I promise a Uni related post is pending; the books have arrived, the module site is open and the new notebooks are purchased. Since the module site only opened on Friday though and, as I;ll explain, it's been a bit hectic since then I haven't actually started yet. The whingeing is imminent though, I promise.
Lack of uni work notwithstanding this weekend has definitely been an eventful one.
As North East folks with a Facebook may have noticed a campaign was started recently with the aim of raising funds and gathering donations to take to 'The Jungle' in Calais in an attempt to offer a small amount of support, solidarity and compassion to the people currently stranded there as they await an opportunity to finish their journey. The group is based on this Facebook group and as I'm writing this I've just had a check and seen they're in excess of 7,00 members, it's an amazing campaign and one that thoroughly deserves all the support they've had.
As you can probably tell from the membership number this campaign to offer a small amount of solidarity has appropriately expanded beyond what I think even the organisers could have envisioned and spiraled into a giant campaign of thousands of people throughout the North East donating, fundraising and offering support. So much so that this Saturday the amazingly efficient organising team behind the campaign had arranged for (correct me if I'm wrong on this) five 'Sorting Days' throughout the region to tame the every growing mountain of donations into arranged, sorted and labelled aid to be sent to Calais (and I believe in the future other refugee camps throughout Europe, although as with anything like this I'm assuming this is dependent on how the situation in Europe progresses).
The fact that I'm not able to really financially support campaigns like this as much as I'd ideally like to (ie. at all really) combined with the absolute sense of outrage I get every time I read an article/Facebook post/Tweet about the appalling way Europe have neglected millions of people in their time of need means that I obviously had to sign up to help.
As with anything that involves walking into a room (possibly) full of people there was some major anxiety at play. The only thing more worrying than having to walk into a room full of people (late, as always) was the nagging worry that I could be walking into a room not full of people. That despite the huge outpouring of online support and donations the Daily Mail theory of 'Slacktivism' would win out in the end.
I could not have physically been more wrong.
I can only talk about my experience at the South Shields sorting day but from what I've seen online the response was pretty much the same at all the locations.
The room for sorting had been kindly loaned by the local mosque and it was packed. From the enormous pile of donations in the centre of the room, the tables of organising supplies (well done to the geniuses who thought of the sharpies and cable ties) to most importantly the wall to wall bodies of volunteers. There was not a space in that room, every section of floor not covered in boxes of donations had a volunteer stood in. And not just a volunteer but a cheerful, enthusiastic volunteer, determined to help as much as they could in the time they had.
I was there for a few hours and saw people arrive, frantically run around helping for a few hours and reluctantly leave as well as people who arrived before I did, worked constantly and were still buzzing around when I left. The atmosphere of that room was amazing and something I'm struggling to put into accurate words.
More than anything else it felt hopeful, people were there for their own individual reasons of course but the uniting factor was the desire to help. To not be stood by aimlessly while fellow humans suffer. To be able to go to sleep that night knowing that 'no, I maybe cant change the world, but at least today I helped improve it slightly for a few people'.
Watching a room full of people from all background and of all ages (children included) transform a pile of assorted donations into boxed and labelled stacks so efficiently that we then got extra donations sent over to sort was amazing. The only thing more reassuring than that was taking a trip to the warehouse the donations are being stored at once sorted to drop a few boxes off. That place is huge (as in, you could park several buses inside and still have a football game) and it's absolute stacked up with boxes and bags. The piles go so much higher than I could have reached and are stacked so far off the wall it's unbelievable. The generosity is amazing and seeing it happen is was an absolute honour.
Not only was my Saturday spent seeing the amazing folks of the North East show how truly generous and caring they are but my Sunday was spent learning pretty similar lesson but in a considerably more painful way. My fourth Great North Run was another amazing chance to see how excellent people can be.
Running 13.1 (cant forget the .1) miles is awful. Doing it in the sun is even worse. But somehow doing it with 56,999 other people is amazing. The determination of all those people to make it through either in an amazing time, a personal best or just plain make it to the end is genuinely inspiring. And equally amazing are the literally thousands of people who turn out to watch, to cheer everyone on, to offer up ice pops when it's too hot and jelly babies when you're starting to run out of energy.
There is literally nothing you get for turning up to watch this run except the satisfaction of making someones run that bit easier, making someone smile even through their horrific muscle cramps, and knowing that when people are thinking about stopping you might be the thing that keeps then going those extra few steps.
I think that's really been the whole theme of my weekend: watching amazing people do brilliant things just for the sheer satisfaction of helping each other.
There' a really cliched phrase that I'm going to use anyway because it sums it all up so perfectly:
"Be the change you want to see in the world"
That literally is what I've seen all weekend. People who refuse to sit around and complain about whats happening in the world and have realised that they have the power to change it.
I've never felt so proud to be from the North East as I was this weekend, watching people set out to change the world.
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