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The community driven OneHeartBahrain initiative, known for spreading goodwill across the island from preparing meals for migrant workers to staging meditations, has launched a YouTube channel to keep the spirit of giving and hope alive.
The channel, called Global Harmony Bahrain, was conceptualised by OneHeartBahrain founder Birthe van der Heijden.
“I wanted to play a big part in the charitable food efforts during this time, but right at the start of the pandemic I took flight from my horse, injured my back and six weeks of lying down followed,” said the Dutch mother-of-three, who is a social strategist and teacher in meditation practice. “I needed to do something that didn’t involve physical activity. First, I focussed on offering remote World Goodwill group meditation but then I felt that more was needed.”
World Goodwill is an organisation founded in 1932 to apply the teachings of former Theosophist Alice A Bailey, specifically to improve human relations in the world. Birthe added: “With goodwill activity on the rise, I asked myself what else we could do to support the informal economy of Bahrain and work towards a positive framework for economic recovery. Two new ideas evolved. The Voice for Good campaign promotes a united spirit and highlights the goodwill efforts taking place throughout the island. The 1LOVE PARTY is an online event aimed at raising people’s spirits and uniting them through love.
“We have had beautiful like-minded people coming together to support these initiatives and we are now formalising this into a more collective effort. The 1LOVE PARTY event reaches beyond the shores of Bahrain. This is how we came up with Global Harmony Bahrain and both new concepts will be featured on it.”
Voice for Good is intended to be a process of shared creation. OneHeartBahrain is looking for volunteers to join them in this effort as they need people who can film and edit video stories.
Birthe said: “There are many acts of kindness, bravery and selflessness taking place right now across the island, but most of them go unreported.
“We want to start capturing these stories and share with people what makes us proud to be part of this unique and beautiful island. We want to unite people behind the heart-warming stories that make us one. Our concept is based on the principle of positivity, that what we focus on grows. By directing our attention towards the good, we are helping to encourage the formation of a more harmonious society.
“We would be grateful for input from experienced marketers to help us coordinate and reach a maximum audience through social media.” All videos will be uploaded on the YouTube channel.
As for the 1LOVE PARTY, it is a Facebook show with active audience participation, which afterwards will be uploaded onto the channel as a series of six episodes. They will have a break after the first six.
They had their first trial run on April 25 and the shows will run at two-week intervals.
“We felt people needed something to uplift them and bring them together in this time of social separation,” Birthe explained. “We would like people to have fun and unite through shared love, passions and interests.”
The show is hosted by Bahraini musicians May Al Qasim and Salman Farooq, who are the creative minds behind the featured content. They recently staged another show on Saturday featuring acts, music and surprise guests. People can join the event on Facebook by following 1LOVE PARTY.
Birthe said: “This is part of a longer-term effort to raise the profile of Bahrain, not just to build the community internally, but also to project a positive image out towards to the wider world. We hope this will gather momentum and that it will live on beyond the days of Covid-19.”
OneHeartBahrain is still conducting weekly food drives as well as providing fresh meals to people in need in collaboration with a restaurant in Riffa.
They also stage weekly World Goodwill meditations every Wednesday at 12pm via Zoom. This activity is available via the One% volunteering application. There has been an upsurge of volunteering and charitable activity including large numbers of people flocking to the National Volunteering Platform and the Bahrain-based One% volunteering app.
Birthe is personally very passionate about supporting migrant workers which was one of the reasons she started OneHeartBahrain.
“I just wanted the migrant workers to be seen, to be noticed and to be treated with the same respect and love as all other members of society,” she said. “I sincerely hope that we can come together as a community and envision a brighter future, with better living circumstances, especially for those in labour camps.”
For details on any activities, email globalharmonybahrain@gmail.com and follow @oneheartbahrain on Instagram.
