As the global demand for food increases, food and labor issues in developed countries are still burning matters that need to be tackled. Long delivery times, short product shelf life and food borne pandemics, such as the recent EHEC crises, are challenges which remain more pressing than ever. The question is not if, but rather when, these problems will strike again. And the question for both businesses and consumers is how to face these challenges.

The Risk Summit will create a forum for major global brands such as Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Metro, Accor and others to answer some of those questions and showcase their strategic thinking on Risk Management practice in the areas of Food Safety and Labour Safety.

Laurentien van Oranje-Nassau will be Keynote Speaker at the Diversey-organized Risk Management Summit

The closing speaker at the Summit will be Laurentien van Oranje-Nassau. Her Royal Highness Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands has a long track record on literacy issues, as UNESCO’s Special Envoy on Literacy for Development and other responsibilities. Her speech will be titled “Driving long-term value: the human dimension of risk management”. Many of the critical sectors in the food distribution chain such as Retail, Food Service and Facility Management employ low-skilled labour, and with a low level of literacy, these types of workers are exposed to a significant number of risks. Her Highness will use practical examples from the areas of both literacy and sustainability, highlighting the link between employee safety and literacy.

First Session: Food safety – Managing the Impact on People and Profitability.

Speakers at the Food Safety panel discussion include:

-        Neil Marshall, Global Director of Quality and Food Safety at The Coca-Cola Company

-        Suzan Horst, Corporate Quality Director at Royal FrieslandCampina

-        Nicki Crayfourd, Global Director of Health, Safety and Environment at the Compass Group

-        Peter Overbosch, Vice President of Corporate Quality for Metro

These top executives from different sectors will share valuable insight gained from their experiences and challenges in managing food chains. Discussion topics will include how these business leaders are adapting to new food safety regulations and operational challenges; how food service and catering operators ensure perfect food quality at the point of consumption; and how companies can measure the impact of their investments in food safety in their P&Ls.

Second Session – Labor Safety -The Virtuous Circle of Efficiency and Safety.

In order to ensure the health of consumers, managers must establish a focus on workers’ safety. Employers are obliged to provide a safe workplace for their employees, including the provision of adequate infection control procedures as well as the right equipment and training. Five senior executives from key sectors will discuss their goals, systems and the way they minimize the risks associated with managing people.

-        Richard Short, Health, Safety and Environment Director at Accor

-        Dr. Bizhan Pourkomailian, Director of Food Safety and Supplier Workplace Accountability at McDonald’s Europe

-        Joseph Nazareth, Group Vice President, Head of Group Health, Safety and Environment and Corporate Responsibility for ISS

-        Andrea Zironi, Global Strategic Sourcing Director at Autogrill

-        Andreas Voss, Professor of Medical Microbiology and Infection Control at the Radbound University, Nijmegen Medical Centre, the Netherlands, will provide his insights about the healthcare related risks

We are organizing this Summit to expose our customers to the most innovative initiatives on business risk management. We have already received a lot of interest for the Summit and thanks to the Interclean exhibition also taking place at the RAI Exhibition Center, we expect to have outstanding attendance from European business leaders. The event will be moderated by Martin van Putten, an experienced journalist and communications consultant. It will be highly interactive, in several different languages, with opportunities for open questions to the speakers and individual interviews by request.

For more information on the Risk Management Summit, including a detailed agenda and the registration process, please visit: www.risksummit.com

See you next Thursday!

As one of the fastest growing hotel operators in the world, we at the Rezidor Hotel Group have entrusted Diversey with providing housekeeping and kitchen solutions that deliver superior cleaning results with minimal impact on the environment and improved profitability for the hotels.

As a visionary green pioneer, we launched the hotel industry’s first Environmental Policy in 1989, followed by the first comprehensive Responsible Business Programme in 2001 – both with the clear pledge to minimize our environmental footprint. Today, 55% of Rezidor hotels  have achieved eco-label certification.

In January 2012 we launched Think Planet, an ambitious energy saving initiative that aims to reduce energy consumption by 25% by 2016. Building on our environmental successes of past years, we at Rezidor will continuously strive to reduce our resource consumption, by focusing on operations and investments.

Through its expertise and superior solutions, Diversey helps its customers reduce the environmental and operational impact of their businesses, saving water, lowering energy consumption, and reducing labor costs, while also making facilities safer, cleaner and more hygienic. Working with Diversey product chemicals in the housekeeping department has allowed us to minimize on packaging and the use of chemicals, which is required for all our hotels – and even more so for those with an eco-label.

Diversey delivers a mix of products and services that greatly support Rezidor hotels. Among the innovations helping Rezidor meet its environmental commitments and improve its operational profile are:

•            Diversey’s innovative, wall mounted Revoflow® dispensing system for dishwashing, which utilizes lightweight, easy to handle off-the-floor containers, helping to ensure a safe and clean workspace. (The patented Revoflow cap automatically doses the right mix and quantity of concentrated powder and liquid to suit the cleaning specifications of each hotel.)

•            Divermite™ brand packaging and dispensing systems for housekeeping departments, which ensure the correct mix of cleaning chemicals – with as much as 97 percent less plastic waste per liter of solution when compared to conventional, ready-to-use packaging.

•            SoftCare® brand soap in hotel washrooms, which also delivers superior hand-washing results with less waste than conventional products.

Most recently, Diversey has delivered another innovation in operational and environmental management for Rezidor’s hotels: the new Environmental Packaging Calculator. This tool has helped us quantify the environmental benefits to be achieved from Diversey’s innovative packaging, dispensing and dosing expertise, and superior product formulations, which require less water and energy use at the customer site.

The calculator delivers side-by-side comparisons of similar cleaning and hygiene products that come in different packaging, thereby allowing us to make more informed choices in regard to cleaning products. This also allows us to better manage our operations and reduce our environmental footprint.

It was found, in an analysis for Rezidor’s UK business, in a single year, that Diversey reduced Rezidor’s environmental impact by:

•            41% in total packaging waste

•            61% in greenhouse gas emissions related to materials and shipping

The Environmental Packaging Calculator tool also helps us meet our sustainability and compliance objectives. Eco-certification programs such as Nordic Swan and the Green Key International ecolabel system for hotels require participants to document their total use of plastic and cardboard packaging – a process Diversey has made much simpler.

The array of solutions provided demonstrates the value of Diversey’s highly integrated solutions for the Hospitality industry, and we are proud to partner this great organization.

Amsterdam, May 10

Five weeks from today, on 10th May 2012, I will have the great honor of opening the first ever Risk Management Summit for senior European business leaders at the RAI Exhibition Centre in Amsterdam.

At this Summit we are bringing together some of Europe’s most influential leaders from the Building Care, Retail, Lodging, and Food & Beverage industries, who will help promote the critical role that risk management must play in business strategy. They will focus on the most innovative current initiatives on business and corporate Risk Management.

The carefully selected speakers will focus attention on how leading corporations are addressing, mitigating, and ultimately eliminating business-related risks in areas such as food safety, people safety and infection control.

The purpose of the Summit is to showcase the strategic thinking of major businesses from selected industries on Risk Management practices from three different angles: Food Safety, Labor Safety and Infection Control.

Each session will present practical ideas for business leaders to take away and rapidly integrate into their own organizations in order to enhance their commitment to protect employees and customers’ lives, and to improve the bottom line.

The event brings together speakers who are senior executives from blue chip global corporations, including McDonalds, Coca Cola, Metro, ISS, Accor, Compass, Autogrill, Friesland Campina. We are delighted and honored that the keynote speech will be delivered by Her Royal Highness, Princess Laurentien of Orange-Nassau.

We will be welcoming an audience of several hundred specially invited senior business leaders from corporations, associations and non-governmental organizations, who have been selected from across Europe to attend. There will also be participation from qualified visitors to the ISSA/INTERCLEAN exhibition, which is being staged concurrently, also at the Amsterdam RAI.

Simultaneous translation will be provided into the main European languages, and a feedback system will be in place for the audience to interact with the speakers during the panel discussions.

In summary, three reasons to attend:

1. Top level speakers with deep understanding of the topic
2. Interactive event to facilitate audience participation and networking
3. Free entrance to the Summit and complimentary entrance to the Interclean Exhibition

We are very excited about this Summit and it will be great to see you in Amsterdam!

To find out more about the Risk Management Summit, including the registration process, please visit: www.risksummit.com.

iMAP is a highly secure web-based platform which enables our customers to track and report on various operations in a commercial facility. iMAP facilitates data collection, collation, and analysis and provides our customers with actionable intelligence for continuous improvement.

By automating and enhancing the collection, analysis and reporting of critical business data in real time and in any language, iMAP helps enhance cleaning quality and maintain consistent hygiene and safety standards for every location and across an entire organization.

In my view, the remarkable new iMAP platform is rightly seen as a huge stride forward in creating cleaner, healthier, safer environments and has already been judged a winner by its core target market, mainly Retailers, Facility Management Companies and Food Service operators.

Bob Frappier, Vice President Quality Assurance at Ahold USA is clear about the benefits for their operations: “Our company has a strong passion for food safety and quality and the iMAP tool is a critical component to make it operational. At Ahold USA we operate 760 retail stores in the New England, New York and Mid Atlantic areas of the US. iMAP provides us with an excellent visibility of store execution of our policies and procedures. We analyze the captured data by individual store, region, division and total company.  The reports generated from the data collection are utilized for operation action plans, executive reports, and yearly goals planning.”

In addition to maintaining cleaning and safety standards, other uses for iMAP within the facilities sector include food safety, equipment service, corporate sustainability and risk management. A yet further part of iMAP’s appeal is that it works on virtually any smartphone mobile device – including Android and Apple smart phones, tablets and laptops – and can be accessed at any time and from almost any location where an Internet connection is available.

At the ISSA/INTERCLEAN Amsterdam exhibition (8 -11 May 2012), we will be introducing several other key innovations in the categories of cleaning chemicals, tools and machines. See you there!

For more information about iMAP, visit www.diversey.com/imap

It’s time to announce another major innovation.

Sealed Air’s I&L Business Unit has launched the Diverflow with Sure Link™ dilution control system. This is a wall-mounted chemical dispensing system that provides foodservice organizations with a safe and easy way to clean multiple kitchen areas – while reducing environmental impact.

Diverflow overcomes a number of challenges inherent to traditional solutions, including in the areas of safety, ease of use and risk of dosing and dilution errors.

Representing a safe and easy way to clean multiple kitchen areas, it:

• Reduces hazards and errors by ensuring that employees avoid contact with chemicals and that concentrated solutions are not mistakenly mixed or improperly used. With the push of a button, the desired type of solution is safely delivered to achieve consistent and accurate results every time.

• Is designed for simple employee training with straight forward color-coded equipment and a push-to-dispense design. Consistent dilution and dispensing capabilities ensure workers are cleaning with the correct strength solutions to eliminate overuse and waste. Color-coded cap and bottle lock-out features ensure that employees use the correct product for each application while reducing exposure to concentrated solutions.

• Includes six easy-to-load pouches of concentrated formulas for glass, washroom, floorcare, multipurpose, manual ware wash and sanitizing needs.

The vacuum action of the Diverflow system allows customers to see the pouches collapsing until they are completely empty so virtually no residual chemical remains. This enables kitchen workers to maximize solution use while eliminating unsafe spills and exposure to chemicals. The wall-mounted design also reduces trip-and-fall hazards by removing chemical containers from the floor.

With Diverflow, foodservice operations also have the ability to reduce their environmental footprint. Reduced plastic and cardboard packaging lessens waste and promotes recycling.

We are very proud of the fact that McDonald’s awarded Diversey its Best of Green classification, in an exclusive guide given by the company to its franchise holders, and which lists suppliers recommended for the best combination of sustainability and efficacy. Our inclusion here comes significantly from the continuous improvement in our product offerings, and from recent successful tests of Diverflow, which debuted in McDonald’s restaurants in Germany, Poland and France. McDonald’s employees gave the new product range high marks for ease of operation, safety, and space optimization and reduction of clutter in the work area.

To obtain Diverflow in your locale(s), please find details for the Sealed Air Diversey offices in your country or region at http://diversey.com/about-us/global-reach

The key difference this time was our integrated approach as a single, united company, comprising both Sealed Air and Diversey.

For the first time, we showcased the combined value proposition that the two companies bring to food safety and security at the event, which was held in Orlando, Florida. With the key combination of leading experts in food science, packaging and microbiology, we demonstrated strategies for protecting and enhancing the entire food and beverage supply chain – from farm to fork – by collaborating to reduce contamination, extend the shelf life of food, and elevate the food and beverage experience for the consumer.

As part of our presence at the event, we hosted a breakfast session titled “Facing the Challenge of Building an Effective Food Safety Management System Across Cultures.”  The session focused on the ways in which culture can positively impact the building of an effective food safety program, globally, to ensure comprehensive risk management across the supply chain.

Werner Linders and Catherine François from Diversey introduced the round table, stressing three key areas of work where Sealed Air is focusing their efforts:

• To change the industry’s way of thinking to tackle the three most pressing issues facing our food supply – Food Safety, Food Waste, and Food Access
• The challenge of not creating more arable land and growing more food, but providing “access” to sufficient amounts of safe and quality foods – especially in developing countries.
• To manage food safety globally, and contribute to making a safer and sustainable global food supply chain.

The round table members were:

- Alain Dewael, Senior Manager, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs, EMEA, Starbucks, Netherlands

- Vera Petrova, Safety Services Manager, Food Safety, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, USA

- Joan Menke-Schaenzer, Chief Global Quality Officer, Research, Quality & Innovation ConAgra Foods, Inc.

On Thursday, senior leaders from Sealed Air participated in a panel discussion called “Using Innovative Technologies to Implement a Safe and Sustainable Future Supply Chain.”  The program discussed how technology can reduce cost, increase transparency, and help an organization remain competitive.

I was honored to open the debate with a key question around the use of technology: In the Food Processing, Food Packaging and Food Retailing industries – How can technology be used to reduce waste and cost, while preserving fabricated foods and ingredients during transportation and retailing and to point of consumption?

Bob Gravani, Professor of Food Science at Cornell University, USA, moderated the round table, which convened:

- Tatiana Koutchma, Research Scientist, Food Process Engineering, Agriculture and Agri-Food, Canada

- Ron Cotterman, Executive Director, Sustainability, Sealed Air Corporation

- Aldin Hilbrands, Senior Manager, Product Integrity, Royal Ahold, The Netherlands

The above are critical issues, especially in light of a recent UN study finding that one-third of all the food produced on the planet – about 1.4 billion tons of food – is wasted every year.

At a Diversey-hosted VIP dinner for our customers, the guest speaker was one of the leading voices on food marketing and the food industry environment of the future, Dr. David Hughes, emeritus Professor at the University of London. He is a strong proponent of building vertical alliances between members of the food industry value chain: farmers, life science and input companies, ingredient firms, food and beverage manufacturers, retailers, and food service professionals.

David’s presentation underscored comments made earlier in the week by Sealed Air CEO Bill Hickey: “Nearly every step in the food production and consumption chain affords the opportunity for business involvement and contribution, and we have committed our company to a path of innovation to help the world increase access to food, to keep it fresh, and make it safe and secure for all people.”

These areas represent a critical nexus between business development and humanitarian needs.

We will continue to push the envelope on both counts. Stay tuned for more news.

Recently, I was honored to host more than 100 customers and business partners in Shanghai on the occasion of the launch of a special Made-in-Asia line of our award-winning and comprehensive TASKI portfolio, which ranges from scrubber driers and single-disc machines to dry/wet vacuums and carpet care solutions.

We are extremely pleased that our Asian customers can now benefit from this innovative floor care technology. In fact, our Asian team has built on the TASKI legacy by developing a new line of machines for the region. In China, for instance, many of our customers face unique challenges and requirements when it comes to cleaning and hygiene. China’s high population density and unique environmental conditions create challenging floor-care cleaning requirements. Dirt build-up is greater and climates and temperatures are more extreme. Effective cleaning means that floor care machines need to be built and designed to meet these unique challenges. This is what we have achieved with our new TASKI machines. China is the first stop in our Asia launch of the new TASKI line of solutions and it was a great success. Our team is certainly exciting and looking forward to rolling out the new line in more markets to come.

In addition to the new line of machines, we are also launching a new line of TASKI tools and accessories that caters specifically to Asia’s needs. The range of cleaning tools, which includes cleaning pads, cleaning trolleys, mops and handles, microfiber cloths and buckets, completes the TASKI integrated floor care solution to meet all floor care needs. In particular, the new TASKI cleaning pads, when combined with the new TASKI machines, will deliver high performance cleaning results.

Our company has also gone to great lengths to assure that the quality of the new machines deserves the TASKI brand. We have invested in sophisticated testing equipment and hired a new staff of engineers and quality control specialists to assure that every machine that comes off the production floor in Asia is made with excellence to withstand the conditions to which it will be exposed.

Our new TASKI floor machines include some very innovative and patented features including the V-shape and W-shape squeegee system that picks up 99% of water from the floor and the Intelliflow system which dispenses the right amount of cleaning solution and water onto the floor according to the speed of the machine. This helps to reduce the consumption of water and chemicals by up to 50%.

The new TASKI machines come in a variety of sizes and functionality to suit different scale and mode of operations. They range from the TASKI ergodisc HD^®, the rugged single-disc machine that is built with a resilient metal chassis and extra weight to handle the most challenging floor surfaces; to the TASKI swingo 4000, the largest in the scrubber drier range that delivers faster cleaning speed with greater power for large floor areas. The other scrubber driers include the TASKI swingo 350B, a battery-powered auto scrubber with a low profile that can reach under obstacles such as tables or racks; the TASKI swingo 760 with a 40-liter tank, available in a battery-powered or cable-powered model; the TASKI swingo 1260B with a large 60-liter tank; and the battery-powered TASKI swingo 1660 with a large 85-liter tank.

For more information on the TASKI portfolio in Asia, please visit:

www.TASKI-performance.com

For all other regions, please find us at:

www.TASKIbyDiversey.com

I’d like to share with you some of my thoughts about what these new and exciting times will bring for the new Sealed Air’s Institutional & Laundry (I&L) business and for our customers.

Same passionate experts and trusted brands, new business alignment

Our new company represents the start of a new era of opportunity for our customers.

We will offer  further innovation, a broader array of trusted brands and deeper expertise to our customers as well as high quality products with excellent service. The I&L business unit of Sealed Air is a global integrated supplier that manufactures and distributes chemicals, tools and utensils, machines, and training and consulting services for the Institutional and Laundry sectors. We continue to deliver solutions in building care, food safety, laundry and infection control for our broad customer base in sectors such as:

• Building Service Contractors and Facility Management
• Retail
• Food Service
• Hospitality
• Health Care

Sustainability is our passion

Businesses around the world continue  to recognize sustainability as a competitive advantage and are doubling efforts in establishing sustainability strategies and practices, much in the same way Sealed Air has done for its own business.

Here at Sealed Air, our main priority is to create solutions that enhance sustainability – by improving our customers’ profits through reduced operational costs associated with energy and water conservation, and through waste reduction, regulatory and legal compliance, positive labor relations, and a healthy and safe workforce.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to sustainability. Our commitment is to help customers choose the right options for their needs – cleaning and hygiene solutions that help safeguard human health and improve our customers’ operations while reducing waste and saving energy and water. In everything we do, our customers count on our expertise and our commitment to partnerships just as much as they rely on our superior products and tools.

Partnering with our customers

In nearly 20 years working among and leading Diversey’s people, I have been impressed time and again by their genuine desire to fully understand and meet customer needs. Our people work within a rich legacy of more than two centuries of trusted brands paired with industry leadership. We are able to deliver the highest Value creation for our customers being the best at Problem solving and Solutions delivery.

We create Value through:

1. Innovative products, applications and solutions delivering Operational Efficiency and lower total costs to our customers

2. Risk Management programs focused on Labor Safety,  Food Safety and Infection Control

3. Differentiated sustainable solutions

In the coming weeks and months, my colleagues and I will use this blog to share resources, ideas, best practices, innovations, sustainability news and commentaries on trends in the industry. We invite you to join us. Ask questions and let us know what you think, and which topics you’d like us to address.

Pedro Chidichimo is the President of Sealed Air’s Institutional & Laundry Business. He has held executive leadership roles at Diversey and its legacy companies since 1994. He led Global Customer Solutions and Innovation for Diversey from January through October 2011. Previously, he led the Europe, Middle East and Africa region from October 2006 to January 2011, and held several leadership roles in the Latin America business, including a year as the president of that region from July 2005 to October 2006. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Universidad de Buenos Aires and a master of business administration degree from Universidad Austral in Argentina.

In today’s era of ubiquitous portable technology I am surprised at the low level of adoption within our industry of such easily available resources. Internet based applications can differentiate a business from its competitors through improved service quality, and efficiency and profitability of back office procurement tasks.

Despite the availability of standard or customized internet based solutions I have seen facility management companies and executives struggle with key tasks such as workforce planning, service programming or online purchasing automation.

For a service deployment manager one of the least desirable things is to have a poorly programmed day with resources sitting idle. And for a procurement VP, dealing with more than 100 product and equipment suppliers, the net provides amazing opportunities for automation. Let me explain where I see the two biggest potential areas for facility management companies.

Front end applications for improved service quality

Having worked for many years with the leading actors in the field, I have seen the best innovation coming from tools such as computers or hand-held devices that are simple to operate. Centrally managed and locally deployed, these tools offer a powerful way to achieve optimal work-loading and allocation, labor and cost estimation, inspection, and optimization:

• Work-loading and allocation: scheduling routine/daily tasks, balancing workloads, generating and printing assignments

• Labor & cost estimation: calculating employee and budget needs, managing inventory, supplies and equipment.

• Inspection: PDA and PC-based inspections helping to capture critical observations and identify areas demanding immediate attention

• Optimization: real-time reporting, employee performance analysis and continuous improvement.

These workforce planning tools allow your facility management company to do more with less, and significantly differentiate you and your business; they elevate professionalism, enhance productivity and improve the level of cleanliness of buildings.

And then there are the labor savings…

Back end applications for efficient and profitable procurement

Knowing that the number of tools regularly used to deploy a good facility management task is just too high, there is a level of complexity that needs to be managed efficiently.

There is a need to enhance cleaning operations through optimization of the supply chain. E-procurement systems are good at this, with the capability to deliver significant benefits by streamlining processes and improving financial performance.

Because there are very few dedicated online procurement systems for building service contractors, my suggestion is to create a small team to research the options available and ask your chosen vendor to customize a system that is right for you.

The main benefits of E-procurement systems are:

• Standardization and harmonization of product ranges to streamline business processes
• Control and visibility of spending to lower operating costs
• Robust reporting to deliver powerful business intelligence
• Improved operational efficiency and supply chain management.

For one building service company with 2,500 customer locations – spending of 17 million euros with 58 suppliers for janitorial, uniforms, office supplies, etc. – a procurement system designed for cleaning operations supplies and consumables achieved annual product spend reduction of 10 percent and reduced admin processing costs by 80 per cent, saving 346,000 euros per year.

Another European building service contractor was able to reassign 16 full time employees in its accounts payable department by using electronic invoice matching capabilities.

We call upon businesses in our industry to start adopting such tools – for their own sake. The bigger your business, the bigger the rewards. There is nothing riskier than doing things the same old way.

Read the full article in the European Cleaning Journal here.

Our Crisis Management Team in Japan has performed at an extraordinarily high level. And we have now put in place a company-wide effort to help the people of Japan recover from this disaster. Diversey has launched a companywide donation drive to support the American Red Cross and it is matching all monetary gifts from employees and contractors.

Priority one is our employees and their families. Then we move on to protecting our customers; then to restoring business operations. Water, energy, transportation, computer access and fuel are disrupted but we are in operation and quickly turning to assisting our customers in every way possible.

Let’s join together to do our part to help the Japanese people to recover from this incomprehensible disaster. We will keep you updated about our efforts in Japan, here and via Facebook and Twitter.

We are receiving regular updates from our employees in the region and continue to monitor the constantly changing situation. Among the many communications we have received was a message of hope, authored by the friend of a Diversey colleague, currently located in Sendai. With permission, we wanted to share this account of the resiliency and fellowship of the Japanese people:

There has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, ‘Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another.’

Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains at Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.

I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.

And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don’t. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that is much larger than myself.