the world family

Our  experience as holistic home herbalists expands our awareness around the  world, as we connect with our world family of herbalists. Holistic home  herbalism acknowledges and supports every culture's relationship to the  land and every individual's right to peace and freedom. We know that  human rights apply to everyone, everywhere, all the time, no matter  what.  

Holistic thinking is a willingness to see the  interconnections, to find our place in things, and then to activate and leverage our power to do what we can.  

As holistic home herbalists, we know that our apothecaries connect us to ecosystems and cultures around the world.

We view community holistically. We know that community includes Nature and  our world family of herbalists. We stand up for human rights and for  Mother Earth, and our day to day choices reflect these commitments.  

Seeing  things through a lens of human rights can help us understand what we're  seeing, in current events, and can help to focus us and to inspire us  to take some kind of action. 

The International Declaration of Human Rights was created by the global  community, in the aftermath of the terrible events of World War 2. This  Declaration is an attempt to avoid anything like that ever happening  again. Human rights apply to everyone. These are the rights that we  have, simply because we were born.

• The International Declaration of Human Rights
• The Emergency Watchlist report is the International Rescue Committee’s assessment of the 20 countries  at greatest risk of new humanitarian emergencies each year.

The rules of war are  also known as International Humanitarian Law. The rules of war include  many documents signed over the years by many different countries. Some  of these are United Nations documents. Some are from the Red Cross.  Others are simply a product of the world community coming together to  create change on a global level. The following are an exploration of  three of these important global resources.

• International Committee of the Red Cross Rules of Belligerent Occupation 
• The United Nations Six Grave Violations
• understanding The Geneva Convention

Why are we starting with the Six Grave Violations?

Because the Six Grave Violations outline some of the worst things that can happen to children, and they underscore these  actions as absolute and undeniable war crimes. It's pretty much  impossible for any rational person to argue about the 6 Grave  Violations. They make things really simple, really fast. 

This is a  good place to start because it's very easy for us to understand why  these things are wrong. No one needs to explain it to us. We don't need  to go to school for it, or study it for a long time to understand  without a doubt that these things are wrong. 

The 6 Grave  Violations take the mystery out of humanitarian law. They are very  simple. They are not complicated. These violations are wrong and any  mentally healthy person is going to recognize that. 

In  addition to being very simple, the 6 Grave Violations give us a  starting point where we can consider other examples of the Rules of War,  like the Geneva Convention or the Red Cross's guidelines of  occupation. 

Each of the 6 Grave Violations are all also included  in other documents, accords, conventions, etc. that outline the Rules of  War. These specific violations are represented here as a reminder to  the world that all children are born with the inherent right to peace,  freedom, and safety. Full stop. End of story. 

But even the 6  Grave Violations are not without their limitations, because they are a  product of the United Nations. You may have noticed that the UN is  perpetually disappointing. They talk a big talk but don't follow it up  with action. They've got a bark but no bite. Basically.... when push  comes to shove, they fail to make anything stick. 

So the  exploration of the 6 Grave Violations is also a conversation about  International policy, in general. It's an investigation of what's working  and what's not working and what we might like to do about it,  individually and collectively. 

Check out the video above for a deeper dive into why we are beginning with the 6 Grave Violations. 

For starters, here is a link to the UNs website about the 6 Grave Violations.

Here is an excerpt from their website, with links for more information about each of the 6 Grave Violations: