The importance of how

I was cleaning the bathroom just now (literally 3 minutes ago) and realised I hadn't written my weekly blog - I think this is the first week that I've completely forgotten.  Even during Christmas and New Year I was figuring out how I'd fit it in with festivities...I'm afraid it's not going to have many jokes in it either as the reason I forgot about my blog is that I've been distracted by the sad news of a work colleague who was killed in a crash as he was cycling to work last week.  It was such a shock, it's rocked me a bit and I can't seem to get out of it.

I don't feel in much of a position to reflect on my week and make some witty comment.  I suppose when someone fit and healthy suddenly dies it makes you reflect on your life rather than your week!  Last night I watched the film 'Biutiful' where a man is given two months to 'get things in order' before his cancer kills him (perhaps not such a wise choice of a film given my week?!).  It makes you wonder whether, if you'd had this kind of news, what you would need to put in order. Would you change your life radically, tell people that you loved them, regret things you hadn't done, be a nicer person generally?  I don't really know where I'm going with this, especially in terms of Children Unite but, hey, these are my thoughts on the week I've had, so I suppose I ought to just go with the flow.  One thought I've had this week is that I'm pleased that Children Unite is not EVERYTHING to me, I know that's not what you're supposed to say when you're setting up something - you're supposed to be committed, driven, ambitious....to be hungry for success!?  However, Jonathan and I have always wanted Children Unite to be a part of who we are not everything.  In particular we want it to work with our family life and the care of our two daughters.

And some learning I would like to impart from the participatory work I've been involved in - is the importance of HOW you work over WHAT you achieve through this work.  In particular , how did you treat people along the way, was it with respect?  I would contest that in participatory work, if you don't treat people with respect along the way, whatever you achieve is pretty meaningless.   And if you get given a life sentence of two months such as this man in Biutiful you can't really change how you've treated people - you could make amends to people you had treated badly I suppose but it would seem disingenuous or motivated by guilt.  So what can I learn from this?  I guess, how I live is important to me, so Children Unite needs to reflect this fact.  This does actually connect to some of the work I was  doing this week - writing Children Unite's child protection policy (I know, I know it should have been done months ago).   Child protection is important to me and so I didn't just want to use someone else's policy and replace their name with Children Unite's so I spent a couple of days figuring out what should be in it and developing a draft which will be discussed by our Trustees etc.  I have to confess to doing the 'find and replace' thing with some other policies I've been drafting though!!  I guess we're all a little bit selective about when we want the 'how' to be important?!

Ode to Trustees

We're currently advertising for a Treasurer...and this has got me thinking of how important and supportive our Trustees have been over the last year.  One of our Trustees, Rupert, kindly stepped into the breach at our last Board meeting to become a temporary Treasurer (which we were all delighted about as whenever the issue was raised there had been a discernible lack of eye contact!).  So, we burst into a spontaneous round of applause and boaters (virtual) were thrown in the air at the news!  But we really need a qualified accountant to be our Treasurer and while Ru is certainly the quickest and brightest of us with figures (and works in the finance industry so he's good at the gab too) - he ain't no accountant.   So the advert is being put about and I'm wondering what it would be like to have a 'stranger' in our midst.

At the moment our trustees are a mixture of ex work colleagues, neighbours and friends.  Most of them didn't know each other before becoming trustees but Jonathan and I knew them all.  We announced to them that we had a new baby (Children Unite) and would they help deliver it!  So, being good mid-wives they've seen Children Unite's birth as a registered company, then a registered charity and they've followed our first project last year with much interest.  They've had to learn about this mid-wifely role of trustee, the legal obligations and the honorary positions.  They've advised us on a strategic plan, a business plan, a fundraising plan.  They've also discussed our branding ad nauseum - the implications of a slightly greener tone than we currently have to our logo, the use of the word 'voice', 'a voice' or 'voices' in our strapline.  And I want to thank our trustees for all their advice and support (and the lovely snacks they bring to the meetings!)  I know that many of them will say (have said) that they feel they haven't contributed much or that they don't have the right experience (of working in the children's rights field) but, I want to say honestly - that it doesn't matter....their support and warmth and encouragement makes them the heart of the Children Unite team.

I have literally been on my own for much of the time I've been setting up Children Unite - but I have not felt alone.  Sometimes, I have to admit, it's only because a Trusteee meeting is coming up that I have attempted to do the boring things like update our conflict of interest policy (er still haven't done that one actually!).  But, othertimes, the comraderie of the meetings and the texts and emails and individual stuff that has happened in between reminds me that I'm part of a team. So, thanks trustees for helping to deliver Children Unite...I guess it's a toddler now, taking it's first steps!  And, although I don't suppose you'll thank me for it (but as only one of you has signed up as a follower to the blog most of you see it! Ha) I'm going to 'out' you all through the medium of photographs!

Here they are - our beloved Trustees (in no particular order)!  And just to be fair I've added mine and Jonathan's photos on elsewhere on the blog (hidden away somewhere!).

Liston

Susi

Randini

Rupert

Mariela

Nikhil

Rapping by the seat of my pants

Well here I am writing my blog without typing it up first and getting it checked by Jonathan.  I'm flying by the seat of my pants! And I don't know what to say after that!  But I feel my posts have been a little intense of late...not enough jokes in them.  After all you can't have worked for some of the organisations I've worked for (one of which had a VERY silly name) without a sense of humour.  I think many people believe that if you're working for a charity you need to be earnest and intense (and boring).  But I've found that actually, when you're working on an intense issue, you NEED a sense of humour to get you through.  And, in the participatory work I've done with children I found that taking this sense of humour to the limit - i.e. humiliating yourself by dancing like a loony (which seems to be my particular form of ritual humiliation) wins you brownie points all round.

I've been thinking a lot about the difference between working with adults and children this week as I've been writing some training on children's participation.  At Children Unite, we decided we wanted to promote participative work with children in everything we do - which is not just because it's the new empowerment thing to be doing (it's not that new).  It is because, to be frank, participative work with children is exciting, it makes you think more creatively, you end up doing things you never thought you'd do (dancing like a loony), you are ALLOWED to have a lot more fun and the food is generally good.

So, I think all 'work' should be participative in nature (given the latter definition which I know is not actually a definition of participative work but, hey, this is a blog and I'm flying by the seat of my pants here).  I guess, as far as Children Unite is concerned, it's up to me to make this one of our policies.  Mmmm... I quite like that idea...a policy on 'fun in the workplace'.  Today, for example, instead of working solidly in front of my computer for six hours I should have had a break after every hour and composed a rap about practice standards of children's participation then performed it.  That would have been fun! And my daughter pointed out a rhyming dictionary to me recently so I know you can rhyme quite a lot with 'participation' - 'emancipation' 'infestation' and 'constipation' for example!  I'm sure those words would have come in handy!!

I don't quite know how to round this post off though - perhaps with thanks for the jokes I've shared over the past week with my colleagues. Particularly those with our Trustees at our first Board Meeting of 2011 where we had lots of laughs in appointing a Chair and Treasurer - who both have a good sense of humour! Perhaps also with a TERRIBLE pun I've just thought of...it was no Bored Meeting!  Arg! (Yes, yes I agree - I'll stick to dancing like a loony to get a laugh!).

Quietly glowing magic

I had a bit of a magical start to 2011.  At midnight I was on a rooftop balcony overlooking London with friends and family, we lit two paper lanterns and released them into the night. They gently floated up into the sky – little glowing balls that joined around twenty other lanterns from other people (they were pretty popular this year).  In amongst the different sets of fireworks from people’s back gardens was a steady stream of quietly glowing, floating balls that were just magical to watch!

Like most people over Christmas and New Year I’ve eaten chocolate for breakfast (as well as the usual dinner and tea), made promises I know I can’t keep and been amazed at how quickly the last twelve months have gone. 

It has been a truly amazing year for me though – I’ve travelled to India, Togo and Peru, meeting the staff and children of Children Unite’s partner agencies.  And, together with five child domestic workers, have lobbied delegates at the International Labour Organization’s annual conference at the UN in Geneva.  I’ve worked for the first time with my partner (Jonathan) which did feel a bit weird but I’m comfortable with it now!  In fact, working with the whole team for this project – Rose, Keren, Audrey and Mariela, has been a fantastic experience.  And then, in September, Children Unite got registered charitable status (and I actually understand our Memorandum and Articles of Association!!) and, last but in some ways least, I left my paid job to focus on setting up Children Unite full-time.  I feel truly, truly lucky to be in this position – especially when so many of my friends are facing redundancy or worse. 

When I look back over the year I am reminded of the quietly glowing, magical, floating balls.  I think I was expecting the excitement of fireworks when I finally left my job to set up Children Unite – but in actual fact, it’s been a bit of a slog since September.  The most exciting time was earlier in the year when I was working with child domestic workers abroad – especially in Geneva when I could see the children’s skills and confidence growing day-by-day.  And I thought ‘Wow, I’m part of this!’.  But it was a humbling, quietly glowing kind of magic – like the New Year lanterns – rather than the noise and excitement of fireworks.

So, I think my key learning from this year is not to underestimate the slow magic of quietly glowing, floaty, things!  And I love the idea of thousands of quietly glowing, floaty magic being released into the night for everyone to share.

Merry Christmas one and all (seven actually)

A very Merry Christmas to all of my 7 followers and anyone else who happens to stumble upon this humble blog.

This snowman was made by Maya to wish you all a Happy Christmas!

On Wednesday Children Unite got it’s own Christmas present in the form of a grant to be able to take six child domestic workers to Geneva in June to lobby the International Labour Organization!  (see post of 11 November).....Hooray! 

Slavery, servitude and committing sin (NGO style)

Us NGO types have an aversion to using emotive language when discussing our issue.  This week, however, I found myself talking about ‘domestic servitude’ and ‘slavery’ in efforts to explain what I meant by ‘child domestic work’.

I had to make an ‘elevator’ pitch on Tuesday for Children Unite.  This supposes you are in the ‘elevator’ with someone you want to influence and you only have the time it takes to get from the ground floor to whichever floor this person is getting out to ‘pitch’ your idea – no more than a minute for most people.  So, I had one minute to explain what Children Unite does (and squeeze in a bit about why) to a room full of social entrepreneurs and finance industry staff.  I also had to do a bit of ‘speed networking’ where you have 4 minutes to chat to the person next to you (about your organisation) before you move on to the next person.  The whole event was organised by UnLtd (an organisation that promotes social enterprises) and Actis (a private equity investment firm) to match up social entrepreneurs (me and 20 others running small organisations that benefit the community in some way) with business mentors (from Actis).

When I listened to all the other elevator pitches, mine sounded the most like a ‘charity case’…it didn’t feel like a business idea in comparison.  (Paradoxically, setting up Children Unite over the past eighteen months has felt much more like setting up a business than a charity.) And, it took a while for people to realise that I wasn’t talking about children who just do a few chores around their own house.  In the speed networking – by the time I’d got to the fourth person, I was bypassing the description of the conditions in which children work (i.e. living with their employers, their vulnerabilities to abuse by employers, long hours, no pay) and went straight to saying it was a contemporary form of slavery!

So, I committed the ultimate sin for NGO types (in terms of damaging your credibility) of using sensational language.  Forgive me! But when I compared child domestic workers’ lives (thinking in particular of children I met Togo this year) to the other beneficiaries being talked about in the room – I realised child domestic workers do live in slavery-like conditions; trapped and in servitude.  Also, that there is a danger when trying not to be seen as a scare-mongerer – that you down play children’s exploitation too much.  The situations in which I saw children working, in Peru and Togo this year, when I visited two of our partner organisations, were intolerable.  So, I’m going to allow myself to use appropriate language to explain why child domestic workers deserve to be empowered.  To borrow a phrase developed for a cosmetic company – because they’re worth it.

A question of commitment?

An opportunity arose this week that made Jonathan and I re-think our development of Children Unite.  I guess this happens periodically when you’re setting something new up….various opportunities arise and you have to decide whether to take them and change direction slightly, or not and keep on the same path. The opportunity is only a possibility – so I can’t talk about it openly but it would mean Jonathan being away for six months next year.

I’ve been thinking about it non-stop of course.  It’s forced Jonathan and I to look again at our roles and our professional partnership within Children Unite and we’ve come to a few conclusions:

• The set-up stage (this first year) is slower than both of us anticipated;
• My interests lie in the awareness raising and advocacy work we plan to do;
• Jonathan’s interests lie in the consultancy services we plan to offer;
• We don’t need to be equally involved in running the organisation;
• We are both equally committed to Children Unite;

This feels like some big conclusions to me.  And articulating them here helps me to feel that I will put this learning into practice.  So this blog is enabling me to do what I’d hoped…to reflect on and learn from the twisting path Children Unite is on.

When two people are setting up an initiative it is hard for either of them, at some point or another, not to question the commitment of the other. The last two points should really read: ‘we don’t need to be equally involved in running the organisation to prove that we are both equally committed to Children Unite!’

I’ve been surprised at how often we have had to look at these fundamental issues over the past year.  I’d naively assumed that you get an idea for how you want to run an organisation and you stick to it but this hasn’t been the case at all.  I have a picture in my mind of Children Unite as an amoeba-like structure with a very thin and permeable skin. Through osmosis various ideas change the structure of the organisation, some are ‘keepers’ and stay and some get pushed out again.

I think it’s because I was so heavily involved in writing the legal structure of Children Unite (our Memorandum and Articles of Association) and articulating this to the Charity Commission that I have had a bit of an immovable picture of the organisation.  Certainly, the visual image I have of Children Unite as a legal entity (and you’ll have probably noticed I seem to think in a visual way) is of a ladder and it’s very logical step-by-step order.

An amoeba and a ladder are very different images! Hopefully we’ll get somewhere in the middle (and I can’t come up with an example here – not even a joke one – please supply your own!). Visualising our future is something we all do I suppose – whether this is literally a ‘snapshot’ image or some words that sum up where, who or how you want to be.  And it is not wrong to adjust that image but, when it comes to Children Unite, I believe I have a duty to share my updated thoughts with the people closest to the organisation – to Jonathan and to the trustees.