Cohesion in Barrie

On Saturday I was on the road up to St. Mary's in Barrie early in the morning.  By 11:00am we had 18 people posting blue water drops on the wall.  Each drop contained words sharing the experience of water in our faith.  This was part of a formation workshop facilitated by myself and our national council member Sylvia Skrepichuk on our new water campaign.  Sticking stuff on walls is a favourite workshop tactic, especially in popular education.  Somehow a workshop feels more productive if something is stuck on the wall - why is that? At the very least I would say it makes things pretty.

This time we did something a bit different though. The drops were not placed on the wall wily nily.  You can see in the picture that I've posted how they fit together.  We did this to illustrate the phenomenon of cohesion.  Our campaign Tabloid uses the cohesive properties of water to describe the work of KruHa, an indonesian organization supported by Development and Peace, "each drop of water becomes stronger when united with other drops of water.  Indonesian water activists work much the same way.  Development and Peace partner KruHa (the People's Coalition for the Right to Water) is a coalition of more than 30 Indonesian organizations, each working to ensure water access for all Indonesians, especially the marginalized."

One participant, 'fair-trade Bob' (a leader in the local fair trade movement), happens to be an oceanographer by training.  Speaking of cohesion led him to comment on the many other amazing properties of the H20 molecule. Indeed, this gift given by God for life is truly unique.

Water also adopts amazing properties when placed in a water gun. Bob found this out when playing the role of a bottled water company denying peasant farmers access to a local spring.  The activity was part of a simluation to share the experiences of the Sukabumi community in Indonesia described in our Tabloid.

The morning formation was the third of four being offered in the Archdiocese of Toronto. We do one for each of the North, Central, Western and Eastern regions of the Archdiocese.  The west is the last, November 27th at St. Dominic's in Mississauga (625 Atwater) 9:00-1:00pm. Do come!