Select a region
A former Deputy of six years, Jennifer Bridge is passionate about all things cultural and especially books.
She's now Chairman of the Jersey Festival of Words, and works with her committee "to entertain, educate and amuse in equal measures" and "delve deeper in our exploration of the wonders of words in all their forms."
With the fourth edition of the Festival coming later this year, Jennifer took some time off from planning to put her pen to paper and write about five things she would like to change about the island...
I would love Jersey’s Government to create opportunities for modular building ranging from self-build individual homes to whole estates.
Readers may have heard of Modulhus - it recently won an annual design competition. A two-bedroom house starts at £49,644 excluding fitted kitchens and bathrooms. They can either be built as detached homes or in a terrace. They can have solar thermal heating panels to reduce the cost of heating water in the home.
Pictured: Jennifer would love to see the States put a firm focus on housing – both in terms of sustainability and their social implications.
Jersey is blessed to have the wonderful services of the Shelter Trust and we are blessed with organisations such as Sanctuary House, so sleeping rough is rare but I would love Jersey to go further and adopt the Swedish principle of “Housing First”. It’s very simple: give a homeless person a place that they can call home. To quote Helskinki’s Deputy Mayor, Sanna Vesikansa, “We realised that people don't get rid of their difficult situation and it's very difficult to work on other problems they have if always in the morning they go out on the streets and come back just for the night."
I would love the Government to support, in a meaningful way, the development of sustainable organic farming and to embrace ethically sourced package free food shopping such as at Bio Coop, which has been successfully running for over thirty years in France. I took the following photos at Biocoop Lanvallay in Brittany.
Pictured: Why not follow France's example when it comes to shopping?
It goes without saying that I’d like non-biodegradable plastic bags banned in Jersey.
I’d love Jersey to join the playing out movement where communities organise for streets to be closed for a few hours so that children can play out safely.
Pictured: Let's help children play outside safely, Jennifer says.
I dream of an island-wide initiative where for 3 hours once a month cars are banned from the roads and children can ride their bikes and go-karts freely.
Forty years ago, in Tokyo, the concept of inter-generational care was born when a care home and a nursery were combined. The idea has taken hold and is spreading across Europe. The first of its kind in the UK is Nightingale House where joyous laughter from young and old can be heard.
Pictured: Care across the generations is important to Jennifer.
It’s a wonderful idea that most importantly provides inter-generational connectivity but also can provide unintended benefits such as savings through multi-use sites and increased staff retention due to increased staff job satisfaction.
When we talk about culture we all have an idea that it, however we define “it” enriches our lives. It is often the potential closure of a cultural building that brings into focus the importance of funding that part of our culture. In funding terms, culture is the poor relation to sport in Jersey.
It may surprise people to discover that a national treasure such as our Eisteddfod that has been in existence since 1908 receives no government funding.
Video: A dedicated fund would stop culture being the "poor relation" to sport in Jersey, says Jennifer, who helps run the Festival of Words.
As a society we are coming to understand that that money spent on culture is money invested in our economy bringing returns not just monetary but also returns in terms of our quality of life, our health and our education. However, that realization has not translated into significant government funding yet. Readers can delve deeper with this useful document.
With this in mind, I would love to see the development of a culture fund set up at arms-length to government and run by people who understand culture in Jersey. The fund would not only offer grants but also offer advice and support.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not those of Bailiwick Express.
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.