Credo Bowls

Credo Bowls
A big part of Credo are the bowls that we eat off. We have a tradition of having handmade and hand painted bowls. We recently just created a whole new batch. These bowls are a fantastic part of the Credo spirit and story as each bowl is hand painted by one of our Credo family. Each bowl not only carries the food in which we eat off but the shared stories we all hold and share in Credo.

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I taught a homeless man to code…

I taught a homeless man to code
My preconceptions about homelessness have been shattered. I always thought homeless people were isolated, but Leo is part of a very supportive community. He says the hardest thing is not the practical challenges but society’s view of him. There is an assumption that homeless people are addicted to something or mentally ill, but Leo doesn’t drink or smoke; he became homeless after he lost his job and then his accommodation in 2011.

At the start of this project, I wrote a blog about it and was inundated with responses. Some were moved and inspired; others were more negative, suggesting I should focus on buying Leo food or finding him somewhere to live instead. This idea is a tricky one. I consider Leo a friend. If he said he needed anything, I’d jump through hoops for him, but I don’t ever want him to think we are anything but equals.

Australians in 2013: happy, confident – but not as friendly as we used to be

Australians in 2013: happy, confident – but not as friendly as we used to be
img-thingThis year, 28% of us disagreed with the proposition that “accepting migrants from many different countries makes Australia stronger”; and 25% admitted to having “negative feelings” to migrants from the Middle East and Lebanon in particular. Markus takes this to be code for Muslim.

Intolerant Australia appears to be becoming more intolerant. Markus reports a sharp rise in discrimination. The 2013 survey revealed 40% or more of all new arrivals from Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, China and Hong Kong have experienced discrimination because of their colour, race or religion.

Markus is loth to tie this deteriorating situation directly to the politics of the boats. He found our attitudes to asylum seekers have further hardened in the past year: 33% of us now want all refugee boats turned back and only 18% support our treaty obligations to give refugees arriving by boat permanent residence in this country.

The Power of Outrospection

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BG46IwVfSu8
img-thingEmpathy isn’t just something that expands your moral universe. Empathy is something that can make you a more creative thinker, improve your relationships, can create the human bonds that make life worth living. But, more than that, empathy is also about social change — radical social change.

-Roman Krnaric

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

– Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Dawn of the Day

 

Australia is rich…?

Australia is rich and on top of the world: is it time to pop the champers? img-thing How rich? Well, we are a mere 0.36% of the world’s adult population but we account for 3.78% of the world’s top 1% wealthiest. The only nation with a more lopsided share of the top 1% is Switzerland, whose 0.13% of the world’s population still sees them with 1.63% of the richest 1%. How did we earn such wealth? Mostly it has come about through home ownership. Credit Suisse notes that our wealth is “heavily skewed towards real assets”, which amount on average to US$294,100 or about 59% of total assets. This average level of real assets is second only to Norway. It suggests a situation open to risks of inequality, as those on poorer incomes are shut out of the wealth-generating housing market, and a danger that our wealth could collapse if house prices fall. ...But one group left out were those on Newstart. Since the mid 1990s Newstart has gone from just below 50% of the median household income to now around 30% – well below poverty level... But while most of our issues are decidedly “first world problems”, let us not think that everyone is enjoying this great increase in wealth..
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