The Jam Pact thejampact

Imagine you need to ask for help with a REALLY personal and complicated problem.


Now imagine that the person who is supposed to help you with this problem just doesn't "get it".


It's horrible, right?


Ivy McKenzie helps women in this situation every day. 


She works for a unique charity called Sistah Space. It was set up to focus on black women affected by abuse (very personal, very complicated).


But they don't want to be unique!


They are campaigning to make training about black women mandatory for those working to identify and help survivors and victims.


This would mean that women would be able to access support where ever they are, and whatever the colour of their skin. 


How do we do that? By having and sharing more conversations like this one...


Quote of the episode: "Women come to us and tell us all the time that we make them feel a way that no one does.”


 


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People today say they feel cut off from nature, that we need to reconnect.


But how can you reconnect with something that you were never disconnected from in the first place? 🤔


Mary-Jayne Rust is an ecotherapist with over 30 years of experience under her belt (her belt is made of braided sweetgrass and covered in flowers, by the way). 


She says we feel disconnected from nature because we feel disconnected from our own bodies. 


Wait... do you feel that? That's the feeling of you about to take a nice relaxing sigh and play the podcast 😍


Quote of the episode: "Knowing that we’re inside a conscious web of life always amazes me and relives that sense of loneliness.”


 


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Honeybees are in dire need of saving.


OR ARE THEY?!


Gill Perkins, the CEO of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, is here to set the record straight. 


She says that the public has seriously misunderstood what bees are about.


Are honeybees the grey squirrel of the insect world? Let’s find out!


Quote of the episode: "If you can understand bees, you can understand the world."


 


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So, you're living in Todmorden in West Yorkshire (bear with me here).


Things are kind of alright but the planet is burning, the ice caps are melting, and you're actually really quite worried about polar bears and pandas.


Then SUDDENLY Pam Warhurst (AKA The Most Quotable Woman in West Yorkshire) turns up and tells you to start growing carrots on public land without permission. 


How is that going to help? 🤔


"Food is our Trojan Horse," Pam told me, proudly. The point is to focus on small steps, to do things with other people, and to do them... without asking if it's okay to do it first  😱


Quote of the episode: "You don't need permission to make your community a more hopeful place. Be out there very publicly making it great. People will love it and be attracted to you."


 


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People in the UK aren't just hungry for food...


They're hungry for justice!


Emma Revie, the CEO of the Trussell Trust, says that food banks are a symptom of a problem, not the solution. 


We have two choices when it comes to poverty in the UK: to treat it as if it is an individual tragedy or a problem with our social safety net. 


This net holds us all.


Quote of the episode: "We need to stop thinking of poverty as an individual issue and start thinking of it as structural.”


Bonus quote: "We know what drives people to food banks. We can end the need."


 


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These days we all know that mental health is caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain.


*car screeching noise*


Hang on, hang on. Is that the only thing that causes mental health problems?


Emily Reynolds works with Wish, a women's mental health charity. She thinks that what happens around us can affect our mental health just as much as what goes on inside our brains. 


What about the imbalances in society?


Get in the car. We're going podcasting.


Quote of the episode: "People are asked, what's wrong with you? And that locates the problem in them.”


 


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