A little bit of Renmen
An open letter from Ben
2010 has been a pretty cool year, just 8 days into the year my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, he’s called Woody, work has been pretty good, we had a lovely week’s holiday in London and the two British drivers are doing well in the Formula 1 season. All in all, 2010 has been one of the best years for me personally. So why don’t I feel 100% happy, 100% of the time? Because I’m human. Because sometimes life isn’t perfect, there’s never an all-encompassing global state of perfection, where everyone is doing okay, where everyone has the job they strive for or the family they dream of. Life, to put it mildly, can sometimes be shit.
Four magical days after Woody was born, life dealt a very cruel blow to an island population a long way away from me and my family. After four days of my mind being blissfully focused on nothing other than my wife and baby, I was reminded how lucky I was when I saw news footage coming from Haiti. It was shit. I’m not going to list the statistics, the strength of the earthquake, the number killed, the number injured, how many lost homes, how many lost limbs, how many lost their children or how many lost their parents. It’s incomprehensible for most of us to understand the scale of such a natural disaster, to really empathise on something so huge and yet so distant. However, most of us know what ‘love’ is, we can comprehend ‘love’ because of our partners, our families, our friends and our children. The feeling of having ‘love’ or more relevant right now, that feeling of losing ‘love’ we can empathise with, even if we’ve not lost a loved one, we can still understand. ‘Love’ is about having people that care, it’s about having safety and support, it’s about having rights and being given a life where you can learn and grow, happily and healthily. Let’s just say that in Haiti on 12th January 2010, a lot of people had a lot of ‘love’ taken away from them.
Not long after the earthquake, my friends Jon, Stephen, Mike and I decided to bring together a selection of artists and designers, and raise some money for Haiti. No matter how much we raised, we knew that a little money, a little love, could go a long way. Over the past 9 months we’ve sold postcards and art prints, tote bags and doodles, vinyl toys and plush toys - by some of the freshest creatives around. It’s been overwhelming. It’s called ‘The Renmen Project’. ‘Renmen’ is the Haitian word for love. So far we’ve raised almost £2500, all of which has gone to Unicef’s Haiti Earthquake Children’s Appeal. Good, loving people have given their time to draw drawings, print prints, stitch stitches and spread the word. Their efforts have gone towards providing clean water, housing, psychosocial support, recreational activity and educational materials for Haiti’s children, thanks to Unicef. Right now, I personally want to thank all of the artists we’ve worked with, and all the printers who, for free, produced some our products.
Everyone who has given their time, skills and materials to our project, thank you.
We always said the Renmen Project would run for a year, so we have just three months left. We had so many plans, we accepted more offers of artwork from more artists than we could, so far, use for the project, and I’m sorry to anyone who hasn’t been able to contribute. But we all still have time to do something more, just a little more, no matter who you are, if you’re reading this on your computer or phone right now then you’re already better off than most of the people in Haiti. So if you’ve read this far, maybe you can find it in your heart to spread some love, to tweet about this article, to check out the shop, to buy a gift for someone you love, to buy two gifts for someone you really love, because after the good client work has been done, the holidays have passed and the Formula 1 season has come to an end, there is only one thing that we can hold on to, and that’s love. If we’ve got it, we’re lucky, and we’re in a position to share it around, because life isn’t always 100% happy, 100% of the time, we’re all human, and some of our love can go a long way. If you buy something from our shop, then 100% of the sale price will go to Unicef, they will take that money to Haiti, it will be used to help Haiti’s children, and step-by-step, little by little, Haiti’s children will get the love, support, education and care that they have a right to. Maybe in 2011, some of Haiti’s children will get to have a pretty cool year.
