It can feel overwhelming, even paralysing, to look at the state of the world today. Wars rage, the planet warms, inequality grows. What can any of us really do at our small, individual level?
French farmer, writer and environmentalist Pierre Rabhi told a story that offers an answer. As a great forest burns, all the animals stand by helplessly, except for a tiny hummingbird (colibri in French) that carries drops of water in its beak to the flames. When the others scoff,the hummingbird replies: “I’m doing my part.” Every drop counts.
In this issue, our pages tell stories of people doing their part: acts of creativity and compassion that remind us how small gestures matter. In Redfern, as Alky Avramides reports in “The Art of Caring” (page 6), sixty artists came together at Rogue Pop-Up Gallery to raise funds for families trapped in Gaza. “A drop in the ocean of needed aid?” Avramides writes. “Yes, but the ocean has many drops and together they do make an ocean … To reach out to another human being … is an act of love, of caring, of fellowship.”
On our front page, Andrew Collis shares the story of Kay Lanzky, a Marrickville High student and Woolloomooloo resident, whose senior-jersey design celebrates connection and growth. Her creativity reflects the same truth as Rabhi’s hummingbird: that purpose begins with care – and together, our small acts create change.
