97 – Final chance for Plants Know No Borders Merch!

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the

Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and

liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello.

Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

I'm so sorry.

It's been ages since I put out an episode.

I probably sound like a broken record.

But, yeah, it's just really tough with a newborn baby.

Well, he's not a newborn now.

He's a year old, but with a.

Baby and not having much sort of devoted time to work.

But yeah, that will be changing in.

August when he's gonna go part time.

To nursery, which I'm really sad about.

But also I think, yeah, kind of need it now that he's running around at the speed of light

and it is extremely tiring.

But, yeah, so I'm sorry, but when.

Yeah, when I do have those three.

Mornings a week to work, I will.

Definitely be trying to be more consistent.

With the podcast and like, finally start doing some interviews again.

I'm really exc.

Um, but I just wanted to jump in today and

talk about some merchandise we've got available.

And classic.

This is like really last minute because.

The deadline is actually today is the last chance to order with tomorrow morning at

8am being like the absolute cutoff.

Originally we were doing it for.

To finish last week, but the ******* awesome screen printers that we use had a kind of big

Palestine solidarity order come through with like two and a thousand shirts that ran over.

So, yeah, we kind of like had to bump our.

Our orders a little bit, but that's obviously

absolutely fine.

So, yeah, we're just.

We just decided to extend by a week.

So we haven't seen them and there's a high

likelihood you haven't seen them because we've been like completely shadow banned on

Instagram.

Like I have nearly 22,000 followers on.

Instagram and like 20 people maybe see my posts about Calais.

Um, so if you don't know like.

The context in Calais, like it's this.

Kind of border hotspot between the France.

Between France and the uk.

So many people come there and then try.

Because there's no safe legal routes to.

Apply for asylum in the UK from France.

You have to basically get to the.

UK to be able to apply.

But there.

Yeah, there's no ******* options.

Right, so your options are a dinghy.

Like across the Channel, which is incredibly.

Dangerous and is one of the most.

Dangerous pieces of water in the world in terms of how many people are dying trying

to cross.

And then.

Yeah.

Or kind of getting into trucks and.

Vans, which is also incredibly dangerous.

So, yeah, people are kind of forced to attempt in these ways and then.

To apply for asylum in the uk.

And, yeah, the kind of.

The environment in France is like what they

call, like a hostile environment.

Like it is intentionally hostile by the state.

So people are living displaced in camps.

And tiny encampments, like, scattered around northern.

France, like mostly Calais and Dunkirk near the ports.

It's just like relentless, constant police harassment.

You know, whether that's every couple of days having their tents and belongings taken.

And burnt, or whether that's, you know.

Being followed by police and stopped and.

Searched and beaten and things like, you know, just.

Yeah, I don't want.

I should have given a content warning.

But basically, like, all the police violence imaginable is happening and then people don't

have access to clean water either, that.

Constantly get sabotaged by the police.

You know, people put out grassroots groups.

Basically provide all the care and solidarity to meet humans, like, basic *******

needs.

And, yeah, it's just.

It's just horrible.

And there's like.

When I first started going out, there was

like, maybe a good couple of thousand people living around the area and now it's like, much

harder to know.

How many people there are because people are so dispersed.

Because this constant strategy of evictions is.

Really, yeah, taking its toll on people.

But there's still hundreds and hundreds of.

People living in these encampments that don't.

Know where the local health services are, are living in really intense conditions.

Obviously it's summer at the moment, but the summer comes with big challenges like

dehydration and mosquitoes and insect bites.

And in the kind of autumn and winter, all year round, people are struggling.

With respiratory infections, you know, coughs, colds and flu and many more serious

conditions that they don't have kind of access.

To healthcare to kind of support.

So, yeah, so we have a project.

Called the Mobile Herbal Clinic, which is separate from the Solidarity Apothecary.

But I'm very active in the clinic.

I used to go to Calais nearly every month that I could before I had my baby.

And, yeah, the project is still going.

I'm, you know, part of the crew.

Working behind the scenes to do the.

Kind of admin and fundraising and things like this.

And we have this merchandise fundraiser at.

The moment, selling these beautiful T shirts.

Called Plants no, no Borders or with.

Illustrations of many of the plants that we use in the clinic.

And we also have a second gorgeous.

Design this year with a beautiful dandelion that my friend kind of Moving into,

like, as.

As if the birds are coming out of the dandelion.

It's, like, really stunning and we've just, like, gone all out.

We've got aprons, we got hoodies, we've.

Got T shirts, we got prints, we've got tote bags.

Like, we just, yeah, are trying really hard in a really difficult climate to.

Keep fundraising for the clinic.

So, yeah, the clinic, because of the.

Funding limitations, hasn't been going out as much.

People have been trying to go every other month to kind of, like safeguard.

Resources, which is so frustrating because the needs are so huge.

But we go out, each trip costs between 2 and 3,000 pounds.

Like, that's what our kind of tracking.

And maths have shown is that's how.

Much we're spending on the medicine making, like.

And we grow as many plants as.

Possible, but, you know, you still have to buy bottles and labels and glycerin.

And we don't tend to use alcohol.

Because a lot of people in the camps are Muslim.

Not all of them, obviously, but we.

Tend to make our medicine with glycerin.

Where possible and, you know, also make.

Other things like creams and ointments and things with different infused oils.

But, yeah, it's really expensive.

You know, it used to be quite cheap to get to

France, like on the ferry or the Eurotunnel, and now that's.

Again, it's just like, everything has gone up so much, like petrol, all the things.

So, yeah, it's very expensive to keep doing it and I wish we could.

Just maintain, like, a constant presence there.

But that would just demand, like, probably.

Yeah, 15 grand a month easy on.

Medicine making, which, for a grassroots project.

Isn'T possible right now.

But, yeah, we are encouraging people to sign up, giving, like, a monthly donation,

and that is going to make the.

Biggest difference of all in terms of creating some consistent income for us.

But right now, one of the best.

Ways you can support the project, other.

Than just chucking in any donation, is.

To buy a piece of merch.

Um, and, yeah, I'm really sorry to put this episode out so late.

Just.

Yeah, my mum was away and couldn't help with the baby and my partner's been

unwell in hospital and, yeah, I.

Just haven't had an opportunity until now.

Like, my partner's mum's come up for the weekend, which has just been amazing.

So.

Yeah, so anyway, I'm sorry that it's.

Not gone out as much.

I've done my best to.

To share it to my newsletter.

So if you're not on that.

Please sign up as that's like the best way to

hear all the updates if I'm not able to record these episodes.

So yeah, all I can say is.

Just like, please support the project.

Please make a donation if you can.

You know, the merch is absolutely beautiful.

It's organic, it's screen printed by like a DIY crew like not far from where I

live, you know.

And yeah, completely like spreadshot free.

I know, like this like consumption economy like isn't great.

Like, I hate that we're like having to like sell and like market all the time.

But like really without people giving a donation every month, like it's.

It is genuinely so hard to fundraise.

And so that's why like we do do the merch and you know, like we do need clothing,

but yeah, it's really high quality, really beautiful.

And this year like we've collaborated with.

Some people with an amazing herbalist called Christelle who's in Belgium and she's

been sending out all the, all the orders.

To people on mainland Europe.

We've not been able unfortunately to post.

There ourselves because, oh my God, the last time we did it like so many things

got stopped, stopped at customs and we had to like refund people and after having already

paid the postage.

For their items and it just cost us like hundreds of pounds.

And I just said to the team like, I can't, I'm not doing it.

Like basically like it was so much stress getting like stressed emails from

people being like, where's my order? And I'm like, I'm not Amazon anyway.

But yeah, Christelle's been doing that, but.

Unfortunately the order deadline has passed.

But we've also been collaborating with an.

Amazing human called Elliot in the so.

Called US to fundraise for a project there.

So we've been doing like 50, 50 split with our merch for that project which is run by people

like basically.

On the border between the US and.

Mexico doing like amazing food sovereignty work.

Like things around horticulture and stuff.

So we just wanted to like collaborate and the design is in Spanish.

Um, but anyway, I have to go.

In a second, so yeah, please check that out.

All the information is on my website.

Thanks so much for listening.

I really hope to come back soon with some more

solo episodes because, yeah.

I just miss podcasting and I really hope to be doing some interviews as well.

If you are interested in these issues around herbalism and border violence and learning.

A bit more about the Mobile Herbal.

Clinic Calais and what we do and how it works.

I've got like a free recorded webinar that I did about herbalism and border.

Violence, like connecting these kind of terrains of struggle and stuff.

So I'll put a link to that.

In the show notes.

But anyway, thank you for listening.

And yeah, please buy an item if you can afford

it.

And if you can't afford it, which.

I totally understand, if you could just, like, share it on social media or in

your signal chats or your networks, like, that would just.

We would just appreciate that so much.

Okay, thank you.

Take care.

Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the

show@solidarityapothecary.org podcast.