Yin & Yang

Last week, much buzzed about four-part series Top Boy impacted UK TV sets. Set in east London, Top Boy aimed to tackle the complexity of drug and gang culture, giving viewers an insight into different factors such as hierarchy, gang-loyalty and grooming, and even exploring social issues like poverty and mental health in an honest, and gritty way.

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Christine Caine gave me a massive reality check yesterday at the o2 – it’s so easy to be consumed with our 1st world problems and forget about what is going on in the world around us. Even if we know about what’s happening, we choose ignore it and live our fairytale lives without actually care for our brothers and sisters around the world. This year has been one of the worst in terms of natural disasters with numerous earthquakes, floods, tornados and typhoons around the planet. We’re blessed to have none of that here, aside from horrendous politics and youth riots – we’re fine. As always the media are far too busy to report actual news and focus more on political nonsense and celebrity life when disasters like the flooding in Thailand barely get any mention. One of my university friends gave me the heads up a week ago on the extent of the damage – flooding has been going on for months and now it has spread to Bangkok. This is the worst flooding in five decades, one third of the country’s provinces have been devastated with over 400 people dead and 9,000,000 affected. Crazy – after the cut for more.

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Khulisa is a South-African charity now working in London to help minimise the amount of youths involved in crime. I spotted an article about Khulisa in the Evening Standard a couple of months ago and it’s funny actually I got so into it that I missed my stop! Khulisa work to keep youngsters out of prison but unlike other services, they offer an extensive and well-structured programme and a well-implemented mentoring service. The programme reiterates safer and more acceptable ways of venting hidden or built up anger and frustration as well as helping young offenders realise the impact their crimes have on other people from all angles and points of view. There is definitely a group of people out there that are not being heard and are also very misunderstood because they do not know how to deal with events that have affected them in the past. What Khulisa seem to be doing is putting these guys into something like a boot camp focusing on changing bad behavior, it’s really inspiring.

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 You might have been seeing these pages in the metro over the last few months, spreads featuring former smokers who have overcome their addiction. The campaign has been put in place to help people quit smoking by inspiring them and proving to them that it is possible to quit smoking. On the website and on their facebook app you will find a range of success stories  as well as a free guide with tonnes of info regarding smoking, what it does to you and how to quit. I think this is a great campaign because it’s very empowering, its great to see people who are genuinely proud to overcome something that is essentially an addiction that is capable of shortening your life expectancy. If you are a smoker and/or know someone that smokes and want to know more about help available to help quit, it might be a great idea to check this out.

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Insurance company and corporate partner of the National Theatre, Aviva have launched an extensive campaign to raise money for Save the Children. The campaign encourages the public to visit the Aviva facebook page and upload photos of themselves, these photos are projected onto a wall outside the National theatre on the Southbank which will be seen by thousands of people! For each photo uploaded, Aviva will donate £2 to Save the Children which will go towards helping street children in India to get access to a better education. If all of their facebook fans uploaded a photo each, Aviva could easily donate over £90,000- insane! If you fancy seeing your mug projected onto the National Theatre, then read on to find out where you can get uploading!

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Wired is one of, if not the best night for live music in London in my opinion. You see both unsigned and signed acts, some you’ve heard of and others you haven’t. It’s a great place for many things such as discovering new talent or simply networking with other attendees. However the video below looks at another side of Wired in regards to helping others.

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Arts Against Knives is a charity which began in honour of Oliver Hemsley, a Central Saint Martin’s student who was left paralyzed after a devastating attack leading to him being stabbed. The youth-led charity launched in 2009 with quite an impressive exhibition which generated a substantial amount of press including the likes of  Vogue, I-D Magazine, The Evening Standard and The Independent. A handful of familiar faces/names also supported the exhibition such as Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Vivienne Westwood, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rankin and Banksy.

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