#differencesdontdivide
Roots are seizing this moment to shout #differencesdontdivide from the social media rooftops, and to celebrate the friendships we nurture that may appear a bit unlikely to outsiders. We’re thinking about the particular pals we all have that leave the people around you wondering how on earth you met and what can you possibly have in common? Be it your 72-year-old neighbour who you’ve been doing the weekly shop for over lockdown, the mate you met in primary school who now lives 3000 miles away or that certain someone you have an uncompromising bond with even though you clash every time the 5 o’clock news comes on, Roots want to hear about all these gloriously complex and unlikely friendships!
Our vision for creating a more curious, connected and compassionate country can only really come to life when we bring people with wildly different, textured and multi-layered lived experiences to the forefront of our work. We hope to do this by providing well-supported and unique opportunities to listen, learn and share personal stories with people from all walks of life. By facilitating meaningful conversations between people that wouldn’t normally find an opportunity to connect, we hope to prove that what makes us different is a big part of the story of bringing us together.
As we all know far too well, COVID-19 has made it harder for us to connect with our nearest and dearest throughout 2020. In the spirit of the season, the Roots Programme wants to light up your Twitter feeds with stories that will bring a smile to your face and the faces of others. We’re kicking off our campaign virtually, in true COVID-friendly fashion, with #differencesdontdivide. We want to hear the stories of your unlikely friendships to springboard us into 2021 in preparation for Roots’ re-launch early next year.
We’re asking you to share a picture illustrating a friendship of yours that seems unlikely or that formed in the face of personal differences. Then tell us about it, in less than 400 characters, by answering two simple questions to accompany the photo:
How are you and your friend different?
What keeps you connected?
By putting a spotlight on strong friendships that have formed because of or in spite of differences, we will highlight that forging mutually supportive relationships with people who you might expect to have nothing in common with is often what we have already been doing. It might be a lot harder to connect these days but, if we dare to, we can always find common roots somewhere. Our goal is to find commonality between those leading very different lives across the UK; to uncover a more hopeful and united future on the horizon for our country. It’s so easy to argue to the death as a keyboard warrior, but we still have the skills to patiently disagree and connect with one another in the same way that we do around the kitchen table at home; it all starts with remembering that #differencesdontdivide.
