In this beautiful video, a piece of string is used to illustrate animals and a family of a mother, father, and child to make the point that ‘we are all connected’. It’s a simple message, but one that is often forgotten.
Those of us living in urban sprawls are especially detached from nature. From New York, to Beijing, big cities are always buzzing with taxis and buses, new developmental projects have replaced grass, trees, and wildlife and people’s heads are down checking notifications on mobile devices. Instead of feeling connected to one another and to nature, we are often disconnected and isolated in our own worlds.
We want to be connected, but we are disconnected and isolated
We are busy with our 9 to 5 work and overwhelmed by the plethora of information in our digital world (even as we’re reading this article, we have 10 other tabs open that are begging for our attention). We are busy surviving and we are not really living. How often do we pause and think about our values and the world in which we want to live? How often do we communicate the importance of reflection and the value of pausing to our children and students?
Therefore, for the first issue of the Ottiya Magazine, we are focusing on the theme of ‘community’ because we want to remind you–we want to remind ourselves–of the warmth of connection, the importance of kindness, and the rich diversity in our neighborhoods. We hope that our magazine will act as a kind of escape from the chaos of everyday life and a dive into fun, creative, and meaningful learning, especially for parents, children, and educators.
Read more about the contributors and content of our first issue on our blog.
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