BUILDING A SCAFFOLD OF HOPE FOR TOMORROW.

Louise Richardson

I was asked to write something about tomorrow’s world – when I feel I’m a bit stuck I think about change, but I also think about movement. In Cox and Forshaw’s book describing E=mc2, which is Einstein’s theory of space and relativity, they try and explain to people, like me, (non-physicist or scientific in any way) how modern physicists think about the nature of space and time. I don’t want you to think that I am in any way an expert in this matter, (excuse the pun), but the overarching aim is to state that space and time are relative, and energy is interchangeable. This is a great book to read with a lot of head-scratching and re-reading, but its view is that the world has different perspectives, and we sometimes need to see other people’s views on how they see it. Do I understand Einstein’s theory with any more clarity? Maybe not. But what it allowed me to remember is that perspective is individual, and energy can be universal, this is our interconnectedness without the disguise of conditions.

We have 37.2 trillion (give or take) cells in our human body, we are a complex organism. Each cell has their structure and function, living, dying, and regenerating, so I guess, even if we think we can stand still, not move, remain static – the news is (sorry if this is not what you want to hear) physically we can’t, even if we want to. We have been moving forward since we lived in the seas, from when we were hunter-gathers, to farming fields, to living in houses, moving to live and work in modern communities.

What we should be aware of, is that we are in constant movement, a constant state of change, and unless we have released the power of back to the future and designed a time travel car, we are rolling forward. Sometimes, when running a business or being in charge, we can feel stuck. I would warmly invite you to take another look, when you last looked at a problem, the situation, a lot of the cells that saw that problem don’t even exist anymore. We must remember the ability to grow and develop is to be human, even though we may not feel it or realise it, it’s happening. Every cell has a small space, and this is multiplied by 37.2 trillion, so if you are feeling trapped or stuck remember that there is all this space for us to use to our advantage, we can imagine this space as our superpower to breathe into, to take solace in, this can be your happy place x 37.2 trillion.

“The old way of doing business no longer fits the purpose of the world we live in. ”

As CEO of Absafe I am proud to be part of a unique safety education charity dedicated to saving lives and reducing harm by instilling a positive safety culture in our communities and inspiring a passion for safety through education and engagement. Our vision is for a safer future; free from life-changing unintentional injury and harm with protective communities, inspired by a passion for safety, so that no one must learn by accident.

Protecting our future generations we provide health, safety, and well-being education and risk awareness. Protecting people and places from harm, helping communities thrive by building a strong positive safety culture, and giving individuals the confidence, skills, and attitudes to create a safer future. We deliver a range of unique projects and interactive training programs designed to inform, instruct, and engage to reduce vulnerability to unintentional injury and harm, and support positive decisionmaking concerning harmful behaviour. We help individuals to see another’s perspective, to get unstuck from a challenging destructive behaviour.

Moving into the world of tomorrow Absafe has decided to design a new brand for our community charity. We collaborated with many members of our community, from young people to older members, volunteers and professionals, police officers to young people in secure units. Moving into 2022 we wanted to ensure we were able to encapsulate the opinion of as many people as we could. During this process we had to be brave and listen to feedback, have an honest heart, and keep the focus on the outcome for the charity, which was building a better representative brand for

Absafe. Generally, we can spend a lot of our time on the self-talk which can make use of our precious energy. We want to talk to young people about their potential, we don’t talk to our community enough about this, at Absafe we are inviting, warm and accepting of where everyone sits on the scale of self-potential realisation and offer a safe place to allow kids to show they can be seen and accepted.

“…Broken Crayons can still colour…” - Fab Five, Netflix

Change can be terrifying as we don’t know what is on the other side. Moving into the world of tomorrow, we as a community need to have insight, wisdom, and feeling interconnectedness. We need to have experiential insights with healthy self-inquiry, to take some decisions from our heads to our heart. For Absafe it was beginning to understand that we can run a charity in a way that provides service for our community but also a safe space for everyone who visits – if we feel safe, we can learn and develop in ways that we may have hidden before, and it allows us to share our talents and be more accepting of others. It enables us to feel grounded and invites mindfulness to our daily lives, which can improve our working lives. If we could do that for every single person, imagine the positive impact that will have on our personal lives, and the improvements that could be made in our communities.

“… It takes a brave step to understand that we need critical development to see the uniqueness in others and ourselves…” - Robert Jagers

Imagination and thought are underrated, we all need to hear that we are capable and that the feelings that we have are of a temporary nature, like waves approaching a shoreline. This is more important now than ever for our young people, the purpose and mission for Absafe have become more vital, and with this is the need for us to concentrate our efforts on how we do this more efficiently and effectively. How do we ride the surfboard of change to ensure the longevity of the charity and continue to be relevant nationally and internationally?

We are passionate about the power of educating in a participative and engaging environment, using fun to create lasting change in children’s lives and in the communities in which they live. We believe in the transformative impact that positive safety culture can have on the health and prosperity of future generations. It’s all about forward momentum, the inner and outer movement of our 37.2 million cells. For us it’s about how we continue to move forward with our new brand, in a world of financial uncertainty.

“… I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve…” -Matthew McConaughey

We are all greater than the narrative we have been given and that you give yourselves, due to the ever-changing makeup of our human bodies. We never stop growing we never stop moving forward and remember you have the ability and the strength to learn to have frank conversations, based on compassion, with others and yourself. Plan, think, and feel ahead with a healthy sense of identity this will help you understand your purpose.

Sometimes we can move towards conditions that, like gravity, pull us back to the orbit of negative comfort. We have negative behaviours that can ground us somewhere we don’t want to be and to someone, we don’t even recognise. Remember we can slowly build a scaffold of hope and support, bit by bit to move into the world of tomorrow. We need to understand our systems of flow, whether in business, in relationships, or during our personal development.

When we understand our ethics of belonging, we can develop natural cycles of our true nature, taking down the scaffolding when we are ready to reveal the true you, the true nature of yourself.

We want to build a future thinking, collaborative culture, where we construct positivity for all who come and visit here, to learn to feel safe and to feel accepted, not dependant on age, background, or lived experience. To build value systems through the way we deliver our education but also systems in the way that the charity runs, a common alignment of human sameness and dignity.

And what about our new logo? Well, I’m glad you asked, it now contains the wording ‘Safety Warriors’ to represent how we feel as staff, how we feel our young people should see themselves and how we want to be warriors storming into the new world – strong, steadfast and resolute in our mission to make people safe and save lives.

Contact Louise

E-mail louise@absafe.org.uk Contact Number 07748654105 Website Address www.absafe.org.uk