Greenpop chat to me about their festival, carbon offsetting and the awesomeness of vegetarian food...

Greenpop have run many great projects, including Trees for Zambia

Greenpop just hosted its second ever Reforestation Festival this past weekend, where participants plant indigenous trees to help restore the ancient Platbos forest. Around 250 people from the ages of 5 to 65 years joined them in their 'Treevolution'.

Have fun with Artjamming this school holiday!

Check out an Artjamming store near you

Artjamming have a great programme this holiday, teaching valuable painting techniques and encouraging your child to create artworks you can treasure. They will also learn about the style and story of artists such as Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Georgia O' Keefe.

Stop by the nearest Artjamming store this upcoming holiday or book now. Classes cost R155 and this includes all art supplies.

Holiday programme (for June/July)
Mondays: Jamming with art – Learn how music and art work hand in hand
Tuesdays: Colour Awareness – how colour affects everyday life
Wednesdays: Fun with foam
Thursdays: Learn to paint landscapes like Georgia O Keefe

the mag for curious kids

We recently bought an issue of Supernova. It's a new local mag that our sprite deems 'far better than Kids National Geographic, any day, mom', so it must be.

This isn't the latest edition, it's the one we bought. The latest, issue four, is now out and all about the rhino crisis, so probably really worth laying your hands on.

The mag is published by BK Publishing and is a hand-drawn magazine, which makes it really different. It also has very little advertising, and the advertising there is has been designed inhouse to blend in with the mag - refreshing, no?

Here's what their website says about them:

The latest animation movie for kids proves to have a strong green conscience.

Showing at local cinemas now!

If you've never read the book by Dr Seuss - complete with it's fun rhymes and zaney humour - you can now watch The Lorax on big screen! With incredible animation effects by Illumination Entertainment (the guys who brought us Despicable Me) and voices from the likes of Danny DeVito and Zac Efron, you will find yourself touched by the simple story that shows how greed can lead to the demise of nature.

The Lorax himself is a bizarre little creature with a large yellow moustache who claims to 'speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues' - cute or what?

Travelling up to the Harmonic Resonance party to help promote my mums event The Little Green Gathering , we discovered many hidden treasures amongst the otherwise isolatingly spacious and overgrown landscapes of the Garden Route.

Wild Sprit lodge& backpackers (photograph by Julan Briant)

Friday Night:

After a long-winded and rather dramatic 6-hour ride in the dark and rain, we arrive at our friend's off-the-grid home, greeted mercifully by a cup of Organic hot cocoa. This is the kind of house where you take a flashlight to the loo and have to stand in a certain place in the lounge to receive any morsel of cellular phone reception. I slept like a baby.

Saturday:

Yes, we can have clear, gorgeous swimming pools without it costing nature!

Natural systems can keep pool water clear!

Jenny Louw’s beautiful, bio-diverse swimming pool is a wonder to look at. Like a natural lake it lies transparent amongst the rushes and reeds, home to many garden creatures.

Unlike chlorine pools, natural swimming pools work with the nature around them. They require no chemicals whatsoever and a quarter of the amount of electricity needed for normal swimming pools.

Home Birth Gathering at Erin Hall : Birth as a humans rights issue

Ever wondered about your birthing options?

‘We’re not anti-hospital, we’re just about sharing,’ says Ruth as we begin. According to her, natural home birth is a valid option for an expecting mother. These gathering events are a chance for the interested to meet up and discuss – from couples to mothers-to-be, doulas, midwives or simply anyone who is curious about the idea of having a baby at home. As it was Human Rights Month, this particular Home Birth Gathering topic was titled ‘birth as a human rights issue’.

One Struggle – a conference on social justice, animal rights and radical environmentalism - took place in Muizenberg last Saturday (18 Feb) thanks to the South African Vegan Society.

The conference focused on the rights of animals, the environment and human beings.

Hearing about the One Struggle conference, I was immediately excited; the South African Vegan Society represent a genuine passion for true authentic societal change, and I knew this would be reflected in any event they organised.

When we arrived in the afternoon, was busy giving her talk on veganism and food security in Cape Town: explaining how being vegan is better not only for animals, but for people and the earth too. The young lady really sounded like she knew her stuff, and displayed all the facts to back up her statements.

‘We may be making attempts to save water in our home due to turning off taps and showering instead of bathing, but when 85% of our water waste is on our plate it is important that we re-evaluate our diet. And this is not mere theory – the U.N. have been urging people to eat local and plant-based for years,' she explained, adding: 'But it is not just our diet that must change, but the production system of our diet.’

Opening up discussion to the audience, there were

We're seriously impressed with the Vineyard Hotel's latest recycling venture.

They're recycling wine corks and converting them into floors for schools for underpriveleged children.

'The aim', say the Vineyard, 'is to take something totally recyclable that is usually thrown away and create from it something that will benefit the children of our community.'

This they are doing together with their wine partners – Klein Constantia, Buitenverwachting, Boschendal and Anthonij Rupert, and a combined effort by Villiera and Groot Constantia.

In just three months the project, run by David Wibberley, collected 25 000 corks...

Eerste Rivier Empowerment Centre, a safe house for children from abusive homes, is the first to receive a 24 sq metre floor in the playroom.

Storytelling can be a powerful medium for community interaction and stimulating the imagination.

Storytelling used to a be a big part of society

A long long time ago - before TV, video games and even radio - people used to tell each other stories. In fact, story-telling was an integral part of the tribal community; we all know about the old tradition of gathering around the evening camp fire to listen to a good old tale or two. Historically our myths, legends, fables and folklore have helped pass many a morale and life lesson from one generation to the next. While some seem wacky, the archetypes and intrinsic wisdom are forever present in their words.