SURELY the time has come to question society’s priorities. Kandu Arts has engaged over the years in a multitude of arenas. Individuals, families, councils, housing associations, multinational companies, universities and national government all utilising our experience in therapeutic and support programmes, community engagement, conflict resolution, team building and communication and wider consultation.

In each of these arenas we gauge the general sense and attitudes relating to the wider concepts of sustainable development. We audit the participants' priorities in regard to human survival, ie their emotional and physical needs. On the physical side are air, water, food and shelter (usually in that order) and the emotional range invariably starts with love followed by support, health, education, friendships and a sense of purpose. Having had the same responses regardless of sector over 18 years I am sure the priorities are the same anywhere on the planet.

It is shocking that our government doesn’t use the same set of priorities to ensure that each individual living in this country has access to both have physical and emotional essentials to better enable everyone a more realistic chance of survival.

Survival without the possibility of thriving is better than not surviving, but we all should have the opportunity to flourish. If the average person on the street can easily recognise the fundamental elements of survival, why can’t politicians? Is the reason that too many people can’t find suitable housing, food, healthcare and education down to the absurdity of the human ego and our need to outdo each other and to capitalise?

Why do we build palaces for one family whist too many have nothing? Why do some children receive a privileged education, whist some state schools are under resourced?

Why does healthcare differ from area to area? Why is support for mental health (particularly for young people) so hard to access? Why is obtaining funding for vital aspects of health research, cancer, the heart etc left to the vagaries of charity shops and armies of fundraisers and 'professional beggars'?

It is stranger still, given financial pressures and an increase in those needing support, that we can apparently find millions for a group of individuals to run, jump, throw, row, cycle, kick, hit, balance and dive in a country that itself can’t cater for its own population. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a good old game of something and we all like a bit of healthy competition and some abstract human interaction, but who in their right mind thought it should take priority over the essential needs of the population?

You shouldn’t build a palace before everyone has a home or banquet if not everyone has access to basic food and you can’t hold, or compete at, or spend millions on, an Olympics if you can’t provide equally of opportunity or the basic fundamentals of survival to your electorate (who ironically have paid for it through that tax on hope played by the poorest, ie the lottery).

Olympics provide deliberate distraction by the powers that be to convince the masses that somehow all is right in the world all because someone from the country you live in can throw a stick further than someone who lives in another country that you don’t live in!

It is the same as gladiator battles in ancient Rome, a way to distract the masses by focusing negative energy into anything other than the cold reality of austerity and cynical manipulation by the exploiters.

If you have been distracted for hours by people sweating, it’s time to take stock of our collective situation by becoming proactive members of society, promising that we won’t be fooled again and volunteering to support the real heroes in the community who secure our wellbeing. They don’t get medals, they can’t afford to buy honours, but their efforts and input are priceless. No more couch potatoes or distractions please.