Dear friends,
As we reach the midpoint of the year and summer holidays approach for many of us, we are grateful that 2022 has allowed a long-awaited return to more normal days. For HRF this has meant that we have been able to meet in person once more, both with our own team and our research partners – we have been glad of virtual communication but it is very good to be in the same room again.
Since the Easter Newsletter, I would like to highlight our Communication Report: The Impact of Technology in the Home. Our work, both through our 2021 publication The Home in the Digital Age and this recent report, has allowed reflection on how the fundamental values of the home are being challenged by technology. The testimonies of experts, academics, engineers, teachers and parents have helped us to shed real light on the incorporation of technologies into our lives.
Related to this, earlier this month HRF participated in an event hosted by the Family Watch Foundation in which we were asked to share the main ideas of our work in this area. It is a great joy to serve as an inspiration to other associations with concern for the life of the home.
Also in June, HRF was represented at the UN Experts Meeting in Cairo by our patron Professor Mohammed Gamal Abdelmonem, Chair in Architecture at the School of Architecture, Design and Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University. The meeting in preparation for the 30th anniversary of the International Day of Families was an opportunity to share our vision and to connect with experts from the Middle East and North Africa. It is important for HRF to have a seat at the table where decisions affecting homes and families across the world are made. I would like to thank Professor Abdelmonem for his generous contribution in terms of time and expertise on behalf of HRF.
Our activities continue; our new publication Happiness and Domestic Life will be published by Routledge this autumn (available for pre-order on July 29, 2022, item will ship after August 19, 2022) and our next Experts Meeting The Home and Displaced People will take place in Washington DC this September. More information to follow soon.
As summer begins I hope that you will be able to find time for rest and for family, and to also take time to enjoy and treasure all that our homes mean to us.
Bryan K. Sanderson
BeHome Blog 