A poet of conscience

Cecil Rajendra was in Dublin town over the last few days, as part of series of events organised by Suas and Concern to promote cultural diversity (Building Unity through Diversity)

Who? Yes, Cecil Rajehndra. He is a Malaysian lawyer, human rights activist, political critic, environmentalist, founder of Malaysian’s Free Legal Aid, poet .., and has been nominated, twice, for the Nobel Prize for Literature. His poems have a cutting edge to them, prizing open minds and calling people to account for the world’s injustices. They happen to be very beautiful too. Below is a poem Cecil wrote specially for the event.

A DIFFERENT SAMENESS


Each one different
yet akin ….
under our tent
of skin
our bones are white
our blood is red
& when dead
all flesh, as a poet
once said,
is food for the maggot.


Race, opinion, religion ….
little
more than brushstrokes
on
a galactic canvas.
Yet
rather than celebrate
our
diverse variegations
(as one often rejoices
in the colours of Spring
Sunset, Flowers, the Rainbow)
We
choose to exterminate
blow
up each other over
less than
minor shades of difference.



Cecil Rajendra
July 2007

Breaking the Boundaries of Play

Sometimes you just can’t meet everyone. But there are always phones.

Meeting with Amy Jaffe Barzach didn’t happen in person (time constraints, New York traffic) but we did have an interesting conversation. Amy is the co-founder of Boundless Playgrounds, an organisation which aims to make play accessible to all children, of all ability, across the US.

I hadn’t thought much about playground design before meeting Amy, but it is amazing what a shift in thinking about audience, and a few small design changes can do. Wider slides, ramps, sandpits at knee and waist level, wider doors. From a distance a Boundless Playground may look the same as any other playground, but such small changes can mean inclusion for a child who otherwise would be sitting on the sidelines.

It was exactly that image which got Amy going in the first place. Seeing a child in a wheelchair unable to access the local playground seemed like a cruel irony to her, and it got her thinking about the changes she could make to improve the interaction of that child. 100 playgrounds later she is still going strong. She has build up a team around her and is working with playground manufactures to think differently about who their products are for.

Boundless Playgrounds is a great example of seeing solutions though different eyes. By seeing who are on the margin, Amy has managed to shift where those boundaries are.

Play just got a lot more playful.