THE story from Costa Rica

I’ve been in Costa Rica for 10 days working with one of our partners DNI (Defensa di Ninos y Ninas Internacional).  I have been commissioned by Anti-Slavery International to run capacity building workshops in Costa Rica, Tanzania and the Philippines over the next 6 months.  I’ve just finished the first of these in Costa Rica facilitating with Children Unite’s Chair, Mariela who also happens to work for Anti-Slavery and is a fluent Spanish speaker.

We were able to visit a slum area in San Jose called La Carpio – where DNI runs a project for child domestic workers.  La Carpio is also called ‘little Nicaragua’ as nearly all it’s residents having migrated from Nicaragua, it is very poor. We were given a tour of La Carpio by Nila – a local community leader who explained all the community activities she was involved in as volunteer, (on top of her 2 jobs as a domestic worker).  Her commitment to her community was inspiring and I’ve noticed that the more I visit grass-roots organisations the more ‘Nilas’ I meet.  I know this sounds like a cliché but they are the real heroes.  They are the ones I think of when people tell me how ‘good’ I am because I work on this issue and I squirm because I know that the Nilas of this world make so much more of a sacrifice than I ever could.  But, this time I made Nila laugh her socks off and I want to share my (slightly humiliating) story with you!!   Nila was showing Mariela and I the dirty black river in the community (which was quite a torrent as there’s been a cyclone over Costa Rica for the past week) and over the river was a rickety old swing bridge.  As we got closer Mariela and I asked if we’d have to cross the river and Nila said no which we were relieved about. So we stood at one end and watched the kids running across it without a care in the world.  Mariela was first to succumb to the  inner challenge to cross it and off she went with two girls who had also been our tour guides with Nila.  So, of course, as Mariela had done it I felt obliged and started crossing…however, half way across I heard lots of shouting (from Mariela) and the bridge started swinging and wobbling as a bunch of 5 or 6 boys were shaking it, jumping up and down on it and laughing at me - the gringa, clinging on for dear life and screaming at them – one of boys came racing under my arms and up the other side.  I eventually made it across the bridge but then had to think about getting back.! Me and the two girls (yep they went across again!) waited for the boys to go a bit further away and then we practically ran back over the bridge shouting ‘rapido, rapido’ in case the boys came to play the trick on me again!!  Mariela was very worried about me but Nila was laughing her head off – it was at that point we found out that she won’t cross the bridge ever and thought we were completely mad!!  But when Mariela questioned me about it I realized I hadn’t been scared, I should have been, but I wasn’t and I rather admired the boys…if I’d have been one these boys I would have done the same.  I don’t really know what the moral of this tale is but Mariela said ‘THIS is the story from La Carpio’ so I guess there doesn’t really need to be one this time!

Cup cakes, rubber gloves & political action

Earlier this month, armed with 200 pairs of rubber gloves I joined a roadshow in Bristol of the Methodist Women in Britain (MWiB). Here I spoke for the first time about Children Unite's campaign on the International Labour Organizations's Convention on Domestic Work.   Although we're not launching our campaign until March 2012 this was a chance to test the waters and see how the whole campaign idea is received. I asked the women at the roadshow to buy a pair of Traidcraft rubber gloves (for the bargain, today only, while stocks last price of £1) and then to sign them and give them back to me.   When we have a mountain of gloves we will organise an event to deliver them to Vince Cable's department of Business Innovation and Skills (responsible for adopting the convention). The President of Methodist Women in Britain, Jill Baker, signed the very first pair of gloves....to start the ball rolling so to speak.

I went to the event with my mum, a longstanding member of MWiB and the whole event was both familiar and surprising. It was very Methodist: lots of Wesley's hymns and prayers and a bible reading (I was brought up a Methodist so am used to this) but it also surprised me. For a start, there was the most beautiful display of cupcakes I've ever seen (all we ever got at our church was a rich tea biscuit and some weak orange squash).  But what surprised me more was, I suppose, the solidarity and the feeling of 'sisterhood' I found for women in Zimbabwe, Korea, Samoa - women all over the world.  The quiet excitement that in many developing countries the movement of Methodist women is powerful and growing.   I had a good laugh on my stall, joking about what to write on the gloves, how to deliver them to Vince Cable...the cup cakes went down a treat too!

But there was also a more serious side to the event – perhaps motivated by a sense of injustice at ‘a woman’s lot’, it wasn’t quite articulated as anger but there was definitely something there.  It was there when I spoke about child domestic work being seen as commonplace (and therefore ignored) because it is judged as good training for girls who will only go on to become wives and mothers.  Domestic work is something all women have a responsibility towards, even if they don’t do it themselves.  It therefore felt quite natural talking about domestic work, rubber gloves and political action.

Anniversary Q & A

It's exactly a year since I started blogging, since I gave up my job and started working full time for Children Unite.  So, time for a little reflection which I think will be in the form of an interview with myself ...courtesy of The Guardian newspaper's Q & A which I read religiously every weekend.
So, the following answers concern my last year...

What is your most embarrassing moment?
Putting my hand up when I was part of a 'panel' at a meeting in rural Nepal to say that I needed the toilet (rather than having some interesting comment to make to the group of 50 people attending).  I was pretty desperate by then though. 

What would your super-power be?
Being able to sync my mobile phone calendar with my computer calendar without every appointment coming up twice and others disappearing altogether.

What is your greatest fear?
Having to pay an enormous tax bill because I worked out my national insurance contributions and tax wrong.

What is your favourite word?
Clarity (NB not charity!)

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Quite a few of those...watching Downton Abbey (TV drama in the UK that follows the lives of domestic servants and their masters/mistresses at the turn of the century).  Also planning holidays around my work trips (trekking in Nepal for example).

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
The cast of Downton Abbey to discuss which of them would like to speak at Children Unite's launch event.

What skill would you most like to have?
To be able to make a decision and stick with it instead of constantly re-visiting it and wondering if it's the right one.


What words do you most overuse?
Since August (when I went to Scotland) I've been saying 'ah thunk ut's time ah poot ma perrrrsonal stereoh ohn' (which is supposed to be 'I think it's time I put my personal stereo on' in a Scottish accent).  Very irritating to listen to more than once I'm sure.

Forgive me, it's been a whole month since my last post

This feels like the start of a confession - Followers forgive me it's been a whole month since my last blog post - and that's not because I've been sunning myself in Spain or camping in Suffolk (although I did spend a week doing both of those). It's because at Children Unite HQ (shed in garden, cup of tea at hand) we're gearing up for the start of our first campaign so I've decided to write a monthly post instead of a weekly one. Ironically, the more I have to report, the less time I have to report it!

But I've also been busy because - WE GOT IT! We won the final of X Factor (see last post!) so I'm in the middle of the equivalent of signing record deals (completing application forms and finalising budgets - sounds a lot less interesting doesn't it!). I've had to halve the budget for the project in Nepal which has been quite a feat, but we got it!! We will be co-ordinating a year's research project with our partners in Nepal, CWISH, that looks at the issue of the sexual abuse of child domestic workers. I'm particularly pleased that there's a strong participatory element to the research, two of the researchers will be young people (former child domestic workers), there will be an advisory group of young people that will be consulted throughout the project and, in an exciting twist, some of the advisory group members will be turning the research findings into a 20 minute film that will be broadcast to the community. I particularly like this last element because I've been involved in turning boring UN documents into 'children-friendly' reports (written in children-friendly language) so that children can understand them. But what do you do when you want to feedback your findings to children (and adults) who don't read? You do it in film!

As for the campaign - it's shaping up. We will be launching it in November, we will be targeting the UK Government who have been shamefully unsupportive of the ILO's new Convention on Domestic Work, we will be using rubber gloves. I'll say no more at this point. But we will have a website, a Facebook profile and I’ll start tweeting again as we get closer to November (so I’m working on those things too).

Despite a few summer hiccups (our accountant went AWOL & my computer died), Children Unite is thriving; autumn is looking busy. Over the summer I’ve been swinging between a week of holiday, then a week of frenetic budget writing etc, another week of holiday (although camping ain’t much of a rest), then another week of designing our website and more budgeting...and so on. To be honest I’m a bit worried about the autumn, when everything is supposed to be starting and I’ll need to be at full throttle...but at some point in the next 6 months I’ll be going back to Nepal and the thought of the Himalayas always calms my nerves. That and a nice cuppa tea (with biscuit of course!).

The X Factor of partnership

One of the benefits of running your own organisation is that you don't have to take part in job interviews anymore.  I've done quite a few job interviews in my time and I hate them - a couple of years ago my summer holiday was ruined by a phone interview that I had to do on the second from last day!  Last week I took part in a phone interview to secure funds for a project Children Unite has applied for.  I guess this is the closest thing to a job interview I have these days.  When I explained what I was doing to my daughters they said it sounds like the final of X Factor (a TV talent show that grips the nation every winter when we've got nothing better to do)!!

But this ‘job’ interview was so much more enjoyable than any other I have been involved in.  It was partly because I didn't do it on my own.  Children Unite has developed a proposal for a research project in collaboration with one of our partner organisations in Nepal (CWISH), so two of the staff from CWISH, Writu and Milan, were at the interview too.  I was, of course, still nervous about the interview but it was a well organised 'discussion' - the funding agency sent out questions a week beforehand.  And Milan, Writu and myself were relatively well prepared (having emailed each other about our answers).  I definitely felt part of a team as we answered the questions.  

The other factor in my 'enjoyment' of the interview was that I think our research project is great!  I have a lot of confidence in it and believe it is well thought-out and achievable...I know this sounds a bit like I'm blowing my own trumpet but as I read through our proposal in preparation for the interview I felt confidence and excitement about the project rather than trepidation and nerves.  I think this is because Jonathan and I visited Nepal in March, met with Milan and Writu and discussed at length how Children Unite and CWISH would like to work together - and this project is the result!  The development of this project is the perfect example of how we would like to build partnerships through Children Unite.

So, here I am, waiting for news on how we did....does our proposal have the 'X' factor!  But whether we are victorious or not I am confident that the experience of partnership and collaboration I have had throughout the process has been beneficial and rewarding

But fingers crossed anyway!  

Review of BBC Drama: stolen

Damien Lewis as DI Carter in Stolen

Jonathan and I forced ourselves to watch ‘Stolen’ a BBC drama about the trafficking of children to the UK last night.  We tend to avoid ‘work’ related TV in the evenings - I go for costume dramas, he goes for Top Gear (shamefully gender stereotypical choices I know! Jonathan adds: and in case you are wondering, I detest Jeremy Clarkson, but I like the witty banter of the show!).  Our two daughters ended up watching it too.

Everything around the issue of trafficking feels sensational and usually focuses on the sexual abuse of children. However, we were nicely surprised by this drama piece.

We were, of course, more interested in whether the drama would highlight the issue of domestic servitude.  And it did! Rosemary, an eight-year old girl from ‘Africa’ was trafficked into domestic work.  I thought her story was told very well. They highlighted her desire to go to school and the way she was punished for wearing the school uniform of one of the children she was working for – told she was bad and stupid and shoved out on the balcony.  In particular, I liked her rescue – by the cop with a heart DI Carter - she was not a grateful recipient to her saviour, she wouldn’t hug him and pushed him away - it not your typical Hollywood ending!

However, the key figure in it was of course, the cop with a heart, who was investigating the trafficking cases.  Too much of the ‘drama’ was focused on his personal life – some of which seemed completely implausible which started with bringing his daughter to play with a trafficked child (what? When he knew the ‘traffickers’ were trying to find her).  And our two daughters thought his daughter was just ‘too nice’!! The trafficker then threatening to harm DI Carter’s daughter and wife, left ‘things’ (couldn’t figure out what it was in the plastic bag on his car windscreen) and just seemed incredibly blasé about being questioned.

 Gloria Oyewumi plays child domestic worker 'Rosemary'

Two other storylines of trafficking were also told – of a boy from Vietnam who was trafficked to work in a cannabis factory and another boy from Eastern Europe who ended working in some kind of warehouse (which people slept in?). I was pleased that other situations of exploitation were shown.  And particularly pleased the drama showed that children are trafficked to WORK not simply that they are trafficked to be ABUSED.  I really liked the splitting of the screen occasionally to show where everyone was bedding down for the night – this highlighted the very different situations children can find themselves in.  However, there were a lot of question marks for me around these two storylines – who stabbed George (the boy from Eastern Europe) and why?  Which of the two boys from Vietnam was the one who escaped – the new boy or the old boy?  As a result their stories felt incomplete. It felt a little bit like the drama was originally about Rosemary, then they tagged on two other examples of trafficking but this obviously wasn’t quite enough so they added a big chunk of work-life balance tension from the cop-with-a-heart.

Having said that the acting was very good from all the cast – our hearts were with Rosemary of course – and I think we both saw children we have met reflected in her performance.

GUEST BLOG: Jonathan Blagbrough, Co-Founder and Programme Director of Children Unite

I have just returned from Toronto, participating in a workshop on modern slavery.  As the only practitioner in a room full of academics I began the meeting feeling rather out of my depth - overawed by the eminence and sheer brainpower of my fellow contributors. As time went on, however, I realised that I did have something important and valuable to say.

The focus of my presentation was 'listening to child domestic workers', which, in an earlier incarnation I had titled 'what child domestic workers have taught us' - but you get the idea. I had guessed that, amidst the complex theories and intricate critiques (not to mention some seriously big words), the voices of those people actually living the exploitation we were discussing would get lost, and it was this gap that I wanted to fill. The point I made, mainly through the words and images collected from child domestic workers over a number of years, was that we owe it to them to better understand their situation, and that we must do so by listening to their experiences and perspectives - not because we like to be nice to children but because it is their right to be heard.

My talk was greeted by an interesting mix of reactions. It was encouraging to find some that had found the practical emphasis and focus on children's voices a refreshing antidote to other more scholarly presentations. But the lack of feedback following what I had to say - which had been plentiful for others - indicated that something had not quite hit the mark. Was it the subject matter? Hardly; while literature on child domestic workers is not vast, it is not a new topic. Was it my critique of current theories, such as the trafficking framework? Unlikely, given that many of the workshop papers critiqued the creeping use of 'trafficking' as a catch-all for contemporary slavery practices. Was it my style of practical analysis? Possibly. However, as virtually the only person in the room who was explicitly talking about children and their rights, I came to the conclusion that this was the main source of the 'disconnect'. I was surprised. As someone who has lived and breathed children's rights during my career, I assumed that a group of scholarly lawyers and sociologists were similarly aware and engaged. It reminded me that much of what I take for granted - the assumptions I make and my understanding of the world - is not as intuitive to others as I had thought. I was also reminded that we still have a job to do to explain why children's rights is so important.

I ended up enjoying this meeting hugely, not only because it challenged me intellectually but because it gave me an opportunity to reflect. While so many of us see time for reflection as an unaffordable luxury in our time-pressed world, I began to truly understand its value. Listening to people - really LISTENING to what they have to say - whether they be inspiring scholars in Toronto, or child domestic workers around the world, is equally important and benefits us all. As one child domestic worker from India puts it: "I am happy they ask us. I have much to tell about my struggle.


click here to view Jonathan's presentation slides


click here to view Jonathan's presentation notes

Found: millions of lost child domestic workers

The ILO has finally released figures (estimates) on the number of child domestic workers in the world, this is the first time we have had any official world-wide statistics...guess what the numbers are?
a) 150 thousand?
b) 1.5 million?
c) 15.5 million?

The answer is revealed at the end of this blog...but see if you can figure it out for yourself.  The number is roughly equivalent to TWICE the population of my home town, London.  Imagining twice as many people here - all child domestic workers - when I'm stuck in traffic on the Mile End Road or crammed into a tube at rush hour will, I'm sure, bring it home.   Another interesting fact is that children make up one-third of the estimated 53 million domestic workers in the world, that's a very high proportion of children in domestic work.  And these figures are all extremely conservative!

The ILO goes on to state that 8.1 million child domestic workers - more than than half the children (and if you haven't figured out what the number is now you must have hated maths more than me at school!) are engaged in hazardous work - this means they are working long hours, are carrying heavy loads, are exposed to dangerous chemicals, sharp knives etc.  They are isolated and vulnerable to sexual exploitation; and are deprived of an education.

Here's a summary of the hazards child domestic workers face from the report - the purple section is what struck me most and just seems intolerable, this is what has been 'revealed' by the ILO - the lost children working 'out of public view'.

Tasks	Hazards	Injuries & potential health consequences
Cooking, cleaning, ironing and other household chores	Sharp blades, hot pans, stoves and other tools in poor repair, toxic chemicals	Cuts, burns,, respiratory disease, rashes and other forms of dermatitis, allergies, ergonomic injuries
Gardening	Sharp objects, heavy loads, hot weather, stinging insects, toxic pesticides and fertilizers.	Cuts, back and other muscle pain, heat stroke, sunburn, dehydration, insect and animal bites, developmental & neurological effects.
Gather fuel, water, groceries	Heavy loads, traffic and other urban hazards, long distances by foot.	Back and other muscle pain, injury from traffic accident or urban violence, harassment
All tasks out of public view	Inadequate food and shelter, long hours, no privacy, physical, verbal and sexual abuse, humiliating or degrading treatment	Exhaustion, hunger, depression, behavioural disorders, suicidal tendancies, bruises, burns and other injuries incurred from abuse
All tasks when working alone	Isolation, separation from family and peers	Disrupted psychological, social and intellectual development.

The answer is C 15.5 million

A day to remember

Yesterday was a momentous day!  It was African Day of the Child, it was Jonathan's birthday but the momentous thing was that the ILO adopted a new convention on domestic work!  HOOORAY!

Jonathan tells me that trades unions around the world have been campaigning for this for 50 years.  I've only spent the last 3 years working on it.  But it was quite a moment for me yesterday...I was at Anti-Slavery's office, with Audrey and Christine - we were supposed to be evaluating our time at the International Labour Conference where we'd been lobbying with five child domestic workers for their rights in this new convention.  We were trying to get a live feed from the ILO (on ILO TV can you believe such a thing exists!!) but we couldn't get the sound and only had a very jumpy picture.  We had two computers both trying to get the live feed and a set of speakers (that weren't working)...and Audrey was getting very frustrated, trying to find out how the vote was going (the UK Government have been VERY obstructive in the last week concerning the convention so this had made us nervous that the whole thing was not going to be voted in).  With no sound it was impossible to know what was happening so I called Jonathan (at home) as he was also watching it live but WITH SOUND....he gave me a running commentary, I relayed that back to Audrey and Christine.  All the time, I was tweeting madly on the progress of the convention (to my huge number of 10 followers!) and Audrey was desperately trying to fix her computer (and swearing in French and English).  We also had texts coming in from a colleague at Human Rights Watch who was at the ILC - in Geneva.

OMG (as my children would say)...it was riveting, it was nerve wracking!  The convention was passed and then about 20 minutes later the recommendation was passed...phew, hooray, applause!  We felt like breaking into spontaneous song!  The UK Government's stance was appalling and embarrassing but who cared they were out voted!!  We had a latte and a custard tart to celebrate (and Jonathan tells me he did his tax return?! What?!) A day to remember!

A fierce solidarity

It's hard to try and explain the two weeks since my last post as it has been such an intense experience.  I've been herding 12 people around Geneva for 10 days, into the UN Palais des Nations and its flags, cicumnavigating the International Labour Organization's annual conference with all its formality and bureaucratic rules, and trying to find restaurants that didn't cost the earth. The five most important people in this group were current or former child domestic workers, Angel and Angelina from Tanzania, Ginne and Tatiana from Costa Rica and Lilibeth from the Philippines.

Read a blog about our time in Geneva at: www.standwithus-youngdomesticworkers.blogspot.com if you want to know more.  As for this post, I want to reflect, personally, on what this time meant for me and for Children Unite.

The girls speaking at a side event to the ILO conference

One of the things that struck me during the week was the sense of responsibility these young women had as they prepared themselves for some very difficult tasks - Lilibeth made a four minute speech in front of the whole 300 strong committee on domestic work (a rare privilege for NGOs who are not allowed to speak publicly at these events), all of the young women spoke publicly at an event we organised in front of ambassadors, lawyers and journalists.  They also lobbied individual delegates, which I think was the hardest job.  But they practiced their lobbying (we developed a series of steps to help them guide the conversation with delegates) and their speeches at all times of the day and night.  They felt the pressure and sometimes buckled under it (we had a number of crying sessions where they younger girls just felt so daunted by the task)...but this sense of responsibility to their friends back home - and to the group, pushed them forward.  I was inspired by their strength of character and saw them blossom from shy, giggling girls to confident laughing young women.

A crucial learning point for me was that a couple of the younger girls were frustrated by the lobbying process because it didn't allow them to tell their story.  Delegates have so little time that we had to restrict our lobbying discussions to five minutes max.  I was pleased to be able to spot their frustration and arrange a long media interview for the two youngest girls where they could tell their whole story and not feel they had to ask for anything.  Who knows if their stories will be published anywhere - I haven't heard back from the journalist yet but, for the two girls, that didn't really matter. They just wanted someone 'influential' to listen to them.

Another point of reflection for me was that the birth of Children Unite and the idea for this project (i.e. bringing child domestic workers to the ILO's conference to lobby for their rights in a new ILO Convention on Domestic Work) were thought up simultaneously.  Three years ago in a cafe in Highgate, Jonathan and I were discussing the proposed ILO standards on domestic work and we realised there was no international organisation that focused exclusively on child domestic work - and Children Unite was born.  But at the same time we thought '....and wouldn't it be great if we could actually bring children to lobby the ILO!'

And, we've done it!  We've brought 10 child domestic workers to the ILO and consulted with over 500 children about the new convention.  I feel exhilarated that we realised what, frankly, was a bit of a dream - but at the same time I'm a bit sad that it's now all over and I need to move on.

But I guess what is still with me is a feeling of solidarity with the whole Geneva team.  We achieved something important and the whole team did it.  Two of the team were newcomers to the project but they worked tirelessly - going way beyond any kind of 'job description'.  And the adult guardians that accompanied the girls probably had the hardest job of all - responsible for the girls' welfare but also being translators meant they had no time off at all.  They gently pushed them towards the challenges the girls faced instead of making excuses for them and backing away.

By the end of ten days of preparing, sharing, lobbying, speaking, reflecting - even painting and playing rugby - we had a team (of women - and I think that makes a difference) that had a fierce solidarity with one another.

I've been back 4 days and I already miss them.

What do you do with 300 rubber gloves?

Just taken delivery of 300 rubber gloves, I'm taking 100 of them with me to Geneva to lobby the UN!!

It's all part of a cunning plan to associate the protection that rubber gloves give our hands with legislation that will protect child domestic workers from the hazards and dangers of their work.  The rubber gloves in question have been very kindly donated by Traidcraft - so we can rest assured they are ethically produced.

I will be taking the gloves to Geneva on Sunday and piloting their use as a lobbying tool with the five child domestic workers...I'm in the middle of packing them and printing off a million bits of paper (child protection stuff) so haven't got a huge amount of time to write a blog - particularly as I'm helping to write one for the children in Geneva.  So to keep abreast of progress for the next week please log on to the following blog:

www.standwithus-youngdomesticworkers.blogspot.com 

and write your message of support for the children!

Meanwhile - a photo of the mountain of gloves with Evi and Maya who loved opening up all the boxes!

Three cheers for quiet unassuming activists

I’m writing this on the Eurostar – about to meet a very dear friend called Didid who inspired me when I was in my 20s to follow the child rights path – he has been a champion of street children and has helped me more than anyone to understand the concept of freedom (‘Merdeka’ in Indonesian).  He and his family are visiting Europe (from Indonesia) but can’t get a visa to the UK – so I have to visit them in Paris. I’m a little bit apprehensive about meeting up with Didid – it will be the first time we’ve met outside Indonesia.  He has been my ‘guru’ (Indonesian word for teacher) for many years – but not in the ‘instructive’ sense; he doesn’t act anything like a ‘teacher’. He trusted me from day one (invited me to live with his family when having a foreigner in your home was heavily questioned by the oppressive government regime at the time) and I was hugely honoured by this trust.

I’ll report on how it went on the journey back.

Ah well it is now several days after my journey back (missed my train, long, boring story) but I’m glad to report that the meeting went very well – we met up at an Indonesian restaurant in Paris that had been the centre of communist activism for Indonesians during Suharto’s oppressive regime (during the 1980s and 90s).  We met with a leader of the communist party who had been an activist with Didid but was kicked out of the country in the 80’s.  It got me thinking about activism – particularly as I like to think of myself as a children’s rights activist (in certain circles – i.e. not when I’m talking to a bunch of investment bankers – although who am I to presuppose that would put them off me!).  Sorry, getting distracted…what I’d been thinking about was the way people always assume activists are angry, loud, shouty kind of people – but many are not.  Didid is not, he is quiet and unassuming; the humble activist!  Also, people assume activists are on the outside criticising ‘the system’ (whatever that may be) whereas I know there are many people working for ‘the system’ trying to change it from the inside.  We need both types of activism of course – but I do feel that the loud, shouty outsider generally gets the glory whereas the quiet insider (who probably achieves more) looses out a little on the glamour stakes.

This also got me thinking about an organisation I’ve just heard of called thesuburbanpirate.com  – a tongue in cheek campaign for middle class revolutionaries.  It was explained as a campaign for those of us who are a little bit trapped within the system – with our mortgages and our concerns about school places – to speak up about our (middle class) concerns.  It was the ‘trapped’ thing that I was interested in (although the tea towels and greetings cards are hilarious – do check them out). It connects and contradicts the myth that you have to be completely outside the system to criticise it (an angry, loud activist).  Doesn’t this rule out the vast majority of people?  We can’t all be anarchists!

So here’s three cheers to the quiet, unassuming activists, those on the ‘inside’ trying to bend the rules and make positive change happen.  Keep up the fight comrades!

Your view on campaign tactics?!

BURKINA FASO: Texting to help child domestic workers

OUAGADOUGOU, 13 May 2011 (IRIN) - Naba Wangré, manager of the child labour project at the Burkina Faso Red Cross, sends bluntly worded text messages to government officials, employers, traditional leaders, teachers, business owners and housewives several times a year, trying to reduce the widespread exploitation of domestic workers by raising awareness of their rights.

Read this report online and tell me whether you think it is a good idea: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92708

Warning: approaching madness

As blogspot was down last week, I couldn't write my blog so I joined twitter instead.  This now means, of course, that I need to start tweeting and blogging!?  Am wondering if I will end up doing things just so that I can tweet or blog about them? However it seems highly unlikely in the next month as Children Unite is gearing up for another trip to Geneva, lobbying the International Labour Organisation (ILO) with five child domestic workers.

There are a lot of logistics involved in bringing children (plus adult guardians) from three countries to Geneva.  Passports and visas for nine people, registering with the ILO - it looks as though we've 'lost' one girl already - one of the girls from the Philippines wasn't issued her passport in time; so we're down from six children to five.  Last year we brought another five children (again one girl had problems getting a passport) and although it was a logistical nightmare it was a fantastic experience; particularly amazing to watch the children grow in confidence over the week - both in their public speaking and lobbying and in their relationships with each other.

So, this week we're in the middle of it - finalising official documents, welcome packs, visas, accommodation, flights, event schedules (trying to find restaurants that will serve chicken and rice, last year the children didn't eat very well for the first couple of days because we couldn't find restaurants that serve plain old chicken and rice - they didn't want any of this icky fondue stuff!). In doing all this our team is having to ask friends, colleagues and complete strangers for big favours.  And I'm preparing myself for a kind of madness that will take over me in the next month - it provides me with an energy so that I can keep going and get all this done.  Twitter might be a more appropriate medium for me (much shorter posts) as the pressure mounts...but you can read about our progress in Geneva as we'll be regularly posting on a blogsite we set up for the project....www.standwithus-youngdomesticworkers.blogspot.com As it's taken me most of the day to write this post (usually I sit down and write it straight off)...l think the madness is approaching!

Hurumphing in arty Islington

I'm struggling at the moment to get something done that I thought would be fun and creative and exciting.  I'd had a 'brainwave' in the middle of the night about a campaign idea for Children Unite (I think I may have mentioned this before?) and now that I'm at the first stage of getting this campaign idea up and running - I'm struggling.

The first stage is to write guidelines for 'art workshops' that will be run with child domestic workers in 7 countries and I'm sitting here, staring at the screen, not being able to think creatively at all.  So, first I tried ringing various people and nagging them for ideas, asking if this idea or that idea would work.  Then, with gentle persuasion from my office mates (who were probably fed up with me hurumphing in front of my computer, making lots of tea and sighing rather loudly every 10 minutes), I wandered the streets of Islington (my local area) where there are lots of arty people and things.  I've been looking for inspiration. I wanted the brainwave-in-the-middle-of-the-night experience again.

But I haven't found it.  I've realised that, this time, I'm gonna have to just work it through.  Write it down, figure it out, change it, try it out, change it again.  It's going to be a bit of a drudge; not fun, not creative and not exciting...but there you go, most of the time it's hard work that gets you there in the end, not genius, not the X factor, not inspiration, not luck.

So, I've stopped hurumphing or looking for inspiration and I'm in the middle of some very hard work.  Which is why I've written this blog in extra quick time - 10 minutes I think - and it is rather short, so this paragraph is actually just filler text to try and make it look a bit longer...sorry!

Hands up who will love this young woman?

What with the Easter sunshine and my childcare obligations I've hardly worked on Children Unite stuff over the past two weeks.  I did manage to attend a launch event, though, that was particularly important to me. I've been trying to work with a group of young women for the past year and although I've met them a number of times the plans keep on getting postponed to actually work with them.  Many of the young women are former child domestic workers - all of them were trafficked to the UK - and they have produced their own film about this experience called 'The Story of Affia' with the campaigning group ECPAT UK.

The reason I'm mentioning this event is because it was one of those times when my professional life became mixed up with my personal life (this is increasingly so I find). The young women had shown their film, the audience had discussed it and we were asking questions of the girls about the messages in the film.  As a number of the girls had said they wanted 'professionals' (police, social workers, solicitors etc.) to understand them better, one member of the audience asked how professionals could do this.  One young woman replied that although counselling helped it wasn't quite enough, that she needed something more than just listening but she didn't know what. Another member of the audience suggested that victims of trauma don't know what they need but then proceeded to tell everyone that they need specialist trauma counselling.  But what I wanted to do was to stand up and shout out that the young woman needed love!

Of course I didn't do that - I would have been seen as a crackpot.  You don't mention the 'L' word in a meeting where the Home Office are in attendance!  But I'd been reading the book 'A Road Less Travelled' by M. Scott Peck which has as its by-line 'a new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth'.  I had just got to the part in the book that concerns itself with defiing love and Peck had stated that truly and properly listening to someone was the equivalent of loving them: 'love in action'.  And it made me realise that this is probably what all the young women in the room needed most - what we all need.  To be loved.  But this is not something you can mention in a 'professional' context.  Can you imagine someone at the launch event saying 'Now, you're all professionals with an interest in this issue, we've done a needs assessment on this young women and...hands up who in this room will love this young woman?!'   But that's what I came away from the event thinking...how can I, and how can my organisation love this group of young women?  How can you incorporate the 'L' word into your policies and procedures, your aims and objectives?  As I haven't finished the book yet I guess the very least I can do is to properly and truly listen to the young women when I next meet them.

A happy place...

This time last week I had what I consider a near death experience – I didn’t actually nearly die but I thought I might!  I was flying in to Dublin airport on a very windy day and the pilot had to abort our first attempt to land – the scariest bit was the point at which we were maybe 500 metres from the ground but the pilot accelerated very hard and ‘took off’ again.  The irony was I was flying to Ireland for a funeral and I laughed (to myself !) on thinking that I might be meeting my dearly departed friend sooner than I’d thought.

The funeral was for a family friend, Michael, who inspired me to work in the field of human rights and development. When I was a child, our families became friends (he is the same age as my parents), he took his family off to Jamaica which sounded so exciting to me and then worked for Christian Aid travelling the world, then ran Celtic spiritual retreats.  He was very good at making connections with people from all over the world and telling their story with passion. 

The funeral was a relatively joyous affair, Michael had made the most out of his life and many people loved him – but funerals do make you stop and think ‘what have I done with my life?’  On thinking about this question I feel deeply privileged to be where I am on my life journey.  Setting up Children Unite has been and continues to be - fantastic.  I love it!  I do feel very, very lucky to be in this position (and with that comes a slight dread that the shit must hit the fan at some point – if you’ll pardon the expression!!).  However, we’ve just held a Trustees meeting where I kept having to add updates from my ‘Director’s Report’ as so much has happened in the last two months I didn’t manage to remember it all when I was writing my report.  During the meeting, we looked at an overview of Children Unite’s finances for the last year as well as a projection for the next 15 months…and I didn’t quite trust my maths, but it seems we’re OK?!?!  (We’re still tiny, but I think I can safely say we’re small and strong!)

So I’m in a happy place after staring death in the face – bit melodramatic but hey, I’ll use artistic licence to end my post. But I want to acknowledge all the people who have helped me to get to this happy place…too many to mention by name so here’s a little happy face thank you cartoon (slightly manic looking admittedly - but it took me ages to find an image that would download!!).

Click here for a cartoon thanks  Try this....it's a little cartoon thanks...(it's taken me ages to add to the blog - so please tell me if it works!)

This post is dedicated to Michael Begg

Dissecting a photograph

The children's empty classroom!

I've been printing off photos from our trip to Nepal - to send back to all the people we met there, particularly the children we met.  There are two photos of a group of child domestic workers standing outside their 'school' (a small room where they have 2 hours of non-formal education each day) that made me smile.   In the first photo they are standing quite formally, in the second I asked them to shout something so they're raising their arms and giggling. I wish I could show you the two photos, but I can't - sorry, I only got verbal, not written consent from the children - so our child protection policy won't allow.   (Hope you like the photo of the empty classroom instead!) However, I'm sure you've seen similar shots where you feel like you have captured a different side to a person - just for a second.   Generally, I don't like taking photographs, it feels intrusive, and posed - it never feels like you capture something 'real'.  But in studying these two photographs I wondered which was the more 'real' picture - the giggling or the formal.  I LIKE the giggling one better but I know that when it comes to children (and particularly in South East Asia) smiles can hide a lot.  My baptism into the 'child labour' field was with street boys in Indonesia (many years ago!) and there was one boy in particular who taught me a lot.  He used to talk about 'senyum murah' - cheap smiles, that children give to adults - particularly 'foreigners', to keep them happy or to stop them asking questions.

But I digress...I don't really know what from but I feel like I should get back to my initial thoughts about the photos.  When I looked at the photos I did feel a sense of connection to the typical 'child domestic worker' that I have read about (mainly through the various articles/handbooks etc. that Jonathan has written!).  In theory, I know that child domestic workers tend to have low self esteem, they are used to being treated as second class by their employer's whole family, they are discriminated against because of their background (for example in Nepal, domestic workers from the 'untouchable' caste, are not able to work in kitchens because they will be touching the same utensils that higher caste members will use to eat from).  In practice, when I met these children they were 'real' children, some were a little bit shy, some more boisterous, some were smiley and some were not.  The photos reminded me that sometimes you can build up a theoretical picture of a child - a child domestic worker, a child with 'multiple needs', a victim of trafficking etc. that is so intimidating you are 'scared' of this child.  But, when you meet one of these 'typical children' they are a human being and although, theoretically, they fit all these categories (just as we all fit into various categories) you are a human being too and as human beings we can connect....through a smile, through taking a photo, a giggle.  In my case, it is often through embarrassing myself.  Before we took the photos I asked the children to teach me Nepalese words for animals - each time I learned a word, I acted it out.  Chicken was the one that made them laugh the most (although personally I was rather pleased with my goat)!

Cambodia: trafficking domestic workers to Malaysia

PHNOM PENH, 17 March 2011 (IRIN) - Investigations by NGOs in Cambodia have found that companies are recruiting girls as young as 13 to work in Malaysian households, confining them in overcrowded and unhygienic “training centres”, forging birth certificates to raise their age, and paying finders’ fees to brokers.


Read more: Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92210

Off the beaten track in Nepal

In my head I’m still in Nepal, in fact, I’m still being thrown around in a jeep making my way on an unsurfaced road to beautiful village in Kabre District.  Although I returned to London on Sunday night I can’t get this particular journey out of my head.  It was beautiful, particularly after the noise and pollution of Kathmandu; rhododendrons in flower, Himalayas in the distance, and at one point we went through a village on a mountain ridge with the most gorgeous, ancient looking, carved wooden houses.  That’s when I felt like an adventurer – we were nowhere near any tourists and I was quizzing my hosts about Nepalese culture.  We were on our way to visit a village in one of the key ‘source’ areas – where children drop out of school and migrate to Kathmandu to work as domestic servants.  CWISH work with the community there to try and prevent this migration.

The whole trip to Nepal was great – CWISH is a very strong and competent organisation and we got on very well with all the staff we met. Jonathan and I are confident we will be able to develop a project together and find funding for it.  But I can’t get this journey out of my head and I want to figure out why it was so important for me.  So, I’m going to use my blog to analyse it OK!?

When I think about the journey my main feeling is excitement – it felt exciting to be driven (yep I was pleased I wasn’t driving!) off the beaten track.  I guess it felt like an adventure but with all the dangerous bits taken away.  I trusted my hosts (and the driver!), the sun was shining, the flowers were out and to use a racist term the ‘natives’ were friendly.  Perhaps that’s the key issue actually – by this point Jonathan and I were very comfortable with the staff at CWISH, everything we had seen had reassured us that we think similarly about our respective work with child domestic workers.  In fact, I’m sure I will learn a lot more from CWISH than they could ever possibly learn from me.  I was humbled by their work.

Going back to the native thing…one of my fears in setting up Children Unite is that our partners overseas who are working directly with child domestic workers will not see us as ‘partners’ but as ‘access to funds’, they’ll see us as the people with the money (ironically, in the UK, my fear is that people think you’ll always be asking them for money!).  So, our aim in visiting CWISH was to figure out how we could work together.  we want to be involved in the work, not just proposal writers or evaluators.  And we certainly didn’t want to feel like or be treated like colonial benefactors. So, by the time I was on my mountaintop journey, we had already discussed how Children Unite and CWISH could work together….and I guess I was excited about this other journey too, knowing it would be off the beaten track but in safe hands.

The other half...

The joys of living in a country that rations electricity.  I couldn’t sleep so got up at 5am to write the second half of my blog (by torchlight – no electricity!) but somehow I wrote it and lost my work  (which may be down to my incompetence at saving my work)..and in the meantime an Australian staying at this guesthouse came down to reception to complain about no hot water, no TV etc. For 2 nights.  Although the staff here are uncharacteristically grumpy it wasn’t actually their fault – electricity is rationed here and last night it was supposed to come on at 11 for a couple of hours but it only came on for 5 minutes!  So, none of our equipment is charged, no hot water, no TV.    

But that was a little traveller’s anecdote.  The blog post I lost was explaining the work of CWISH – our local partner in Nepal (Children, Women in Social Services & Human Rights).  I was just about to use the word ‘synergy’ in explaining the connection Jonathan and I felt when discussing future collaboration between CWISH and Children Unite...so I’ll start from there and work backwards.  I guess what I was looking for in my trip here was a personal and professional connection with the people at CWISH and we found it today. Professionally, Jonathan and I are very impressed with the work of CWISH, they take an honest, learning approach to their work – explaining to us the mistakes they made and how they learned and changed their practice.  CWISH work in partnership with local government and communities – rather than providing completely separate services for child domestic workers as many NGOs do (particularly in countries where the national government is unsupportive of social work).  For example in their work with employers of child domestic workers CWISH staff don’t approach employers themselves (employers are the gatekeepers of child domestic workers – it is almost impossible to work with child domestic workers without working with their employers) they work through the community police (whom they have trained) who approach employers as ‘guardians’ of children.  The police are able to take a dual approach with employers – on the one hand talking to them as guardians about their responsibility towards the children in their care – in particular their responsibility to give children access to schooling of some sort.  On the other hand, the police also remind employers that it is illegal to employ children under 14 in domestic work or to abuse or exploit children in their ‘care’.

On a personal level too, Jonathan and I get on with the husband and wife team running CWISH (they only got married last month and met at CWISH). There is a growing feeling of solidarity between us - perhaps in part and much as I hate to admit it, because of our similarities in being a 'couple' involved in the same organisation. Here, Jonathan and I call each other husband and wife (I cringe to write it I have to admit), in the UK we are 'partners'...but here being a couple seems to be an advantage - we joke about it and it breaks the ice a bit.  In the UK I tend to hide the fact that we're a couple, I like the obscurity of the word 'partner'.

Now we're off to an evaluation meeting for most of the day and are trying to change hotels to try and get a view of the Himalayas - tantalizingly out of sight most of the time (due to the haze of pollution I think).

half a blog from half way around the world

The last 10 days has been frenetic – in between Senegal and Nepal where I am now. Not much time for reflection.  It has been a case of getting as prepared as I can for the next thing. And many of the ‘things’ have been opportunities...I will compare and contrast two of them.  The first was a meeting with the Royal Commonwealth Society – serendipity caused our paths to cross and I found myself with an opportunity to convince the RCS to take up child domestic work as their campaign issue and push for the 54 commonwealth governments to ratify the ILO’s new convention on domestic work. I enjoyed developing my argument for this but as I only know one person in the RCS and none of the other stakeholders who would actually make the decision about their campaign issue – I have no idea if they’ll like it.  The other opportunity was with Comic Relief (a UK funding agency) who organised a stakeholder meeting on child domestic work.  As Children Unite is the only international organisation working exclusively on child domestic work (our ‘Unique Selling Point’) it was exciting for Jonathan and I to finally be in an environment where the issue was at the centre of the discussion rather than on the periphery. The aim of the meeting was to consult with 30 or so organisations working on connected issues (child labour, girls, etc) to help Comic Relief develop a strategy on promoting child domestic work to potential applicant organisations.

One opportunity was quite exciting (well for me anyway) - to think that, in one relatively short move, I could scale-up our campaign on the ILO convention on domestic work to 54 countries.  The other opportunity was more of a slow burn excitement – it was very encouraging that Comic Relief want to work on this issue and that the team put a lot of energy into organising the stakeholder meeting on child domestic work.  It was also quite pleasant (if slightly distracting) to have an enormous picture of Brad Pitt staring at us throughout the workshop!

Well my compare and contrast didn’t last long! I’m afraid I’m in Nepal now and can only think about all the opportunities here (and how it is much colder than I had packed for so I  might need to run out and buy some pashmina jumpers, shawls and possibly even socks and pants...brrrrr).  I’m 5 days late with my blog and now feel uninspired about last week – so can’t write about it, the opportunities feel distant now – but I know that last week I was very inspired, positively jumpin’ around with excitement!

So, as this feels like half a blog with very little ‘learning’ in it – I promise to write a couple of posts this week on everything I’m seeing and hearing here - half way around the world.  It’s cold, but very interesting.