a shining light for buenos aires

SOCIAL OPPORTUNITY GROUP IN ARGENTINA from Jessica M. Brookes on Vimeo.

A city that poked fun at all my Britishisms, has broken pavements decorated with dog poop and the most phenomenal architecture and devotional cemetery I have ever seen; I just couldn't resist a revisit to Buenos Aires this year when my Colombian visa expired and forced me out the country and what a blessing it was.

Besides meeting some beautiful friends; coffee connoisseurs, talented artists, English teachers and impressive cooks, I also met one lovely inspiring New Zealand gentleman who despite his humility, had an honest determination to make a positive difference on the world.

Ben and I met one evening for an ice cream and before I knew it I was enjoying a trip around the city, sneaking on to the rooftop of an antiquated building and pondering the world as we shared stories and inspirations under the moon.

Ben Whitaker is the founder of SOG; Social Opportunity Group and invited me to volunteer at SOG's commodore in the slums of Buenos Aires. Here we collected the children in the community, made healthy food for them, sang and helped them with their studies. It was a really beautiful and inspiring day.

Recently I asked Ben some questions on the project.

What is SOG and its vision?
Social Opportunity Group is an NGO that we started in 2013 to try and make a difference in the lives of people that need it. Our vision is to try and create sustainable social change in disadvantaged communities in South America.

Through building and maintaining relationships we are able to support communities in making educated decisions for themselves and their families, today and in the future.

I decided to start SOG because there was a burning need inside of me to offer support to people in a world where there is such an imbalance in quality of life and now that I am doing it, I have never been happier in my life. It is such a fulfilling and rewarding journey. It is a lot of hard work but worth every drip of sweat.

Tell us about the SOG Commodore? 
"Food for Thought" is our first project. We started it in December 2013. It is a nutritious food and creative activity program for around 25-30 children in a vulnerable area Gonnet, Monte Chingolo, Buenos Aires.

We have a regular stream of volunteers from Europe who are an integral part of the day to day running of the program.

We have three SOG staff members on the ground for this project; Valeria, Justine and myself. The reason that Food for Thought makes such a difference in the lives of these children is because of the dedication, love and commitment of those two ladies, Valeria and Justine. Their devotion to the children means that around 25 kids from Monte Chingolo have a better shot at life! They are amazing women to work with and together, we make a great team.

What made you decide to start SOG? Why is it important to you?
SOG is important to me because it is changing my life for the better every day. I now can't imagine life without it. SOG allows it's members to choose a different direction in life.

We are malleable which means we assess our effectiveness at every step of the process. This means that not only can we offer opportunities to others but there are endless opportunities for us to learn as well. I love that everyone involved with SOG gets the opportunity to learn. Learning is a fundamental necessity in life. That is why SOG is important to me.

What's been the biggest challenge for you? 
The biggest challenge for me is communication. Relationships are the base of SOG. Without relationships we have nothing. In a healthy relationship, communication is essential. My Spanish language skills are improving but they are definitely holding me back in truly creating deep and meaningful relationships within the communities that we work.
Spanish has been my biggest challenge but I am working hard to conquer it!

What do you enjoy most about the work you do?
The things that I enjoy most about the work I do are the smallest of things. A thank you. A smile. The smallest of changes in a child's attitude. A child that eats all the vegetables on their plate. A hug from a child I haven't seen in days. These things are so small but to me they are so big!

I thoroughly recommend any travellers looking to volunteer to reach out to Ben and his team and visit their special place on the outskirts of the city. 

For more information on SOG, check out their website. 

See my travel photography page for more photos.

a raw cake for superheroes!

Here's a recipe courtesy of a lovely lady, Sophie Weldon, Planeteer of Captain Planet & the Planeteers that I shared a meditation or two with in Sydney.

Its a creamy coconut, blueberry and lemon cake. Raw, vegan, sugar free, superfood filled deliciousness. 

As they say in India "Health is wealth" and here's a wealth of goodness to fill the bellies of the superheroes out there.

Base

1 cup walnuts

½ cup activated buckwheat (or almonds)

½ cup pitted dates (around 8-9)

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp sea salt

Filling

1 ½ cups cashews, soaked overnight in 1 ½ cups coconut cream

¼ cup coconut oil

½ cup yoghurt (I used Co Yo coconut milk yoghurt)

¼ cup coconut nectar (or maple syrup)

¼ cup chia seeds

Juice and zest of one lemon

1 tsp vanilla bean extract

1 cup frozen blueberries

Use a food processor to mix all the base ingredients. Once combined and like crumbs press it in the bottom of a cake tin. Put it in the freezer until the filling is ready. Add all the filling ingredients to a high speed blender and mix until all creamy. Add more sweetener if you need it. Pour on base and set in freezer for 3 hours. Defrost for 30-45 min before serving.

a taste of the raj in rajasthan, india

Amber Fort, Jaiselmer

I had a fantastic time exploring Rajesthan in India. Its a beautiful place with incredible architecture, an eye opener with an incredible desert to sleep under the stars in and interesting people to learn from. The palaces, the camels, the remnants of an empire that was so powerfully abundant before the British colonisation still permeates aspects of the culture and ways of being.

My tips for traveling anywhere are to surrender to the flow and follow your heart, things will happen, interesting opportunities unveil themselves and the more local the experience, in my humble opinion, the more real your appreciation for it. If you find that; rejoice in that rare and beautiful opportunity.

Let it all wash over you. 
Don't get all righteous if someone rips you off. It can happen to the green travellers. Rickshaw drivers love taking you on a ride but if you're lucky you'll have a cool dude who plays funky music or will share a tale or two and make you giggle.

I travelled with my 'gay jewish husband' Farrel through a lot of Rajasthan and, as one might imagine, enjoyed it immensely despite needing a few breathers from one another every now and then. Solo time's important co-pilot or not.

Here is a skeleton guideline for anyone passing through:

New Delhi
Gandhi museum
Stay in Bahar Ganj.
If you're brave enough, go and sample some of the local street food in the food market nearby.

friendly police in a jaipur palace

Ranthambhorne
National Park · Tigers + wild life
If you're crazy, try a bang lassy for the first time with a friend before doing the safari.

Bundi 
Hire a bicycle and get out to a remote temple. Watch the sunset from the palace. Get chai from the chai place next to the bike place. You will know what I mean once you are there.

Pink City Jaipur 
Just wander around the city and get lost down back alleys and see what the locals are up to. Check out the Amber Palace, stay all day and watch the sunset glow reflect off the incredibly ornate building. There are a few more palaces worth checking out, one on water, the other you'll hear about.

Pushkar wedding ladies in the street

Pushkar 
Sunrise and sunsets at the temples. Make prayers at all the random temples. Check out the amazing lake.

Jaisalmer 
Explore and camp in the desert. Stay within the city walls. Walk around bare feet on the warm sandstone and be in love with the crafts, textiles and beautiful golden glows. 
I stayed and ate at Shiva's Restaurant. It was magical.

I repeat again: let it all wash over you.

tofu meets broccoli for a pan dance recipe

Rosie and Jim are my old housemates that I lived with in Sydney. They were a pleasure to live with and we'd have our little memorable picnic gatherings and tea time inspirations together. I had the lovely opportunity to revisit them both whilst in New York and Rosie, being the wonderful gastronomic dazzler she is (also running a great foodie blog called Foodoodle), cooked up a little dream for us using two of my favourite ingredients; Tofu and Broccoli.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• Tofu
• Broccoli
• Steamed Rice
• Soy sauce
• Sesame seeds

Simple Instructions

Fry tofu in hot oil & add sesame seeds once toasted

Steam rice

Steam broccoli

Combine with soy sauce
Serve with hot chilli sauce & chopsticks

ENJOY!

a hearty breakfast

a bowl full of goodness

Whilst in London, I got to hang out Westside with a lovely friend, Zoe Scaman who I worked with whilst at The Population. Besides taking me to her local yoga school and having a muchly appreciated dose of Power Yoga (phew!) we treated ourselves to a seriously healthy breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day and after suffering from acid reflux in the past, I found quinoa to be such a yummy and delectable way of starting the day healthily.

Ingredients.
Half a cup of quinoa,
a cup of water,
a teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of salt.
banana
blueberries

How to.
Bring to a simmer and stir for 10-15 minutes until almost all of the water has disappeared. Add half a cup of milk and simmer for another 10 minutes. Stir in 1-2 tablespoons of manuka honey and chopped banana and blueberries.

Enjoy this one. It warms the heart and feeds the soul.

As they say in India 'health is wealth'.

Food for thought...

Every now and then I need to remind myself that my hunger, isn’t really hunger. In fact I’m starting to think that eating food in the western world is more a form of addiction.

It still amazes me the contrast between the developing and non-developing world when it comes to food. Here we are spoilt for choice, yet we waste and consume a huge amount annually; surely something’s not right? The UK throws away an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food away annually and Australians are throwing out three million tonnes of food every year. Most of the food could have been eaten. Not only does throwing away food waste resource, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions but the food waste equates to annual cost of £10.2 billion in UK / $6 billion in Australia. Imagine what could be done with that money?

So we accept there’s a problem here. I mean, even if we’re talking exclusively about developed countries – this is not right. Further to this, look at the problems we face with obesity and diabetes. The World Health Organization predicts there will be 2.3 billion overweight adults in the world by 2015 and more than 700 million of them will be obese. So not only do we have a problem with wasting food, we are also overindulging, eating the wrong foods and I’m sure this is something preventable with an educated mindset.

Now forgive me for pointing out the obvious. But how is it we are all being so spoilt for choice, that we waste over 10% of food we PAY for; burdening precious resources, increasing demand, bad health and furthermore wasting money, yet there are people in the world who are literally starving? Where clean water is a commodity and where people don’t know where their next meal will come from. There are a billion people who live with chronic hunger everyday. This is well beyond a mere lunch craving after skipping breakfast. Furthermore, a new rapid response assessment report released by UNEP warns that up to 25% of the world’s food production may become lost due to environmental breakdown by 2050 unless action is taken and it won’t be you or me who suffers the brunt of this. "Land degradation, urban expansion and conversion of crops and cropland for non-food production, such as biofuels, may reduce the required cropland by 8–20% by 2050, if not compensated for in other ways" and we haven't even talked about the impact of climate change yet (watch this space)!

Arguably the G8 needs to recognise the impact rising prices and a growing population has on hunger. For example higher oil prices bring more crops like corn into biofuel production, putting fuel in cars rather than food in tummy's. These are governments making these decisions and seemingly treating their people as collateral damage. Lets see what the G8 concludes tomorrow at the summit, when the G8 will talk about food security, the premise that every person in the world should have access to affordable food (there is enough food in the world for everyone to be fed), there should be support for farmers and trade could be built from the ground up.

I still feel that there is a massive gap in terms of grassroots education though. There are things we, mere people, can do to help. I’m sure if we were aware of the facts, understood what it meant to go hungry and were taught meaningful nutrition facts about food – there would be a different attitude towards it. Revoking this silo attitude of “us” and “them” so we can perhaps make a tiny life adjustment that reflects a huge one for somebody else in the world. I remember when I was a child my mother would say "You're not going to eat that? Think about the children starving in Ethiopia" - now seriously, why don't we?

I suppose the next question is – what are we going to do about it?

For more stats see Leila's post: Open Your Eyes