, soft white bread that was sitting next to it. I ate my sandwich with enjoyment, confident that I was HFCS free with my turkey and cheese. I was happy in my ignorant bliss until someone pointed out to me that my lovely sandwich did in fact have high fructose corn syrup in it, and it came in my delicious whole wheat bread!
Of course it does. I should have remembered that if its processed and prepackaged, it usually contains HFCS, even if it is something we wouldn't consider a "sweet" food.
The second challenge occured when I went to restaurants or when I am not the one preparing the meals (which is quite often since we all take turns cooking). In these situations I am not in control of what ingredients get put into a dish, and therefore I have no way of figuring out if HFCS snuck its way in to the meal while I wasn't looking. There is really not much to do about this one, unless you can somehow ensure that the kitchen in which your meals is being prepared doesn't contain any processed foods which, in this day and age, is nearly an impossible task unless you don't ever eat out, and unless you have 100% control of the food shopping and have time and money to dedicate to making it possible.
There are still some positive changes that have come out of this, so let's try to look at the glass that's half full:
I have become, and am still becoming more aware of things I am putting in my mouth, and how they effect how I feel and how my body functions differently depending on what I provide it with.  I have been reminded of how delicious (and nutritious) REAL bread is, and I have saved a lot of money by trying not to eat out.
This adventure still continues, as I try to feed my body and soul with things that will support its healthy functioning and its ability to thrive, not just survive.

Busy Bees!

That's what we have been for the past week- busy, busy bees. So, here's little update on what we have been doing!

Last week on Tuesday and Wednesday we hosted a Development Conference, where the IICD Massachusetts school came here to IICD Michigan and we had two days full of presentations, workshops, etc.

The main purpose of the conference was to evaluate the Millennium Development Goals set by the UN. We had presentations about each of the eight goals and how far we (the world) have come in trying to meet them, and how far we still have to go. Here is a link to the website so you can check it out-

 UN Millennium Development Goals

It was great to see that there are goals set to try to overcome the lack of basic needs and rights that exist all over the world, however, you also have to look critically on the accomplishments that have been made and the accomplishments that have not been made. Some of the presenters did a great job at looking at the statistics the UN has provided and trying to figure out whether they are misleading, or why hasn't there been more progress made. The truth is, we have the money, the technology, and the resources to provide the whole world with food, clean water, health care, treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, etc. The problem is the willingness of those capable of providing all of these things, to do so.

We also had a great presentation from a doctor who worked in Africa for many years at one of the projects called TCE (Total Control of the Epidemic) (you can visit the Humana People to People website to learn more about this project ). Because it was World AIDS day, we did some educational activities around HIV/AIDS, and then she talked to us about her work in Africa. It was truly amazing to hear the statistics of how many people become infected each year, how many people die, and how successful this projects is in controlling the spread by getting people to get tested and getting the people who test positive hooked up with treatment and support.
Of the 33.4 million people that are living with HIV, 22.5 million of them live in Sub Saharan Africa. Africa has more than 14 million children that are orphaned because of HIV/AIDS, and 2.l children are infected themselves.
As part of the work they were doing, they started to breakdown the ingredients of the Antiretroviral medications, and after a lot of research they developed a mixture of aspirin, selenium, and vitamins, especially B. The Aspirin is an anti-inflammatory, and when a person had HIV, the body is fighting off infections, it produces the inflammation but when your body is constantly doing this, it can be really toxic. The Selenium controls cell division, and the B vitamins get used by the immune system to protect the cells.
They harvested plants that naturally contain these ingredients, including plants that contain salicylic acid, which is the active ingredient in Aspirin. They then dried them and made capsules. Because the access to Antiretroviral drugs is limited for these communities, they only give them to people who have AIDS, and those whose CD4 count is higher can take these capsules and it has been proven to extend their lifespan for 6 years.

We also had a presentation about the GAIA theory, and about environmental sustainability. The theory says that our biosphere and the physical components of the earth are closely integrated. It looks at symbiotic relationships that exist throughout the world, and how the earth maintains conditions for its own survival, just like the human body. The sun gets hotter every year, and yet the earth is able to maintain its temperature with natural processes- that is until us humans  disturbed this system. The earth is only able to combat half of the effects of what we attributing to through our use of fossil fuels. We then had a group discussion on what kinds of things we can do ourselves to become more sustainable, as well as things we can bring to our projects. The truth is, we have reached peak oil and although we won't run out soon, we are now on the last of the supply and our lives will have to change in order to accommodate. In the US, we consume 25% of the world's resources, and we only make up a little less than 5% of the world's population. We are so dependent on oil for so many things in our lives, and it is time to start facing the reality that we are the ones whose lives will change the most drastically without oil. We need to go backwards in time, in order to move forward. We need to start learning how to grow our own food, collect rain water, etc.


These were my personal highlights of the conference, although there was so much more information, and fun crammed into those two days. It was great to meet the participants at the Massachusetts school, and to come together as one unified movement to discuss the world's conditions and what concrete things we can do to contribute to its growth and development.

Here is our program for the conference, so you can see some of the other things we were doing:

The conference ended on Wednesday, and Thursday was spent cleaning and restoring our environment after the two busy days, and preparing for our next adventure of the week: heading to Detroit for a building weekend with Georgia Street Community Collective.

I believe I have mentioned GSCC in a previous blog post, I think to tell everyone to check out their website and blog because they do extremely amazing work. Mark, the founder, grew up in this neighborhood but moved away and then came back after ten years to a place with broken down homes, empty lots of land, and trash everywhere. The only place to get food within walking distance is a liquor store, and as people cut through these empty lots of land to get food, they left trash everywhere. So Mark took over these empty lots of land and put community gardens in, so as they walk to the liquor store to get food, they could pick some fresh produce to add to their meal. Now they have multiple gardens throughout the whole neighborhood, an orchard, a little playground, chickens, and even a goat. They also took over a foreclosed building and have been restoring to make a community center to have gatherings and events, classes, movie nights, etc. They also took over a foreclosed home and are turning it into a library and computer lab that the community can use.

A few weeks ago some of us went to Ann Arbor to raise money for GSCC to put in insulation in the community center for the winter, and this past weekend we went to help them put up the drywall. It was truly an amazing experience- not only did we learn how to do drywall and finished the entire building in those two days, including sanding and retouching, and re-sanding, but we did it for such a great cause. Being from the US, I hear so many things about Detroit and about how bad the conditions are there but I really couldn't have imagined the things I saw. It was really shocking to see so many broken down homes, some that people were still living in, and empty lots of land collecting piles of trash. It literally looked like a war zone.

There was a reporter from the Detroit Free Press there, following Mark around and taking pictures for a piece they are doing on the neighborhood. He told us that this neighborhood has the most homicides of anywhere else in Detroit, just within a few small blocks. We all left Detroit feeling like we had really worked hard for something really important, and that we wish we didn't have to leave yet.

I personally feel extremely passionate about this work- right before we left to come to Michigan, I had this epiphany idea of wanting to open a community center in really bad neighborhood and hold classes and have after school programs and community events- everything that GSCC is doing. I am so grateful to have been a part of that work, even for one day, and I really look forward to the work I do with them in the future.

So, I hope this gave you a little taste of what we have been up to the past couple of weeks, and why there have so few blog posts lately. More pictures will be posted soon, so check back!

We only have a couple more weeks before Christmas break, where we can go home and see our families for a few days and then when we return, we will be done with promotions and will officially start our team! Woo-hoo!

More to come soon! Happy snow days!

Andra