Fly like a butterfly sting like a bee

Children Unite is re-structuring even though we don't have much of a structure in the first place?! Maybe it’s re-thinking I mean?  To be honest, it feels more like soul searching to me.

Over the past two months I’ve been developing a plan for this year’s activities – a plan that will ensure our sustainability.  Or do I mean viability (?) as sometimes it’s felt like a survival plan. That’s when the soul searching has come in.  It’s forced me to ‘let go’ of the idea (dream) of Children Unite – the charity that started from nothing and is now having such a big impact you wouldn’t believe it!  It’s been hard but important to realise that, actually, I’m an activist not a manager so setting up a big impressive organisation that can co-ordinate large, multi-country projects is not something I’d enjoy or be particularly good at. 

I like the idea of being a light, flexible and creative organisation that can take up opportunities.  ‘Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee’ – I don’t know where that phrase is from (a boxer I think) but I like to think if you're an activist based organisation you're like this.  That you’re small and flexible enough to move around but when you take action - people notice!  So, how does this fit with Children Unite?  Well, we’re scaling down our ideas for big multi-country projects (as above) and instead we're setting up a ‘technical advice service’ that will offer our expertise on how to work with child domestic workers to other charities.  Ultimately, we want more child domestic workers to receive the support they need and we know we can’t actually do this ourselves, we’re much too small.  But we can encourage (advise) other organisations to work with this hidden group of children.

Maybe I should change our strapline to ‘fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee’?  

Maybe not, I might get a powerful right hook from an angry (famous) boxer!!

A happy, healthy and prosperous New Year

To be honest 2012 was a bit rubbish - I'm glad it's 2013.  I've debated about how honest to be in my blog but I'm not very good at lying or 'spinning' so here goes. Children Unite is facing challenging financial times - a phrase somewhat overused I imagine given the current economic climate. I've heard that 1 in 4 charities are closing down.  Jonathan's illness this year has had quite a big impact on Children Unite, it meant that, in addition to projects we were committed to working on, I only had time to work on developing one new grant funded project; and we found out in early December that this was rejected (albeit with a recommendation to re-apply in 2013). So, austerity measures are in place: we've moved out of the office and I'm working from the dining room table again (Jonathan's in the shed!), and I've said to trustees I can work voluntarily for the next 4 months if needs be...and needs probably will be.

Despite this, we're not really in such a bad position. From talking to others running similar small charities all of them seem to have gone through a 'challenging financial time' at some point and, it's forced us (staff and trustees) to re-evaluate our strategic plan, ask some difficult questions and be open to creative solutions. And I'm asking for help left, right and centre! And finally, when I opened two cheques this morning (from Rayleigh Methodist Church and Darlington District of Methodist Women in Britain) I was almost moved to tears by their generosity and support of our work (much better than the two letters from Revenue and Customs who were confused about our change of address!).

So it's good to have 2012 behind us and a fresh start for 2013 and it is with much feeling that I wish a happy, healthy and PROSPEROUS  New Year to you all!

Donate Button Blues

Back in London with loads of admin jobs! But I thought I should keep up the blog - I've been a bit lax over the last year, changing from weekly to monthly posts and then none at all over the summer (but I had a good excuse).  So, partly because of the fallow summer, Children Unite is in a fundraising drive... damn it I knew I'd eventually have to do this!  This means I'm trawling through loads of foundations and trusts trying to figure out if Children Unite fits their criteria - as SO OFTEN we don't.  Nobody funds advocacy work - there my little moan over...going to have to put that DONATE button on the blog after all (see first ever post!).

Worshipping the God of Wealth

On Monday we'd had the last of our working days, finalised our schedules, budget etc. for the rest of the project and discussed what conclusions we could draw, at this stage, from the data. A very satisfactory way to end the workshop. I'm working with a great team here - there's been no politics of any sort, just a group of people who REALLY want this work to end up helping children.  And by the end of the workshop we could see that this research will go some way to empowering children who've been sexually abused - just by the fact that the research highlights how they OVERCAME the terrible situations they found themselves in (most research highlights how they got into these situations or how they suffered in them). So, a good, strong ending to the work.

But on my last day in Nepal it was the festival Divali and I was deeply honoured to be invited back to the family home of Milan (the lead researcher in Nepal). At his home I helped cook puri (puffed up little pancakes) as well as a 'mandala' - a drawing on the ground outside the front door that is made of coloured powder with marigold petals all around it - all the houses have a trail of marigolds and mandalas from their gate to their prayer room - to allow Laxmi, the God of Wealth, to enter the house. I felt so honoured to participate in Milan's family's celebrations, his grandmother, mother, father, sister-in-law and two nephews were all there.  The ceremony bit started at the gate of the house, went through the courtyard, stopping of at the family shrine, then in front of the door (where the mandala was), another shrine by the door and over the door (everyone wants to make sure Laxmi comes into the house!!) and then up the stairs to the prayer room.  Along the way Writu (Milan's wife) and her sister-in-law performed ceremonies with a little tray of bits and pieces (powders and seeds it looked like), and they lit candles and the dad rang a bell.  Milan gave me a running commentary explaining the story of Laxmi and the significance of different aspects of the ceremony - for example, on the tray of bits and pieces there was a coconut which he smashed open and then sprinkled the coconut milk along the path of marigolds. Milan explained that they use a coconut instead of an animal sacrifice as the coconut milk is considered 'pure' - similar to the purity of blood. Milan let off a few fireworks (didn't follow the firework code of course like us safety conscious Brits!).  Then upstairs to the prayer room with lots of singing led by great grandma.  Before we ate I was given a tika blessing (red dot on forehead and marigold petals on head) and drank some special spiced milk (with my right hand). The meal was delicious but by this time I was starting to get twitchy about making my flight on time so had to make some rather hurried goodbyes, screeched in to the airport just in time for check-in (I was the last one!).  It was an amazing ending to my visit to Nepal...not particularly looking forward to facing the reality of all the admin and fundraising tasks I have piling up on my desk...thank goodness I've already worshipped the God of wealth, should have her on my side at least!

Thinking positively despite rain

It's the last day of our analysis workshop and it rained for the first time since I've been in Kathmandu.  We've spent the whole week analysing the data from 47 'life-story' interviews with child domestic workers in Nepal.   We spent the first 2 days developing codes from the data in interviews - which is the first level of analysis, then comes categories, then themes; and we've all got so ensconsed in this process we are now talking in 'codes' to each other.  We say things like 'thinking positively gets researcher through to lunch' or 'going to the toilet enables researcher to escape workload'.  But on a more serious note, the discussions have been really exciting, I'm learning a lot about Nepali culture, once you start delving into what children are saying you realise that it is all influenced by and imbued with cultural values. Where it was most apparent was when analysis team would come up with a Nepali word and it would take a paragraph to explain it in English...one such word meant 'accepting and tolerating by keeping silent, but in a strengthening way'.  I will miss the comradery of the team once I'm back in my little office in Hackney...lots of photos on the Children Unite Facebook Profile if you're interested.  Tomorrow I fly home late so will have time to join in with celebrations for Nepali 'Divali'...which should be fun!

Shaken not stirred in Kathmandu

What do you do on a Saturday night when you’re in Kathmandu for 10 days? Watch a Bond movie of course!  We’ve been ensconced in this mountain resort for seven days, working from 8.30 in the morning to 8.30 at night and as our advisor and teacher (a professor in psycho-social research), left this morning – lovely as she is – we decided to see a bit of Nepali life.  So, four of us went to a mall, ate frozen yoghurt and hot dogs and watched Bond drinking his martini and cry (what is the world coming to!).  I didn’t get all patriotic watching the film as it has only been a week since I was home but I’ve been raving about Scotland (my favourite country!) as I’d flown from Glasgow to Kathmandu (I’d been on holiday in the highlands) and during the film, Bond drives through Glen Coe which I’d driven through on the way to the airport – have to admit to going a bit apoplectic at that point!  

Today was better, phew! I was determined that we'd start off well and we did...at breakfast I got all touchy-feely and made everyone laugh by getting out my little heart cushion thingy and passed it around the group, asking everyone to say what they'd be contributing to the group today (I said I'd be the 'mum' and look after everyone, make sure they're getting enough breaks, tea, vegetables etc.) Then we got cracking on the research codes. We all made a concerted effort to make it all as comfortable as we can so moved out of the cold, dark room we were in and spread ourselves outside in the sunshine.  At one point Faye (the trainer on this research method we are using) and I were using the incredibly low-tech method of catagorising the data on hundreds of little bits of paper that were literally taped down to the table to stop them blowing away in the wind.