I had one of those in-the-middle-of-the-night-brainwaves this week...it was exhausting! The brainwave struck me at 2.16 am and I was still amending it's minor details at 4.46 am. I had to write it down as soon as possible and, over the course of the week, have explained it to neighbours, trustees, work colleagues, my sister-in-law, my kids - even the cats have probably overheard me banging on about it. You see, I have to check it was a good brainwave and not a deluded one. (I've had previous brainwaves that, in the cold light of day, have proved to be deluded and ridiculous!)...shall I tell it to you?
Oh alright then you've twisted my arm...the thing that is missing from Children Unite at the moment is a 'campaign' - a social action campaign. And the obvious thing to campaign about is a new international convention on domestic work that the International Labour Organisation is introducing. Children Unite together with Anti-Slavery International are bringing six child domestic workers to the International Labour Organization's annual conference in Geneva this June. These six children will lobbying like mad for this new convention to include measures that will protect children in domestic work from exploitation. In the middle of the night I was struggling with how the wider public could connect to the six child domestic workers and their lobbying efforts. I needed to find a way of explaining the legislation that is not too technical, not too complicated and relates somehow to child domestic workers' realities.
And the answer was....rubber gloves! All the tasks that child domestic workers undertake are with their hands - cleaning, cooking even looking after children. Children's hands are more sensitive than adults - they have much more need for protective gloves (and I remember some of the girls in Peru showing me their hands, which had sores and rashes from the harsh chemicals they had to use). This convention can protect child domestic workers from exploitation in the same way that rubber gloves protect your hands from harsh chemicals. I had visions of writing messages on gloves or on hands, drawing on hands, children telling the story of their hands to explain their life as a domestic worker, clapping hands, soothing hands, waving, shaking and caring hands! (that was the stuff that was keeping me awake at 4.46!) There's obviously a bit more to the campaign idea than this but the glove-hand idea is the foundation of it.
I want to connect this vision of gloves and child domestic work to the wider public through the internet - Facebook, Twitter, blogging and am still working on this bit of the brainwave so let me know if you have any brainwaves yourselves and please answer the questionnaire:
Oh alright then you've twisted my arm...the thing that is missing from Children Unite at the moment is a 'campaign' - a social action campaign. And the obvious thing to campaign about is a new international convention on domestic work that the International Labour Organisation is introducing. Children Unite together with Anti-Slavery International are bringing six child domestic workers to the International Labour Organization's annual conference in Geneva this June. These six children will lobbying like mad for this new convention to include measures that will protect children in domestic work from exploitation. In the middle of the night I was struggling with how the wider public could connect to the six child domestic workers and their lobbying efforts. I needed to find a way of explaining the legislation that is not too technical, not too complicated and relates somehow to child domestic workers' realities.
And the answer was....rubber gloves! All the tasks that child domestic workers undertake are with their hands - cleaning, cooking even looking after children. Children's hands are more sensitive than adults - they have much more need for protective gloves (and I remember some of the girls in Peru showing me their hands, which had sores and rashes from the harsh chemicals they had to use). This convention can protect child domestic workers from exploitation in the same way that rubber gloves protect your hands from harsh chemicals. I had visions of writing messages on gloves or on hands, drawing on hands, children telling the story of their hands to explain their life as a domestic worker, clapping hands, soothing hands, waving, shaking and caring hands! (that was the stuff that was keeping me awake at 4.46!) There's obviously a bit more to the campaign idea than this but the glove-hand idea is the foundation of it.
I want to connect this vision of gloves and child domestic work to the wider public through the internet - Facebook, Twitter, blogging and am still working on this bit of the brainwave so let me know if you have any brainwaves yourselves and please answer the questionnaire:
This brainwave is:
c Deluded
c Ridiculous
c Good
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