We had talked about wanting to have a nice new logo for a long time already, but a few months ago Laurina and Doug started coming up with new ideas again. This started the process that in the end gave us this awesome and widely accepted new logo:
Decided after two rounds of voting with 9 points of acceptance
We are delighted to announce that we got a considerable amount of money from the Postcode Lottery to realize a project that combines pretty much all Kanthaus purposes:
We will design and build modular 48V lithium batteries to save and use solar energy. We will do so using decommissioned batteries from old laptops. That way we can give new life to resources that were already seen as trash, prevent unnecessary mining of raw materials (e.g. lithium and cobalt) that has devastating consequences for people and the environment in the global South and equip ourselves with light, cycle-proof, high-current energy storage devices.
Ah, how delightful is wintertime!
Even in Kanthaus there are 4 candles of which 3 are already lit and in whose flickering light subversive Christmas carols are sung. An advent calendar is put up on the wall and the cotton bags are filled carefully by many different people. They put self-composed poems in there, dumpster-dived treasures, wintery fables, words of praise or handy kitchen utensils. It's a new surprise every day!
Once every few days you can smell a scent of cookies in the staircase which lures the Kanthausianer to the cozy dining room. Then they all sit together around the big oak table, sip tea, crack tons of walnuts and nibble the Christmassy treats. Until all the cookie jars are empty and production needs to start again. That was the case yesterday….
“There was lots of cheese, yogurt and sausage, but the packages were sliced open, and we can’t take it. It’s not the usual thing, but this is what supermarkets do sometimes when they realise that people are bin-diving.”
Hidden in the nook of a cobbled street in Wurzen, and just a few stops on the S-Bahn outside of Leipzig, is Kanthaus. At the entrance, a billowing colourful banner welcomes weary travellers and fellow foodsavers.
Foodsharing is an organization and an online platform in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which supports saving and sharing of food in general, as well as direct pickups at stores and producers. Kanthaus has a lot going on when it comes to foodsharing!
This is a little report.
When people come together regularly to fix broken devices with the help of others who might have more skills and knowledge in the field, that's called repair cafe. It's a place and event for people to learn and try out things with technology.
Kanthaus hosts a repair cafe every Tuesday from 5 to 7 pm.
Click here to read the invitation.
Saving water by reusing slightly dirty water for flushing toilets - seems a no-brainer. At Kanthaus, we operated a DIY greywater recycling system for almost 6 months, from January 2018 to June 2018. Even though the system did save us about 30% water, we decided to turn it off. But it's not that the system was bad in general - there are just some important bits to watch out for. The reasons why we turned it off were: frequent clogging of the toilet refill valves and a strong stench that developed after some weeks.
"Stop doing so much, try to be more" or similar sentences is what I get to hear often. I am a person who gets up early, is busy with a lot of different things throughout the day, not managing to just "lie down and relax" often.
When I feel the need to relax from task A, I grab task B instead. When that feels too much for me, I might be inclined to even start a new task. There might be a task management problem with that, which actually sometimes stresses me out a bit, but I get happiness through the underlying process.
If you have ever cycled from Kanthaus to Lüptitz, you've probably been on a cycle path lined with a LOT of fruit trees. This is a guide to explain what food there is to forage around the Wurzen/Lüptitz area, and how you might put it to use.
My involvement with yunity and Kanthaus is a huge learning process for me. Since I got to know this group of people, I went through many phases of doing things and of being - happy, amazed, fulfilled, sad, angry,...
I want to herewith share some thoughts and experiences with you.