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!