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Trying to make the most out of this waterfall that we stopped off at in the Peak District. After getting this shot I moved on upwards to a dangerous spot where this waterfall begins to break, only just big enough for my tripod, and secured a more solid shot.
As early as the 1950s, IBM programmers were working on software for things like submarine control systems and missile tracking systems, which were so complex that they could not be conceived and built in one go. Programmers had to evolve them over time, like cities, starting with a simple working system that could be tested by users, and then gradually adding more function and detail in iterative cycles that took one to six months to complete. In a 1969 IBM internal report called simply “The Programming Process,” IBM computer scientist M.M. Lehman described the approach:
“The design process is… seeded by a formal definition of the system, which provides a first, executable, functional model. It is tested and further expanded through a sequence of models, that develop an increasing amount of function and an increasing amount of detail as to how that function is to be executed. Ultimately, the model becomes the system.”
This iterative approach to software development, where programmers start by creating a simple, working seed system and expand it in subsequent cycles of user testing and development, has become a common approach in software design, known under a variety of names such as iterative development, successive approximation, integration engineering, the spiral model and many others, but in 2001, when a group of prominent developers codified the core principles in a document they called the Agile Manifesto, they gave it the name “agile” which seems to have stuck.
Agile is about small teams that deliver real, working software at all times, get meaningful feedback from users as early as possible, and improve the product over time in iterative development cycles. Developing software in an agile way allows developers to rapidly respond to changing requirements. Agile developers believe that where uncertainty is high there is no such thing as a perfect plan, and the further ahead you plan, the more likely you are to be wrong.
Giving further credence to the status of Punjab as a favoured destination for investors, ITC Limited today announced to double its investment in Punjab from the earlier Rs 700 crore to Rs 1400 crore. Disclosing this during my interaction with the top corporate honchos here, the President of FMCG Businesses, ITC Limited Mr. Sanjiv Puri said his company had succeeded in making Kinnow juice and it would be in the market within the current financial year.
The Managing Director of Godrej Agrovet Limited - Mr. Balram Yadav said his company would evaluate setting up a green house and food park over 100 acres. I told him that the government was ready to create the entire infrastructure for the green house at Ladhowal.
Molson Coors president Ravi Kaza announced his company was upgrading its plant by investing Rs 50 crore. Representatives of Marks and Spencer, Cannon, Shaktibhog Atta, Walmart and Dabur also held one to one meetings with me and all sounded very upbeat about investing in Punjab. Walmart representatives said there was scope of opening a dozen more Walmart stores in Punjab as the company's stores in Punjab had the best sales.
Looking forward to a really Progressive Punjab!!!
Viewing the edge of the the Red Kite phase of the development, from the stile into the field below Bryn Farm.
Website Design & Development by Litmus Branding,India's Branding Agency. We also offer Website Design & Development services to clients, across the globe.
German company Developments in Eurostar's monopoly Channel Tunnel draws closer on a high-speed German train that could provide direct links between London and Germany pictured at St Pancas International station in London trains row may move to EU Commission DB services through the Tunnel, but is reserving most of its ammunition for Eurostar's plan to buy ten Siemens Velaro-D sets for a reported 525 million Euros. services to Germany through the Channel Tunnel, challenging Eurostar’s monopoly and Alstom trains,with plans to introduce it to the market by 2013, Two tests were conducted over the weekend on its Siemens AG-built ICE 3 trains assengers will be able to travel direct from London to Germany and the Netherlands from 2013 under plans unveiled by Germany's state monopoly Channel Tunnel.
EU Commission: Deutsche Bahn is claiming that a test run ICE through the Tunnel and a trial evacuation successful.
"Trying to catch up with the rest of the world."
The brick houses beneath signifies the root of the countrymen and shows how they are still dependent where as the neatly and tightly stacked and packed colorful houses with those cellular towers on their heads signify how people are trying to catch up with the rest of the world in present times.
The most striking and ironic part is that these people haven't forgotten their culture and roots in this mad race for economic freedom - this feature is brought in the colorfully decorated balcony.
As the hoarding reads "it truly is a PARADISE'.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde answers questions at the Development Committee press briefing during the 2013 World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings at IMF Headquarters, Washington, D.C., October 12, 2013IMF Photo
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2019 WASHINGTON DC. 2019 ANNUAL MEETINGS. Development Committee
World Bank Group President David Malpas, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Photo: World Bank / Grant Ellis
Photo ID: 101919-Development Committee-176-FF
The completed model after highlighting and weathering. Its a great model and will fit nicely into my collection of German development tanks.
United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres talk before the Development Committee Plenary during the 2022 Annual Meetings at the World Bank.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
14 October 2022
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH221014058.arw
A single floret in a cluster of pink-white of summer-blooming Pink Shower tree starts the morning as a magenta cup-shaped bloom, at extreme left, and ends the day by flattening out, star-like, in pale-pink and white flower.
Pls view large by clicking over the image.
Mobilizing Blue Carbon Markets
Sustainable Development Impact Meetings, New York, USA 19 - 23 September 2022
Meeting of the Crypto Sustainability Coalition
André Vanyi-Robin, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Plastiks, United Kingdom; Josh Knauer, Co-Founder, ReSeed Carbon Assets, USA; Sophia Li, Co-Founder, Steward, USA
Charles Thomas Pool, Head, Partnerships, Toucan Protocol, Switzerland; Tomicah Tillemann, Chief Policy Officer, Haun Ventures, USA; Matthew Blake, Head of Shaping the Future of Financial and Monetary Systems, World Economic Forum; Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum. Copyright: World Economic Forum/Jeffery Jones
If you've watched the show, Arrested Development, you might recognize this scene. But this was taken in Ashland, Oregon, not Reno.
2007_08_25-1000941
Director General of Revenue of Somalia Jafar Mohamed Ahmed, Director General of Somalia National Bureau of Statistics Sharmarke Farah, Senior Economist Vincent de Paul Koukpaizan, and Deputy Division Chief of the IMF Statistics Department Zaijin Zhan participate in a Capacity Development Talk titled Building Capacity in Fragile States moderated by Noha El-Gebaly at the International Monetary Fund.
IMF Photo/Cory Hancock
12 April 2022
Washington, DC, United States
Photo ref: CH220412066.arw
Yoko Ono’s own relationship and partnership with John Lennon have given her access and opportunities she might never have achieved on her own, but her status as a pop icon has largely obscured her own achievements as an artist. Now where is this more obvious than in the area of filmmaking. Between 1966 and 1971, Ono made substantial contribution to avant-garde cinema,
Most of which are now a vague memory, even for those generally cognizant of developments in this field. With few expectations, her films have been out of circulation for years, but fortunately this situation needs to be changing; in the spring of 1989 the Whitney Museum of American Art presented a film retrospective along with a small show of objects - eighties versions of conceptual objects Ono has exhibited in 1966 and 1967 – and the American Federation of Arts re-released Ono’s films in the spring of 1991.
Except as a film-goer, Ono was not involved with film until the 1960s, though by this time she began to make her own films, she was an established artist. At the end of the fifties, after studying poetry and music at Sarah Lawrence College, she became part of a circle of avant-garde musicians (including John Cage and Merce Cunningham): in fact the “Chambers Street Series.” An influential concert series organized by LaMonte Young, was held at Ono’s loft at 112 Chambers. Ono’s activities in music led to her first public concert, A Grapefruit in the World of Park (at the Village Gate, 1961) and later that same year to an evening of performance events in which Yvonne Rainer stood up and sat down before a table stacked with dishes for ten minutes, then smashed the dishes “accompanied by a rhythmic background of repeated syllables, a tape recording of moans and words spoken backwards, and by an aria of high-pitched wails sung by Ono” (Barbara Haskell’s description in Yoko Ono: Objects, Films, the catalogue for the 1989 Whitney Museum show).
In the early sixties Ono was part of what became known as Fluxus, an art movement with roots in Dada, in Marcel Duchamp and John Cage, and energised by George Maciunas. The Fluxus artists were dedicated to challenging conventional definitions in the fine arts, and conventional relationships between artwork and viewer. In the early sixties, Ono made such works as Painting to See the Room through (1961), a canvas with an almost invisible hole in the centre through which one peered to see the room, and Painting to Hammer the Nail in (1961), a white wood panel that “viewers” were instructed to hammer nails into with an attached hammer. Instructions for dozens of these early pieces, and for later ones, are reprinted in Ono’s Grapefruit, which has appeared several times in several different editions- most recently in a Simon and Schuster/ Touchstone paperback edition, reprinted in 1979.
By the mid sixties, Ono had become interested in film, as a writer of mini film scripts (sixteen are reprinted in the Fall 1989 Film Quarterly), and as a contributor of three films to the Fluxfilm Program coordinated by Maciunas in 1966: two one-shot films shot at 2000 frames per second, Eyeblink and Match, and No.4, a sequence of buttocks of walking males and females. Along with several other films in the Fluxfilm Program (and two 1966 films by Bruce Baillie), Eyeblink and No.4 are, so far as I know, the first instances of what was to become a mini-genre of avant-garde cinema: the single-shot film (films that are or appear to be precisely one shot long), No.4 (Bottoms) (1966).
For the eighty minutes of No.4 (Bottoms), all we see are human buttocks in the act of walking, filmed in black and white, in close-up, so that each buttocks fills the screen: the crack between the cheeks and the crease between hams and legs divide the frame into four approximately equal sectors: we cannot see around the edges of the walking bodies. Each buttocks is filmed for a few seconds (often for fifteen seconds or so; sometimes for less than ten seconds), and is then followed immediately by the next buttocks. The sound track consists of interviews with people whose buttocks we see and with other people considering whether to allow themselves to be filmed; they talk about the project in general, and they raise the issue of the film’s probable boredom, which becomes a comment on viewers’ actual experience of the film. The sound track also includes segments of television news coverage of the project (which had considerable visibility in London in 1966), including an interview with Ono, who discusses the conceptual design of the film.
No. 4 (Bottoms) is fascinating and entertaining, especially in its revelation of the human body. Because Ono’s structuring of the visuals is rigorously serial, No.4 (Bottoms) is reminiscent of Edward Muybridge’s motion studies, though in this instance the “grid” against which we measure the motion is temporal, as well as implicitly spatial: though there’s no literal grid behind the bottoms, each bottom is framed in precisely the same way. What we realize from seeing these bottoms, and inevitably comparing them with one another- and with our idea of “bottom”- is both obvious and startling. Not only are people’s bottoms remarkably varied in their shape, colouring, and texture, but no two bottoms move in the same way.
On a more formal level No.4 (Bottoms) is interesting both as an early instance of the serial structuring that was to become so common in avant-garde film by the end of the sixties (in Snow’s Wavelength and Ernie Gehr’s Serene Velocity, 1970; Hollis Frampton’s Zorns Lemma, 1970 and Robert Huot’s Rolls: 1971, 1972; J.J. Murphey’s Print Generation, 1974…) and because Ono’s editing makes the experience of No.4 (Bottoms) more complex than simple descriptions of the film seem to suggest. As the film develops, particular bottoms and comments on the sound track are sometimes repeated, often in new contexts; and a variety of subtle interconnections between image and sound occur.
Like No.4 (Bottoms), Ono’s next long film, Film No.5 (Smile) (1968, fifty-one minutes), was an extension of work included in the Fluxfilm Program. Like her Eyeblink and Match- and like Chieko Shiomi’s Disappearing Music for Face (in which Ono’s smile gradually “disappears”), also on the Fluxfilm Program- Film No.5 (Smile) was shot with a high-speed camera. Unlike these earlier films, all of which filmed simple actions in black and white, indoors, at 2000 frames per second, Film No.5 (Smile) reveals John Lennon’s face, recorded at 333 frames per second for an extended duration, outdoors, in colour, and accompanied by a sound track of outdoor sounds recorded at the same time the imagery was recorded. Film No.5 (Smile) divides roughly into two halves, one continuous shot each. During the first half, the film is a meditation on Lennon’s face, which is so still that on first viewing I wasn’t entirely sure for a while that the film was live action and not an optically printed photograph of Lennon smiling slightly. Though almost nothing happens in any conventional sense, the intersection of the high-speed filming and our extended gaze creates continuous, subtle transformations: it is as if we can see Lennon’s expression evolve in conjunction with the flow of his thoughts. Well into the first shot, Lennon forms his lips into an “O”- a kiss perhaps- and then slowly returns to the slight smile with which the shot opens. During the second shot of Film No.5 (Smile), which differs from the first in subtleties of colour and texture (both shots are lovely), Lennon’s face is more active; he blinks several times, sticks his tongue out, smiles broadly twice, and seems to say “Ah!” Of course, while the second shot is more active than the first, the amount of activity remains minimal by conventional standards (and unusually so even for avant-garde film.) It is as though those of us in the theatre and Lennon are meditating on each other from opposite sides of the cinematic apparatus, joined together by Ono in a lovely, hypnotic stasis.
The excitement Ono and Lennon were discovering living and working together fuelled Two Virgins (1968) and Bed-In (1969), both of which were collaborations. Two Virgins enacts two metaphors for the two artists’ interaction. First, we see a long passage of Ono’s and Lennon’s faces superimposed, often with a third layer of leaves, sky, and water; then we see an extended shot of Ono and Lennon looking at each other, then kissing. Bed-In is a relatively conventional record of the Montreal performance; it includes a number of remarkable moments, most noteworthy among them, perhaps, Al Capp’s blatantly mean-spirited, passive-aggressive visit, and the song “Give Peace a Chance.” Nearly all of Ono’s remaining films were collaborations with John Lennon.
When the Whitney Museum presented Ono’s films at its 1989 retrospective, Rape (1969) provoked the most extensive critical commentary. The relentless seventy-seven-minute feature elaborates the single action of a small filmmaking crew coming upon a woman in a London park and following her through the park, along streets, and into her apartment where she becomes increasingly isolated by her cinematic tormentors. (Her isolation is a theme from the beginning since the woman speaks German; because the film isn’t subtitled, even we don’t know what she’s saying in any detail.) The film was, according to Ono, a candid recording by cinematographer Nic Knowland of a woman who was not willingly a part of this project. When Rape was first released, it was widely seen as a comment on Ono’s experience on being in the media spotlight with Lennon. Two decades later, the films seems more a parable about the implicit victimization of women by the institution of cinema.
Fly (1970) has a number of historical precedents- Willard Maas’s Geography of the Body (1943), most obviously- but it remains powerful and fascinating. At first, a fly is seen, in extreme close-up, as it “explores” the body of a nude woman (she’s identified as “Virginia Lust” in the credits); later more and more flies are seen crawling on the body, which now looks more like a corpse; and at the end, the camera pans up and “flies” out the window of the room. The remarkable sound track is a combination of excerpts from Ono’s vocal piece, Fly, and music composed by Lennon.
Up Your Legs Forever (1970) is basically a remake of No.4 (Bottoms), using legs, rather than buttocks: the camera continually pans up from the feet to the upper thighs of hundreds of men and women, as we listen to the sound of the panning apparatus and a variety of conversations about the project. Though UP Your Legs Forever has some interesting moments, it doesn’t have the drama or the humour of No.4 (Bottoms).
Ono and Lennon also collaborated on two Lennon films (whether a film is a “Lennon film” or and “Ono film” depends on whose basic concept instigated the project). Apotheosis (1970) is one of the most ingenious single-shot films ever made. A camera pans up the cloaked bodies of Lennon and Ono, then on up into the sky above a village, higher and higher across snow-covered fields (the camera was mounted in a hot-air balloon, which we never see- though we hear the device that heats the air) and then up into the clouds; the screen remains completely white for several minutes, and finally, once many members of the audience have given up on the film, the camera rises out into the sunny skyscraper above the clouds. The film is a test and reward of viewer patience and serenity. For Erection, a camera was mounted so that we can watch the construction of a building, in time-lapse dissolves from one image to another, several hours or days later. The film is not so much about the action of constructing a building (as a pixellated film of such a subject might be), as it is about the subtle, sometimes magical changes that take place between the dissolves. Erection is more mystery than documentation.
Imagine (1971)- not to be confused with the recent Imagine: John Lennon (1988, directed by Andrew Solt)- was the final Ono/Lennon cinematic collaboration: it’s a series of sketches accompanied by their music. Since 1971 Ono has made no films, though she did make a seven minute video documenting the response to a conceptual event at the Museum of Modern Art: Museum of Modern Art Show (1971). She has also made several music videos that document her process of recovering from Lennon’s death- Walking on Thin Ice (1981), Woman (1981), Goodbye Sadness (1982)- as well as records and art objects.
Of course, she remains one of the world’s most visible public figures and the most widely known conceptual artist.
I spoke with Ono at her office at the Dakota in May 1989.
MacDonald: Were you a moviegoer as a child?
Ono: I was a movie buff, yes. In prep school in Tokyo you were supposed to go directly home after school. But most kids often went to the movies. We used to hide our school badges and sneak into the theatre.
MacDonald: Do you remember what you saw?
Ono: Yes, I mostly saw French films. There was a group of kids who like American films- Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn, Doris Day and Rock Hudson, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby- and there was another crowd of girls who thought they were intellectuals, and went to French films. I was in the French film group. We would go to see The Children of Paradise (1945), that sort of thing. It was a very exciting time. I loved those films.
MacDonald: Did you see some of the early French surrealist films from the twenties?
Ono: Those things I saw much later. We’re talking about when I was in high school in the late forties. I saw the surrealist films in the sixties in New York and Paris.
The films I saw in high school that were closest to surrealism wee the Cocteau films, Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus (1950). Those films really gave me some ideas.
MacDonald: The earliest I know of you in connection with film is the sound track you did for Taka Iimura’s Love in 1963 by hanging the microphone out the window. I know the later Fluxfilm reels that were made in 1966, but did the Fluxus group get involved with film before that?
Ono: No. I think that one of the reasons why we couldn’t make films or didn’t think of making films was that we felt that it was an enormously expensive venture. At that time, I didn’t even have the money to buy canvas. I’d go to army surplus shops and get that canvas that’s rolled up. During that period, I felt that getting a camera to do a film was unrealistic.
MacDonald: Grapefruit includes three tiny descriptions of conceptual film projects that are identified as excerpts from “Six Film Scripts by Yoko Ono.” Were there others, or was the indication that there were six scripts a conceptual joke?
Ono: No, there were six at first; then later there were others. At the time I wrote those scripts, I sent most of them to Jones Mekas, to document them. Actually, that’s why I have copies of them now.
MacDonald: There seems to be confusion about the names and numbers of the films on the Fluxfilm Program, and about who did them. I assume you made the two slow-motion films, Eyeblink and Match, and the first film about buttocks, No.4.
Ono: Those are mine, yes.
MacDonald: Did people collaborate in making those films, or did everybody work individually and then just put the films onto those two Fluxus reels?
Ono: One day George (Maciunas) called me and said he’s got the use of a high-speed camera and it’s a good opportunity, so just come over (to Peter Moore’s apartment on East 36th St) and make some films. So I went there, and the high-speed camera was set up and he said, “Give me some ideas!” Think of some ideas for films!” There weren’t many people around, at the beginning just George and…
MacDonald: Peter Moore is credited on a lot of the slow-motion films.
Ono: Yeah, Peter Moore was there, and Barbara Moore came too. And other people were coming in- I forget who they were- but not many. When I arrived, I was the only person there, outside of George. I don’t know how George managed to get the high-speed camera. I don’t think he paid for it. But it was the kind of opportunity that if you can get it, you grab it. So I’m there, and I got the idea of Match and Eyeblink and we shot these. Eyeblink didn’t come out too well. It was my eye, and I didn’t like my eye.
MacDonald: I like that film a lot. Framed the way it is, the eye becomes erotic; it’s suggestive of body parts normally considered more erotic.
Ono: The one of those high-speed films I liked best was one you didn’t mention: Smoking.
MacDonald: The one by Joe Jones.
Ono: Yes. I thought that one was amazing, so beautiful; it was like frozen smoke.
MacDonald: There’s a film on that reel called Disappearing Music for Face…
Ono: Chieko Shiomi’s film, yeah.
MacDonald: I understand you were involved in that one too.
Ono: Well, that was my smile. That was me. What happened was that Chieko Shiomi was in Japan at the time. She was coming here often; it wasn’t like she was stationed in Japan all the time, but at the time I think she had just left to go to Japan. Then this high-speed camera idea came up, and when George was saying, “Quick, quick, ideas,” I said, “Well, how about smile”; and he said, “NO, that you can’t do, think of something else.” “But,” I said, “Smile is a very important one, I really want to do it,” because I always had that idea, but George keeps saying, “No you can’t do that one.” Finally, he said, “Well, OK , actually I wanted to save that for Chieko Shiomi because she had the same idea. But I will let you perform.” So that’s me smiling. Later I found out that her concept was totally different from what I wanted to do. Chieko Shiomi’s idea is beautiful; she catches the disappearance of a smile. At the time I didn’t know what her title was.
MacDonald: I assume No.4 was shot at a different time.
Ono: Yes. At the time I was living at 1 West 100th Street. It was shot in my apartment. My then husband Tony Cox and Jeff Perkins helped.
MacDonald: The long version of the buttocks film, No.4 (Bottoms), is still amazing.
Ono: I think that film had a social impact at the time because of what was going on in the world and also because of what was going on in the film world. It’s a pretty interesting film really.
Do you know the statement I wrote about taking any film and burying it underground for fifty years [see Grapefruit (New York; Simon and Schuster/ Touchstone, 1971), Section 9, “On Film No.4,” paragraph 3, and “On Film No.5 and Two Virgins,” paragraph 2]? It’s like wine. Any film, any cheap film, if you put it underground for fifty years, becomes interesting [laughter]. You just take a shot of people walking, and that’s enough: the weight of history is so incredible.
MacDonald: When No.4 (Bottoms) was made, the idea of showing a lot of asses was completely outrageous. Bottoms were less-respected, less-revealed part of the anatomy. These days things have changed. Now bottoms are OK- certain bottoms. What I found exhilarating about watching the film (maybe because I’ve always been insecure about my bottom!) is that after you see hundreds of bottoms, you realize that during the whole time you watched the film, you never saw the “correct,” marketable jean-ad bottom. You realize that nobody’s bottom is the way bottoms are supposed to be: the droop, or there are pimples- something is “wrong.” I think the film has almost as much impact now as it did then- though in a different way.
Ono: Well, you see, it’s not just to do with bottoms. For me the film is less about bottoms than about a certain bear, a beat you didn’t see in films, even in avant-garde films, then.
This is something else, but I remember one beautiful film where the stationary camera just keeps zooming toward a wall…
MacDonald: Wavelength? Michael Snow’s film?
Ono: Right, Michael Snow. That’s an incredibly beautiful film. A revolution in itself really. Bottoms film was a different thing, but just as revolutionary I think. It was about a beat, about movement. The beat in bottoms film is comparable to a rock beat. Even in the music world there wasn’t that beat until rock came. It’s the closest thing to the heartbeat. I tried to capture that again with Up Your Legs Forever. But in No.4 (Bottoms) it worked much better. Maybe it was the bottoms. That film has a basic energy. I couldn’t capture it in Up Your Legs Forever.
MacDonald: No.4 (Bottoms) plays with perceptions and memory in different ways. For a while it seems like a simple, serial structure, one bottom after another. Then at a certain point you realize, Oh I’ve seen that bottom before… but was it with this sound? No, I don’t think so. Later you may see another bottom a second time, clearly with the same sound. A new kind of viewing experience develops. Did you record all the bottoms and the spoken material for the track, and then later, using that material, develop a structure? It seems almost scored.
Ono: Yes. I spent a lot of hours editing. It wasn’t just put together. The sequence was important. A sympathetic studio said that I could come at midnight or whenever no one was using the facilities, to do the editing. I got a lot of editing time free; that’s how I was able to finish it.
MacDonald: On the sound track some of the participants talk about the process of getting people to show up to have their bottoms recorded, but I’m not completely sure what the process was. You put an ad in a theatrical paper apparently.
Ono: Well, we had an ad, yes, but most of the people were friends of friends. It became a fantastic event. You have to understand, the minute the announcement was made, there was a new joke about it in the newspapers everyday, and everybody was into it. We filmed at Victor Musgrave’s place; he was a very good friend who was very generous in letting me use his townhouse.
MacDonald: Did you select bottoms or did you use everybody that was filmed? Were there really 365 bottoms involved?
Ono: I didn’t select bottoms. There was not enough for 365 anyway. And the impact of the film as a happening was already getting lost from filming for so long. And there was the rental of the camera and the practical aspect of the shooting schedule. At a certain point I said, “Oh well, the number’s conceptual anyway, so who cares. It’s enough!”
MacDonald: I assume that when you did the early Fluxus version of No.4, you just followed people walking across an apartment. For the long film you’d built a machine to do the filming, which allowed you to film in more controlled close-up; we can’t see around the sides of the bodies the way we can in the earlier film.
Ono: Well, in the first No.4 I was pretty close too. But, as you say, it wasn’t really perfect. In London we did it almost perfect. In London we did it almost perfectly. My idea both times was very visual. All my films had very visual concepts behind them in the beginning. I mean No.4 (Bottoms) has many levels of impact- one being political- but originally I simply wanted to cover the screen with one object, with something that was moving constantly. There’s always a background. The closest you get to what I mean s like some macho guy, a cowboy or something, standing with his back to the screen, but you always see a little background. The screen is never covered; so I thought, if you don’t leave a background it might be like the whole screen is moving. I just wanted to have that experience. As you say, it didn’t work in the early version, but it was the first idea I had for the film actually.
And also, the juxtaposition of the movement of the four sections of the bottoms was fascinating, I thought.
MacDonald: No.4 (Bottoms) reminds me of Edward Muybridge’s motion photographs.
Ono: Oh I see, yeah.
MacDonald: Was the finished film shown a lot?
Ono: Well, I finally got an OK from the censor and we showed it in Charing Cross Road. Then some American Hollywood producer came and said he wanted to buy it and take it to the United States. Also, he wanted me to make 365 breasts, and I said, if we’re going to do breasts, then I will do a sequence of one breast, you know, fill the screen with a single breast over and over, but I don’t think that was erotic enough for him. He was thinking eroticism; I was thinking about visual, graphic concepts- a totally different thing. I was too proud to make two breasts [laughter]. I think there was an attempt to take the bottoms film to the United States, but it was promptly confiscated by the censor.
MacDonald: At customs?
Ono: Yes.
MacDonald: There’s a mention on the sound track that you were planning to do other versions of that film in other countries, and the film ends with the phrase, “To Be Continued.” Was that a concept for other films, or were there some specific plans for follow-ups?
Ono: Well you see, all my films do have a conceptual side. I have all these scripts, and I get excited just to show them to people because my hope is that maybe they will want to make some of them. That would be great. I mean most of my films are film instructions; they were never made actually. Just as film instructions, I think they are valid, but it wouldn’t be very good if somebody makes them. I don’t have to make them myself. And also, each film I made had a projection of future plans built into the idea. If somebody picks up on one of them, that’s great.
At the time I was making films, what I felt I was doing was similar to what The Rocky Horror Picture Show [1975] did later. I wanted to involve the audience directly in new ways.
MacDonald: How did Film No.5 (Smile) come about?
Ono: When I went to London, I still kept thinking about the idea of smile, so when I had the chance, I decided to do my version. Of course, until John and I got together, I could never have rented a high-speed camera. Well, maybe if I’d looked into it, I could have. I don’t know, but I thought it would be too expensive.
MacDonald: Did you know Lennon well at the point when you did Film No.5 (Smile)?
Ono: Yes.
MacDonald: Because I wondered whether you made the film because you wanted to capture a certain complexity in him, or whether the complexity that’s revealed in that seemingly simple image is a result of what the high-speed camera reveals, or creates, as it films,
Ono: Well, certainly I knew John was complex person. But the film wasn’t so much about his complexity as a person. I was trying to capture the complexity of a visual experience. What you see in that film is very similar to how you perceive somebody when you are on acid. We had done acid trips together, and that gave me the idea. I wondered how do you capture this?
MacDonald: It’s a beautiful film.
Ono: Well, of course, you know from the statements I made about Smile [see Ono, Grapefruit, “On Film No.5 & Two Virgins”] that my idea was really very different from the film I finally made. My idea was to do everybody’s smile. But when I met John, I thought, doing everybody’s smile is going to be impossible; and he can represent everybody’s smile.
MacDonald: What I find incredible about Smile is that as you watch John’s face, it’s almost as though you can see his mind working. I don’t know whether it’s an optical illusion, maybe it’s created by the way that the camera works. But it’s almost as though as you watch, the expression is changing every second.
Ono: I know. It’s incredible, isn’t it? Of course I didn’t know what exactly a high-speed camera would do. I knew in general, but I didn’t know what the exact effect would be. And, of course, I never would have known unless George Maciunas had rented a high-speed camera and called me up. George was a very interesting person. He had a very artistic mind. I never knew why he didn’t create his own art; he always wanted to take the role of helping create other people’s work. But that combination was very good; he not only executed what we wanted, he gave us the opportunity to look into the areas we would never have looked into. He had that kind of mind.
MacDonald: With Two Virgins you and John began collaborating on films and in the next few years there was a whole series of collaborations. Judging from the credits on the films, I assume that one or the other of you would get an idea and then both of you would work the idea out, and whoever had the original idea for a particular film- that film was theirs. Normally, the directorial credit is considered the most important one, but on these films there’s a more basic credit. It might be “Film by Yoko Ono,” then “Directed and produced by John and Yoko.” Am I correct: was it that whoever had the original concept for the film, that’s whose film it was?
Ono: Yes.
MacDonald: I remember reading years ago in a collection of Rolling Stone interviews that when you and John got involved with politics and in particular with the Bed-In, It was partly because Peter Watkins had written you a letter. Is that how you remember it?
Ono: Well, yes, Peter Watkin’s letter was a confrontation to us, and at the time we had a conversation about what we felt we had been doing politically: “Well, I was doing this, Yes I was doing that.” As a Beatle, John was always asked, “What is your position about the Vietnam War,” or something else; and I think that their manager, Brian Epstein, was very concerned that they wouldn’t make any statements, and so they didn’t make any direct statements. But a covert statement was made through an album cover that was censored, as you know. And I was standing in Trafalgar Square, in a bag, for peace and all that. So separately we had that awareness, and we were expressing it in the ways that we could. I was doing it more freely because it was easier for me. So we were comparing notes after getting the letter, and then we were saying, “Well what about doing something together,” which was the Bed-In (and the film Bed-In), so Peter Watkin’s letter definitely did mean something to us.
MacDonald: How much control did you (or you and John) have over the way Bed-In looks? You credit a large crew on that film. What was your part in the final film, other than as performers?
Ono: We always maintained careful control over the finished films. I was generally in charge of editing, which I did for that film, and for others, frame by frame. I mean I would have a film editor working with me- I don’t know the technology- but I would be very specific about what I wanted. When Jonas [Mekas] did the John and Yoko screenings at Anthology [Anthology Film Archives], I had three editing machines and editors brought into our hotel room, and I edited Bed-In there because of the deadline.
I enjoy the editing part of filmmaking most of all; that’s where the films really get made.
MacDonald: Rape is often talked about as a parable of the media intruding into your lives, but when I saw it again the other week, it struck me as very similar to pieces in Grapefruit.
Ono: Well, they keep saying that. I’ll tell you what happened. By the time that I actually got to make the film, John and I were together, and the reporters were hounding us, but the Rape concept was something I thought of before John and I got together.
MacDonald: In Grapefruit there’s “Black Piece II,” a part of which is “Walk behind a person for four hours.”
Ono: It was that kind of thing, right. But it was also a film script
[“Film No.5 (Rape or Chase)”]
MacDonald: How candid is the Rape footage? It no longer looks candid to me.
Ono: It was completely candid- except for the effects we did later in the editing. The girl in the film did not know what was happening. Her sister was in on it, so when she calls her sister on the phone, her sister is just laughing at her and the girl doesn’t understand why. Nic Knowland did the actual shooting. I wasn’t there. Everything was candid, but I kept pushing him to bring back better material. The type of material he brought back at first was something like he would be standing on the street, and when a group of girls passed by, he would direct the camera to them. The girls would just giggle and run away, and he wouldn’t follow. I kept saying he could do better than that, be he actually had a personal problem doing the film because he was a Buddhist and a peacenik: he didn’t want to intrude on people’s privacy. I remember John saying later that no actress could have given a performance that real.
I’ve done tons of work, and I don’t have time to check it all out, but I wish I could check about this strange thing, which is that a lot of my works have been a projection of my future fate. It frightens me. It simply frightens me. I don’t want to see Rape now. I haven’t seen the Rape film in a long time, but just thinking about the concept of it frightens me because now I’m in that position, the position of the woman in the film.
MacDonald: In the video Walking on Thin Ice, we see a similar scene, but with you.
Ono: I know. And why did I think of that song? After I wrote that song all sorts of trouble started to happen, all of which was somehow related to the song, that feeling of walking on thin ice. Sometimes I intentionally try to write something positive. But in a situation like that, art comes first. I really thought “Walking on Thin Ice” was a good song when it came to me. I had no qualms about recording it. The artistic desire of expressing something supersedes the worry, I suppose, and you think, ah it’s nothing, it’s fine, it’s just a nice song or something; and then it turns out that it becomes my life and I don’t want that.
Just recently I was in this film where I performed as a bag lady [Homeless, by Yukihiko Tsutsumi, unreleased at time of interview]. I was a bit concerned what it might mean to enact a bag lady, in terms of future projections. But I reasoned that there are actors who die many times in films, but live long lives, so actually enacting death makes their real lives longer. Well, in the first scene it was a beautiful April day, one of those I’m-glad-to-be-in-New-York days, and I’m wearing these rags and I’m pushing an empty baby carriage in this beautiful green environment. And as I was doing it, I remembered the song “Greenfield Morning” and the line, “I pushed an empty baby carriage all over the city.” That was the first song we recorded for Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, and I think it’s in Grapefruit, too- I mean the instruction “Push an empty baby carriage” [See “City Piece: Walk all over the city with an empty baby carriage” (Winter, 1961) near the end of the first section (Music) of Grapefruit]. So I’m pushing the baby carriage and I’m thinking I don’t want to know about this. That aspect of projection is interesting, isn’t it?
MacDonald: Yes.
Ono: If you are somebody who makes films with a commercial concern or other concerns, other than just inspiration, maybe that sort of thing wouldn’t happen. I don’t know. But inspiration is very much connected with your life in past and future.
MacDonald: Apotheosis is a gorgeous film. It’s one of the collaborations that’s listed as John’s film, though the idea of stripping things away until you’ve got a white screen is very much like some of you work.
Ono: Well, I’ll tell you what happened. I think some of the instructions are already there in Grapefruit, or maybe not, maybe it’s one of the instructions that haven’t been published [Ono is referring to the second version of her film script, “Film No.1 (A Walk to the Taj Mahal)”]. There was a constant feeling of wanting to take an object that’s on the ground- not necessarily an object, could be a person- in fact the original idea was a drunken guy walking in a snowy field; you don’t see the drunken guy, but the camera suggests that he’s drunk because of the way it moves. So he walks and sways, and finally the camera goes up in the sky. When we did the cover for the “Two Virgins” album, where we were both naked, one of us said, “Why don’t we make a film where the camera moves from the ground up, shooting our naked bodies, and then just goes up in the air.” Later, John said, “Well, let’s make one where the camera goes up.” So the idea stemmed from that. What happened, of course, was that we didn’t expect the balloon film to be the way it was turned out. We went up in the balloon, and it happened to be a snowy day.
MacDonald: You were in the balloon with the camera?
Ono: Up to a certain point. The part where you go into the cloud, and then break out of the cloud, was taken later. The footage that came back from the lab was beautiful. It was just something that happened naturally, the dogs barking, everything that happened- it was an incredible experience. We didn’t expect it was going to be that beautiful. A lot of things just happen, you know.
MacDonald: If you allow them to, I guess.
Ono: Yes!
MacDonald: Fly seems almost the opposite of Apotheosis in a way; it seems…
Ono: Very much intentionally calculated?
MacDonald: Right.
Ono: It’s true
MacDonald: You did the sound [for the vocal piece Fly] before you did the film. Had you had the idea in mind then?
Ono: I was always thinking about the idea of fly. Actually, I was always fascinated with the pun “fly and “fly” in English. There was also a conceptual event about flies and where they fly to.
MacDonald: The piece you did for the Museum of Modern Art?
Ono: Yes. Did you see that Museum of Modern Art catalogue? [A 112-page, one foot by one foot catalogue- the title seems to be Museum of Modern FArt (Ono is carrying a shopping bag with the letter “F” directly beneath the Museum of Modern Art marquee)- which details her concept at length; the catalogue was designed by Ono and produced by Michael Gross.] At the end of that, I talk about how to fly,
MacDonald: I know the video with the sandwich-board guy in front of the Museum of Modern Art who interviews people about the Yoko Ono show that “isn’t there” [The Museum of Modern Art Show]. In the text for that piece, you explain how some flies were exposed to your perfume and let loose and that people are following those flies around to see where they land.
Ono: The catalogue was made for that event; it had all sorts of interesting stuff in it, about how to fly and all that. All the pages are postcards that you could mail, so the catalogue and Fly piece could fly all over the place.
MacDonald: So MoMA had this on sale?
Ono: No, no, no, no! MoMA would not do it. MoMA was busy saying to people, “There’s no Yoko Ono show here.” People would come in and ask, is there a Yoko Ono show, and they would say no. They were very upset; they didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t sell the book anywhere. Nobody bought it, so I have piles of it.
MacDonald: Earlier, in the mid sixties, you did a number of descriptions of environmental boxes that the viewer would go inside of and images would be projected on the outside. Eyeblink was involved in a number of those descriptions, and another was called “Fly”. I guess the idea was that a viewer would go inside the box and on all sides you would project images that would create the sensation that the viewer was flying.
Ono: How do you know about those boxes?
MacDonald: I found the descriptions in the Fluxus Codex, in the Yoko Ono section [See John Hendricks, Fluxus Codex (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), p.418 for the descriptions]. Was either piece ever built?
Ono: They were never built. I haven’t seen these ideas since I did them. Whenever I had an idea, I sent it to George Maciunas. He probably kept them. I don’t even have the originals for those. I’ll have to get this book. You know, I have this thing about reading about me. When something about me is in a book, I mostly don’t want to know about it.
MacDonald: One of the interesting things about watching the film Fly is that one’s sense of what the body we’re seeing is about, and what the film is about, is constantly changing.
Ono: A cartoon in a newspaper gave me the idea. There’s this woman with a low-cut dress, and a guy is looking at her, and the guy’s wife says, “What are you looking at!” and the guy says, “Oh, I’m looking at a fly on her.” I wanted the film to be an experience where you’re always wondering, am I following the movement of the fly or am I looking at the body? I think that life is full of that kind of thing. We’re always sort of deceiving ourselves about what we’re really seeing.
MacDonald: Do you know the Willard Maas film, Geography of the Body? It’s all close-ups of bodies, framed so that you can’t quite tell what body part you’re looking at- but they all look erotic. Eyeblink is a little like that, and Fly is full of the same effect. If you go close enough, every part of the body looks the same, and they’re all equally erotic.
Ono: Oh, there’s an incredible film instruction that has to do with that close-up idea. It’s a travelogue [“Film No.13 (Travelogue”]. You have a travelogue to Japan or somewhere, and you say, “Well, now I’m on Mount Fuji,” and there’s an incredible close-up of stones; and then, “We bathed in a mixed bath,” and you see just steam- you get it?- and then, “We ate noodles,” and you see an incredible close-up of noodles… so in effect you can make a travelogue of any country without going out of your apartment! “Then we saw geisha girls,” and you see an incredible close-up of hair [laughter]. I wanted to make that, but I just never got around it.
MacDonald: Freedom [1970], the little one-minute film of you trying to take your bra off, was made the same year as Fly.
Ono: Yeah, isn’t that a great little film?
MacDonald: It’s so paradoxical. You show freedom as the ability to try to break free, which implies that you’re never really free.
Ono: Right, exactly.
MacDonald: You mentioned earlier that you didn’t think Up Your Legs Forever worked as well as No.4 (Bottoms). I thought it was interesting to see that people’s one leg is very different from their other leg.
Ono: The best thing about that film is the title, I think. My first vision for that film was like going up all the legs, up, up, up, to eternity. [“Film No. 12 (Esstacy)”- the misspelling of “ecstasy” is left as it was in the original film script, at Ono’s request]. But in making it, that vision got lost because of what was necessary to film the legs. I don’t know how you can do what I originally had in mind.
MacDonald: Jonas and Adolfas Mekas are thanked at the end of Up Your Legs Forever.
Ono: Because they did the editing. That was one of the few films I didn’t edit myself.
MacDonald: Somebody mentioned to me the other day, and I assume it’s not true, that Erection was originally a film about John’s penis. Was there a film like that?
Ono: Yes, there was. But it wasn’t called Erection. I think it was called Self Portrait, and it wasn’t an erection, it was just a long shot of his penis. That was his idea. The funny thing was that Self Portrait was never questioned by customs because of it’s title, and Erection, which was about the erection of a building , was questioned.
MacDonald: Is there a relation between the 1971 version of Imagine and the recent Imagine: John Lennon?
Ono: There’s no relationship. We wanted to make surrealistic film in the tradition of Luis Bunuel and Jean Cocteau. It was John’s idea to say just one or two words at the beginning, and make the reset of the film silent, like silent movie. I liked that idea and we did it. I think that now it’s more or less known as a forefather of MTV. Each scene came from some idea John or I had. It was really a collaboration between John and me.
MacDonald: Are you involved in film now? Are you planning to make films? You made several videos in the early eighties, but it’s been a while since you’ve made a film.
Ono: I don’t know; it might get to that. I’m one of those people who can’t do something unless I’m totally motivated. That’s one of the reasons I jump from one medium to another. I did the Whitney Museum show, and suddenly all the inspiration is sculptural; and then last night or the night before, I went to the studio to do some music. But I’m not getting that feeling like I gotta make a film- except for The Tea Party [the film script “Film No.7 (Tea Party)”]: for years I’ve been wanting to make that one, but because of the technical difficulties I don’t seem to be able to get it together. I think one of the reasons I’m not making more films is that I’ve done so many film scripts. I’d like to see one of them made by somebody else. Maybe one day out of the blue I’ll feel it so strongly that I’ll make a film myself again.
International Development Secretary Alok Sharma met with factory workers at a Unilever oral care plant on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Credit: Anna Dubuis / DFID
Twitter has been the best thing to happen to professional development since the invention of the printing press. Okay-- scratch that, the PEOPLE on Twitter have been the BEST. The PLN: Personal, Positive, Passionate Learning Network!
www.perceptionsystem.com/web-development-services.html
Day-by-day, the demand of professional website is rising rapidly, because of the online shopping and dealing is increasing. Therefore, the organizations are working hard and deeply involved in the procedure of improving their website as per the suitable requirement of client.
April 12, 2014 - WASHINGTON DC. 2014 IMF / World Bank Group Spring Meetings. Development Committee Meeting. Development Committee Chair Marek Belka; World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim; IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. Photo: Eugenio Salazar / World Bank
Sempre della serie "Epoche Diverse"...
Mi sono resa conto che adoro immensamente i "gargouilles", o meglio le chimere, di Notre Dame.
Veramente mi stanno simpatici... quando ero piccola avevo guardato 'Il gobbo di Notre Dame', e i tre mostriciattoli mattacchioni, Victor, Hugo e Laverne, mi avevano parecchio divertita; poi non ci avevo più pensato finchè non sono andata a visitare la cattedrale e ho potuto osservarli e fotografarli da vicino..... trovo che siano così dolci! Anche quando divorano animaletti e hanno grandi occhi ipnotizzanti. Comunque, à mon avis, sono molto suggestivi, forse l'elemento caratterizzante di questo monumento e costituiscono gran parte del suo intrigante fascino gotico.....
Li amo, e ne voglio uno sul balcone.
[La gargolla (o gargoyle all'uso anglosassone) è una figura iconografica che si vede scolpita in molte chiese cristiane medioevali. Il vocabolo deriva dal latino gurgulium, termine onomatopeico collegato al gorgoglìo dell'acqua che passa attraverso un doccione. Quest'ultimo venne in seguito trasformato nel francese gargouille con lo stesso significato, accolto in lingua inglese con il termine gargoyle.]
Paris, juillet 09, Notre Dame
The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies' only operational jet aircraft during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turbojet engines, pioneered by Sir Frank Whittle and his company, Power Jets Ltd. Development of the aircraft itself began in 1940, although work on the engines had been under way since 1936. The Meteor first flew in 1943 and commenced operations on 27 July 1944 with No. 616 Squadron RAF. Nicknamed the "Meatbox", the Meteor was not a sophisticated aircraft in its aerodynamics, but proved to be a successful combat fighter.
Several major variants of the Meteor incorporated technological advances during the 1940s and 1950s. Thousands of Meteors were built to fly with the RAF and other air forces and remained in use for several decades. The Meteor saw limited action in the Second World War. Meteors of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) provided a significant contribution in the Korean War. Several other operators such as Argentina, Egypt and Israel flew Meteors in later regional conflicts. Specialised variants of the Meteor were developed for use in photo-reconnaissance and as night fighters.
The Meteor was also used for research and development purposes and to break several aviation records. On 7 November 1945, the first official air speed record by a jet aircraft was set by a Meteor F.3 of 606 miles per hour (975 km/h). In 1946, this record was broken when a Meteor F.4 reached a speed of 616 mph (991 km/h). Other performance-related records were broken in categories including flight time endurance, rate of climb, and speed. On 20 September 1945, a heavily modified Meteor I, powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent turbine engines driving propellers, became the first turboprop aircraft to fly. On 10 February 1954, a specially adapted Meteor F.8, the "Meteor Prone Pilot", which placed the pilot into a prone position to counteract inertial forces, took its first flight.
In the 1950s, the Meteor became increasingly obsolete as more nations introduced jet fighters, many of these newcomers having adopted a swept wing instead of the Meteor's conventional straight wing; in RAF service, the Meteor was replaced by newer types such as the Hawker Hunter and Gloster Javelin. As of 2013, two Meteors, WL419 and WA638, remain in active service with the Martin-Baker company as ejection seat testbeds.
I never knew that the dead-looking tree in the house we recently moved in was a fig tree. Imagine how excited I was to find out it could give fruits. it even never blossomed!
Even my favorite downtown park, The Gene Leahy Mall, is bitten by the construction boom downtown. The water part is being dredged deeper, the island rebuilt and the walkways along the water will be redone as well. I miss walking through the park, but it was showing it's age so this should be an excellent improvement.
Kenya voluntary and community development project
Volunteer abroad in Kenya volunteer Africa, kenya volunteering programs, gap year kenya voluntary work
Lecden-Kenya is a leading kenya volunteer abroad organization dealing in international volunteer abroad placements in Kenya. We offer a variety of kenya volunteering programs which include: Community development and health, Teaching, Summercamp Volunteering in kenya, Gap year kenya voluntary work, Environmental sustainability & rehabilitation programs, Eco-tours & Safaris around Kenya, Adventure and Sports, Orphanages and Children homes programs, special need schools.We provide comprehensive fun-filled, thrilling & remorselessly unique experiences to volunteers & travelers through the ability to synergize volunteering with adventure which provides a platform for you to mix volunteering with a bit fun like, game-drives, safaris, camping etc You name it and we make your excursion memorable and wow don’t forget about the clash-tourism program; where we link solo & group volunteers/ travelers with others from different nationalities…. We also boast of having experienced Program Directors thus giving us an extra-edge in the industry.
Volunteer Opportunities Available in Kenya.
• Children Program in Orphanages
• HIV/AIDS Program
• Medical/Health Program
• Teaching in local schools
• Youth Programs
• Environmental conservation
• VolunTravel in Kenya
Community Resource Center
Our Community Care Center ‘Riverside Day Care’ is helping orphaned and vulnerable children in Kiambiu slum in Buru buru phase one ,read more www.lecdenkenya.com/charity.htm
info@lecdenkenya.com
Riversie day care is helping economically challenged children in Kiambiu slum in Buru buru phase one ,the day care center help the children realize their right to an education. The initiation for orphan’s program grew out as a result of an increase in the number of orphans in Wagusu village and the pathetic living condition due to lack of support once they loose their parents. The organization therefore identified, as a priority to start a child care program within the community to cater for the orphans and the vulnerable children. Supporting these children has been a great challenge and volunteers have lent an upper hand with the aim of creating opportunities where unprivileged children can have equal opportunity to grow.
Many of these children are sent to live with neighbours or relatives. Most of them live with elderly grandparents who are barely able to sustain themselves.This result to malnutrition and sickness, no access to education and children are sometimes being left to find food and clothing for themselves. Some of these children are also HIV positive and without a regular diet and medical care, they will die from preventable illnesses.
The Day Care Center currently serves 80 children, Some children come from a broken families and may be are physically abused and what they need is a shoulder to lean on. Some of these children are totally orphans without both parents and other than material insufficiency, they need every one of us who they can trust and open up to like a mother, sister, brother or father. Together in one spirit, and with your kind assistance, let us revive their hope by providing a healthy environment for a meaningful future life.
The Center operates Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each child is provided with vitamins, regular medical check-ups, daily bathing, playtime, naptime and additional food assistance if needed.
This program suits volunteers from all walks of life. Someone willing to reach out and inspire hope and assistance where it is most needed someone with a passion for children. As you volunteer with us your presence is such a blessing to these children and it will really show you what a big difference you can make in a relatively short period of time.
HIGHLIGHTS
-Your little help can be of great significance for these children, helping to make their present secure and future promising.
-Helping the children in conversational English and assignments.
- Supervise the children to clean up and dress up
-Supervise their studies and assignments
-Share their food; sit by them to see them eat
-Prepare them for schools, check their dresses
-Design, teach, organize and play games (educational and environmental).
-Spend time with them. Receive their warmth and affection engage them in creative activities such as painting, drawing and dancing. In addition to this,
-volunteers help in the kitchen preparing meals, help with laundry, mop the floor -washing dishes and clothes, give those who are sick their medication, tell them stories Share their dreams and motivating the children mostly those who are mentally affected due to problems affecting the society from poverty to HIV/AIDS.
-You could initiate projects like painting the home, buying more beddings, toys, books, medicine, expand the centerbuilding to accommodate more children comfortably. This can always be arranged and be can be acquired locally more cheaply.
We take a minimum of one volunteer, workshop, researchers and missionaries with a common goal like fund raising to assist in buying kitchen equipments or take care of the feeding program for a month, six months or a year. Your little help can be of great significance for these children, helping to make their present secure and future promising. …….Apply now….
info@lecdenkenya.com
Volunteer Internship Opportunities .
Lecden-Kenya offers volunteer internship opportunities in Kenya Community Development for support and cross cultural exchange with the help of local and international volunteers.
INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
If you would like to make a meaningfull contributions in developing countries, but you are not exactly sure how, then you have come to the right place. This placement options are available in Primary health care, Social work, human right, Environment, Infrustrucrure, Agriculture just to name but a few. Since each placement is created for you, anyone can participate (university students, graduate students or experienced professionals). We will help you design the internship project to ensure that both you and the organization benefit. Internship opportunities include:-
Medical/health Interns
Volunteer Medical interns are involed in various medical and nursing fields in healthcare work delivery in the community hospitals, clinics and health centers. Volunteers work under supervision of medical doctors, nurses, dentists and clinical officers to provide quality health care services for communities.
Volunteer Teaching
Volunteers work in formal and non-formal teaching in both primary and secondary schools in rural areas. They teach English, Mathematics and other subjects as well as extra-curricular activities. This is a long term placement form 3 months to 2 years.
Orphanages/Centers
Volunteers work in orphanage homes assisting the kids with creative activities. In addition to this volunteers help in the kitchen preparing meals, help with laundry, mop the floor, washing dishes and clothes, give those who are sick their medication and volunteers story telling skills will be put to good use inspiring and motivating the children mostly those who are mentally affected due to problems affecting the society from poverty to HIV/AIDS.
Infrastructure
Construction, Repairs, engineering, Alternative energy eg solar and others. Volunteers will assist on construction in a school, an Orphanage, a community church, repairing your host family’s house, painting, renovating a classroom, a local church, an old lady’s house e.t.c
Required skills Volunteers do not need to have any skills or knowledge about construction, as they will mainly be doing unskilled work such as digging, mixing sand and cement, carrying rocks, sand and bricks, fetching water, and painting . They will be led by skilled Kenyans and work together with local community. Get your hands dirty to make a difference
Research projects could include:
-organic farming.
-Effects of climate change.
-Effects of programmes on gender-equality.
-Product Development.
-Research on (eco) tourism possibilities and small tourism-related industries (souvenirs etc.)
-Research and development of alternative renewable energy sources.
You are welcome for this placement if you meet the following requirements:
-For interns, you must be a proffessional with atleast 2 years of experince of work or a graduate with either higher diploma or degree in the following volunteer related fields: (organic) agriculture, livestock / poultry, forestry, water & sanitation management / irrigation, business, marketing, ICT, development studies, anthropology or human geography;
-An interest in developong countries
-Ability to work independently and as part of a team
-You are flexible and can adapt easily to different cultural circumstances
-Strong interpersonal relations, verbal and written communication skills
-You are comfortable to live in a rural environment with limited facilities and leisure opportunities
-High energy and goal oriented
-Good organisational skills, able to carry out research and and attention to detail.
-You are available for at least 3 months;
VOLUNTEER FEES TAKE CARE OF THE FOLLOWING :-
Airport Pick-up: On Arrival and Departure: Once you give us your flight details our project coordinator and a driver will be at the JKIA airport to pick you up.
Orientation: Including important pre-departure information as well as on-site orientation on local culture, history and customs.
Internship arrangement: All your internship arrangement and well being while volunteering is our big concern and priority and ensure your placement is secure and safe. Our coordinator will provide whatever support you may need at any step along and our supervisor will always assist at the ground.
Accommodations/Meals: We carefully select host family connecting you to the culture and social, economic and political events in the community and country. You are provided with three meals a day and you will be flexible to intervene and assist in cooking/food preparation.
Transportation to the project: Volunteers are transported to and from their placement location by shared bus/shuttle.
Certificate of Completion/Participation: You will be provided with a certificate showing your participation with us and a recommendation letter as an appreciation for volunteering with us.
Farewell: Is arranged on the last day either at the host family, School, and orphanages as a way of appreciation to the volunteer for the time and ability to give to the community. It is a day of exchanging gifts and celebrate for having successfully worked together.
WHAT IS NOT INCLUDED IN VOLUNTEER COST :
* International Airfare
* Visa
* Insurance
* Vaccinations
* Medical Bill
* Tours and safaris
VOLUNTEER/PROGRAM FEE (this applies to all programmes.)
* Cost for two weeks US$ 527
* Cost for three weeks US$ 634
* Cost for one Month US$ 741
* Cost for five weeks US$ 848
* Cost for six weeks US$ 955
* Cost for seven weeks US$ 1062
* Cost for two Months US$ 1169
Volunteers pay additional USD 100 (one hundred usd)for every week thereafter.
WHAT YOU NEED TO VOLUNTEER WITH US
*All volunteers must be 18 years and above.
* A medical background is required for the Medical/Health Program.
* Have a positive attitude and be flexible to adjust to the living conditions.
* English speaking.
If you still want to volunteer with us, fill out the application form. Upon receipt of your form we will contact you within two working days.
All applicants will be notified by email on their placement and will be given a pre-departure information before arrival.
…….Apply for this program……
info@lecdenkenya.com
Please join us in our Charity Work, Volunteer vacations, the ultimate Ethical Wild Life Safaris, medical elective placements, corporate company breaks, Outreach mission trips, Educational Student &school trips. Together we can make a difference to Orphans and other vulnerable Children/widows/ women/People lives
Regards
Steve
info@lecdenkenya.com