25th January 2020



Today is the first day of the Lunar Calendar. That makes it the first day of the Chinese New Year celebrations, and because today also happens to be a Saturday, the streets of Chinatown are full with people. It's a special year for me, because today is also the first year of the 12 year cycle, the Year of the Rat. I happen to be a Rat in the Chinese zodiac; this is my year.



Today's celebrations don't look so different from the celebrations ten years ago. The… Continue

I've noticed that a lot of people are sending mails to everyone on their friends lists simply to notify them that they've written a new blog post. It's quite annoying, but in a way I can see why people see this is necessary to spread the information in a blog post they've written.



E-mail notification seems a bit too messy to me, when you have a large number of friends. I've just checked my e-mail account and there are 287 mails in there from the last two days. I know you can switch… Continue

A few years ago I was a student at university, in the design school. Though as students we had access to quite a large number of the PCs, Macs and other computer equipment that we needed to complete our assignments. However, laptops were a necessity for the majority of people on our course due to the need to carry around large amounts of digital information.



Though the UK is a northern country and the university is both close to the coast and near the river which splits the city in… Continue

The challenge I'm tackling today is to find a 'power player'... quite literally. I love the first part of missions on EVOKE because they seem to focus in on finding the very source of inspiration. Inspiration to me is the real fuel that's powering our EVOKE community. It's where the ideas are coming from as well as the hunger to think them up. It's also by far the easiest of the three types of mission because there are so many inspirational people out there to write about!



For my… Continue

Imagine, if you will, just one eventuality out of millions.



July 2020



It's mid-summer in England and the BBC weather programme is forecasting yet another scorching weekend. This is followed by a government announcement: the presenter reminds viewers that the sun shelter time begins at 11:24am and ends at 2:07pm. The streets are silent, and the glaring heat reflects from the off-white sun screens fixed to every window. Here and there the signs of a household unable to pay for… Continue

I just found this article about Liberian Alfred Sirleaf - the 'Blackboard Blogger' - who has found a very inventive way to distribute news in his home country, where many people can't afford to buy newspapers, a TV or go on the internet. His idea really impressed me.



His project is called Daily Talk. Every morning before the rush hour he writes news on blackboards fixed to his… Continue

ACT2 has provided quite a difficult challenge to me, which I consider a good thing. There are so many good ideas floating about in people's evidence posts that I felt I had to bring something new to the table. I want to thank everyone who has made suggestions and offered their help to me in this.



I am glad to say I have found my evidence! My answer to this mission is to write the following letter to my MP, alerting them to the fact this is an… Continue

Sarah Hickox had this amazing idea in her blog post (http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/click-to-give) which featured web sites which give food to the hungry with one click.



As this is Sarah's idea I'm not using this as my own evidence for ACT2, but I thought it would be useful to have a post with as many similar 'click to give daily' web sites donating to worldwide causes as I could find, as a quick-click… Continue

I am not pointing any fingers here. It's only day two here for me and I'm still finding my way around and learning a great deal. However, I've already noticed that a few folks seem to be treating this wh*** thing like one big popularity contest. Doesn't that completely miss the point?



I thought EVOKE was about learning how to better the world and helping and encouraging others in a community to do the same, not stroking your own ego. The points system will become utterly meaningless… Continue

ACT2's mission is to,

Increase the food security of at least one person in your community.

The ideas on the objective page sound really good, but I'm not sure how any of them would apply to me. I can think of ideas that would benefit myself but not others. I need to think of something challenging but possible.

Any ideas?

A local food security crisis?



If I lived in a developing country, this would be only too easy to answer. Taking a look at the global hunger map is sobering enough.



But locally? I'm very lucky to live in such a priviledged country. Searching my city and 'food' brings up a multitude of links to restaurants, supermarkets, takeaways, business registrations, even courses; all things you would expect to find in a big city in the UK. We clearly have *lots* of food. Is there really… Continue

EVOKE is proving to be quite a challenge! The first part of this mission was hard enough, but the second is even more difficult.



Just how do you pick one person from the millions who are out there making a real difference?



I went back to basics and started with where I find my inspiration: literature. My mind almost immediately jumped to the perfect person for shadowing; Xue Xinran.



Xinran is an author and journalist originally from Beijing in North China, who has… Continue

My chosen secret: "keep learning from your customers."



Having recently started my dream job as a library assistant, I felt from the very start the pressure to be the source of an endless amount of information. If someone asked me a question, they would expect me to give a satisfying answer to it with the least amount of delay. This was and still is scary for me; being so new to the career and the workplaces I am in.



I'm beginning to accept that I can't know how best to… Continue