More Great Stuff from Friction

Hi All

We’ve still got our Heard And Not Seen project in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, until the 22nd August – if you haven’t seen it before, drop in, it’s open 7 days a week.  We’ve been getting a lot of local and national press, newspapers, TV and radio, and it’s been nicely controversial, in light of all the recent hooha around Europe about various ‘burka bans’ in the offing.  It’s clear that the need for the project is greater than ever – so let’s get talking!

Next week we are holding one of our legendary seminars at the Edge, on Thursday at 6pm.  This time we are proud to be hosting Isaura Mendes of the Bobby Mendes Peace Legacy from Boston USA.  The theme for the evening is ‘A Legacy of Peace?’ – asking the question ‘How can we create a future free of violence for our children?’.  Isaura is a tireless campaigner for peace in her community, after losing two of her own sons to the violence within her neighbourhood.  We first met Isaura in 2006, when she visited with her son, Matthew.  We had an amazing time together and they quickly embedded themselves in our community of Balsall Heath, in two weeks they managed to hook up with all kinds of people and made a great impression.  Matthew, particularly had a great experience and felt that the ‘weight of the ghetto’ lifted off his shoulders and that coming over here had helped him to ‘find his voice’.  Tragically he was murdered in a drive-by shooting just three weeks after his return to the States, 11 years after the murder of his brother, Bobby. Despite this second loss, Isaura somehow found the strength to continue with her campaigning, which has had a huge impact, reducing the murders in her community significantly.  But as she says, just one death is too many, so she continues with her work – she is really an inspiration.  There is now a programme in place called ‘Find Your Voice’ in honour of Matthew, including a community library initiated with the huge pile of books he blagged off us before he left.  We urge you to attend this important event and have the chance to meet this amazing (and lovely) woman (she’s a fantastic cook, so we’re going to try to persuade her to cook us up some her amazing Capo Verdean food – bonus!). See you there.