Issue 26 | November 2024

Welcome to the November 2024 edition of Miaaw Monthly which continues to use our slightly improved new format, courtesy of our shiny new provider Beehiiv.com.

We are now on our new schedule which means that we will arrive in your mailbox the first Monday or Tuesday of every month. This enables us to list the podcasts for the month, including the one currently playing, without having to refer back to the previous month.

Housekeeping: we love it.

We continue to hope that you will send us something that you want to include in Miaaw Monthly, or something that you want to suggest for the podcasts, by emailing us at [email protected]. We will be happy to include your news and suggestions here and hunt down the topics you want to hear in the podcasts.

LAST MONTH’S DELIBERATE ERROR

You may have noticed that last month’s newsletter, bright and breezy though it appeared, had a weird error in the listings. It claimed that the podcast on October 4th would feature Kim from Take A Part, in an interview we had already put out in July. The actual podcast was (and was always intended to be) an interview with Professor Sara Selwood about the nature of nature writing, its effects on nature, and its effects on culture.

If you missed it, because you were tricked into thinking you had already heard that week’s podcast, you can find Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse Episode 76 by clicking here.

You are guaranteed 36 minutes and 29 seconds of eye-opening entertainment.

PODCASTS FOR NOVEMBER 2024

A THOUSAND WORDS

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

DEFY celebrates while RAGE reports

On October 6th 2024, Project DEFY completed 8 years as an organization.

The Nook movement, which now spans across two continents, provides an alternative to the current mainstream education system. As we aim to build more Nooks, fueled by love, curiosity, and compassion, we will do so by also challenging other societal models and learning systems. RAGE (Research in Alternative Global Education) is the the research arm of Project DEFY, based in Bangalore, who we have mentioned and interviewed on several occasions. DEFY are “dedicated to empower communities through self-directed learning and driving meaningful change”. As part of this they have established RAGE, and as part of the programme at RAGE they have just published their second working paper.

This one is called Co-creating Pathways to Transform Communities in Rural Meghalaya, India and you can download it here. This research study dives deep into the impact of Nooks in rural Meghalaya, highlighting how they empower youth with new skill sets tailored to their local contexts. Not only do the findings reveal significant progress, but the research process itself also involved active participation from community members and learners.

OPEN CALL FOR ICAF 2025

THE ICAF team have now launched an Open Call for ICAF 2026 which will be taking place from Wednesday March 25 to Sunday March 29, 2026, across multiple locations and venues in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The Open Call is accepting submissions submissions from Wednesday 30 October 2024 up until and including the end of the day (your time zone) of Wednesday January 29, 2025. They say:

You can respond to the Open Call in many ways. However, whether responding in text, audio, or video, all responses much be submitted via the ICAF Open Call Application Form.

THE MIAAW REVIEW

Plans continue to ferment. We now know that the first edition of The Miaaw Review will appear on the second Wednesday of January, 2025, and will appear bi-monthly from then on. We know that the first issue will contain an interesting essay from Arlene and a shorter piece or two from François and Owen.

We know that we will have an invitation for you to subscribe to The Miaaw Review in the December issue.