Going to bed with a mosquito

OK I admit it I’ve been cheating on the blog posting front….since May I’ve written posts but they were all from a diary I kept during a four day trek in May in Nepal.  My excuse? Simply that I’ve been inundated with work – not all of it for Children Unite.

So I’ll do a long blog post to make up for it….I wanted to share some of the thinking I’ve been doing during this time.  Over the past year I’ve been part of an Action Learning Set – a forum where six leaders of children’s rights NGOs have been gathering for a day each month to share our leadership issues.  Action Learning seems to be about peer support and learning – all of us are running small children’s rights charities and have bumped into each other over our careers (in my youth I volunteered for two of the organisations in the set!)  We are dealing with similar issues – funding crises, management issues, dealing with partner organisations or boards of trustees so it is useful to talk through our concerns with other people who can understand and may well have been in the same place a couple of months ago. 

Children Unite is the smallest organisation in the set but one of the surprising things I’ve learned over the year is that I no longer see us as following the same trajectory as all the other organisations.  Originally I had imagined I would learn much from my fellow Action Learning Set colleagues that would help me to develop Children Unite and, essentially, follow in their footsteps.  However, late in 2012 we didn’t get a grant we were rather dependent on and this forced us to think a bit differently about how we would ‘survive’ and indeed, whether we should survive.  This situation, together with some of the issues raised by my colleagues, has made me re-think Children Unite’s development. A phrase I particularly remember from the learning sets was ‘funding treadmill’ – to be honest, it sends shivers down my spine as it conjures up dull as ditchwater work that never ends – slaves to the funders demands!  We are all doing similar work and there is very little funding out there so we end up all applying to the same funding agencies for grants to continue our work and we’re on a kind of treadmill…application deadlines, assessments, evaluations, audits…and so it goes on.

I have to admit that, being a campaigner, I don’t actually like the public image of ‘a charity’ – it makes me cringe a little bit (give money to a charity = ease your conscience = nothing actually changes).  Of course all the organisations in the learning set are doing excellent work that changes children’s lives – it’s more about the public perception of what ‘a charity’ does that makes me uncomfortable.  So, if Children Unite is to move away from this image it is OK with me…it’s just that, of course, there’s even less funding for organisations that focus on advocacy work! So, this is the challenge ahead.  How to continue doing what we set out to do (give child domestic workers a voice).  In June we launched our Technical Advice Service – which is essentially for other charities, encouraging them to work with child domestic workers.  This is definitely not in the realm of the public image of ‘a charity’ but it does recognise that, as a very small organisation, perhaps our best role is to influence bigger organisations to work with this group children that we care so passionately about.  I am reminded and will end my post with a quote that has been attributed to Anita Roddick (who set up the Body Shop and has certainly inspired me):

“If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.”

Guest Blog: a fascinating and humbling day

Stuart with a fellow farmer

In May, Brenda and I joined our daughter, Helen, to visit three villages around Kathmandu to meet some of the people CWISH had been working with.  CWISH is a Nepali charity that is working with girls and families involved with child domestic labour. The villages were perched on mountainous slopes, intensively terraced, in the Kavre district just outside Kathmandu.  

We were accompanied by Sweta a young woman who works for CWISH and we met several groups of people. Firstly a group of girls and some of their dads. The girls had all been in child domestic work and CWISH had managed their return home and reintegration into their families. The fathers said how glad they were to have their girls back, and how they now realised that sending them off in the first place, had been wrong, but they just did not realise what they were letting their daughters into.  Then we met a farmer of a small holding, whose income was so low that CWISH had recognised the high risk that the family would be sending some of their girls off to work as child domestics, but that through a little investment by CWISH into the farm, buying bamboo poles to provide a sheltering structure over some of his terraces, the farmer could increase his crops and therefore his income, and could keep his children at home. 

It is amazing how just a little investment can make such a difference to a family, and in particular to a young girl’s life. Then we met a sort of village council, sitting under a large tree discussing the services CWISH were offering and hearing their pleas for even more help.  We felt a real sense of rural community sitting beneath that tree, and a deep hope that their appeal for more help can be met, they start with so little. A fascinating and a humbling day for us Europeans.  

Stuart and Brenda Veitch

A meeting with village elders in Kavre

Dark mountains fringed in pink

I got up at around five am and wandered up to a small hill on the outskirts of the village. I sat there and watched the silhouettes of the Himalayas starting to catch the sun. This was the most beautiful part of the day for me; dark mountains fringed in pink.  It became hazy afterwards and the mountains slowly disappeared.  But it was lovely to sit there meditate and listen to the village come to life.  Dad and I set off with Prem after breakfast.  Mum and Ann came with Kailash and all our luggage by jeep.  There were quite a lot of people coming up the path as it was a Saturday.  One group had a couple of young women wearing bikinis as tops which annoyed me (!) although Prem blamed the guide for not telling the women that bearing so much flesh was unacceptable in Nepal.

At a tea stop overlooking the valley we saw kites, eagles and buzzards flying quite close by, circling over the valley below.  A nice ending to our trek, although it all seemed to end too soon. 

Back in Pokhara we said goodbye to Kailash – he was getting a little microbus back to Kathmandu.  Then, because we’d not wanted to stop walking, Prem suggested we get a boat across the lake and walk to a Peace Pagoda that overlooks Pokhara.  Mum and Ann couldn’t manage the steps on the walk so they booked a ‘taximan’ they’d met during the week who spoke good English and  had befriended them while we’d been trekking.  The boat was an open canoe and we had to wear enormous life jackets, the walk was lovely but we went quite fast in order to meet mum and Ann in time, so couldn’t really appreciate it.  The Peace Pagoda was beautifully cool beneath my hot, tired feet and had a hazy view across the lake and Pokhara.

Looking back on this trek (it is now August!) it feels like it was a little window of calm in what has been a very busy and stressful time over the last five months.  The eye of a storm.  On my return to the UK I was inundated with work, trying to finish off writing the research report for the Bamboo Project (the reason I was in Nepal in the first place) and taking on another consultancy project (more writing).  It’s wonderful to remember the mountain views, and writing this post has allowed me to dip into the calm and beauty of those four days and refresh myself….

A Temple at Dawn

Dad, Mum and Ann at Breakfast

And I know it's a bit naughty but I found these photos of my day rock climbing in his youth - he hasn't changed a bit!

The beauty of a well laid table

We woke up to the big secret - a fantastic view of the Himalayas from the grassy knoll, floating at first like crystallised clouds.  Then, as the sun rose their mass beneath being revealed crevice by crevice.  Dad and I spent three hours in wonder and delight looking at the changing panorama. Everything took on a magical feel.  Gugung, the waitress served us breakfast with such care and beauty.  It was positively ceremonial.  She slowly and carefully named and placed each item down 'black tea, milk tea, sugar, spoon'. We played with the little boy Dallan again but after some group photos had to drag ourselves away.

It was just a short walk (one and a half hours) to to Damphus where we were meeting Mum and Ann (my parent's friend who had been keeping mum company while dad and I were trekking ).   Dad and I could easily have trekked longer, it felt like we were moving back into civilisation and the 'real' world.  Although the hotel (it had ensuite facilities!!) had a lovely view of the foothills and the roofs of the village.  It was good to see mum and Ann although they didn't seem to have done much in Pokhara.  We went for a walk around the village - dad explained how the trek went and I stayed quiet for the most part.  We did a bit of star gazing at night.  I liked the fact that dad and I had already developed our little routines - our tea, 'bon-bons' (Bourbon biscuits) at elevenses and apple slices for our 'pudding'.  We showed off about these to mum and Ann I guess and went to bed praying for rain so that the view would be clear in the morning.

Annapurna South

The beauty of a well laid table

Prem and Dallon playing

The group at Puthara

The Big Down

The big down was thousands of steps, winding down past terracing and small stone houses and ended at a beautiful tea house covered in flowers by a watermill.  Across the river was a small dark cliff that had bee hives hanging from its crevices.  We were told that they have a honey hunting festival where people scale down the cliff to pick up the honey combs – there was a huge comb hanging from the rafters of the tea house about half a metre in length.

After crossing the river, which comes straight from Annapurna we then wound our way up more terracing to the village of Landruk and were able to look across the valley to the route we’d done the previous day – to Gandruk (notice a theme!).  I spend a large part of the day thinking about how I could organise a fundraising trek for Children Unite, who would be interested in doing one.  After Landruk we lost Kailash – he had rather a long break we think, smoking and resting!  Prem drew a big arrow on the path at a point where it forked and eventually caught up with us at the next tea stop.  The afternoon walk was beautiful, through forest teaming with birds, rhododendron trees (yes trees  not bushes), all sorts of gorgeous ferns and moss filled crevices.  Of course it reminded dad and I of Scotland (a regular haunt) – but on a grand scale.  As we walked up and you had to concentrate on each step you noticed tiny blue flowers, pink ball shaped flowers and white daisies – all miniature, like little gems in between the stone pavement. 

We reached Puthara in the afternoon and in the shower after our walk, I could hear a guitar and flute playing.  It was Prem and Kailash!  They were sitting on a kind of grassy knoll surrounded by pines and rhododendron trees with prayer flags strung up in between.  It had a lovely panorama of the foothills and villages.  At the time we didn’t know the secret beauty of this place.  It was enough to be sitting listening to Kailash and Prem play Nepali love songs.

Dad and I had had a physically tough day so we were tired in the evening.  Over dinner we spoke to a Malaysian man who had been trekking solo for 22 days.  The restaurant we were eating in had only been open 6 days.  The son of the owner had recently returned to take over managing the place, he’d installed a full drum kit, Nepali and African drums, a guitar and flutes.  He told us he’s been learning guitar and during the meal, in the kitchen, he started playing ‘Heaven’s Door’ and ‘Hotel California’, two songs that always remind me of Indonesia and my time with the street boys of Yogyakarta.  The boys all seem to know how to play those two songs and I could never remember the lyrics! 

The kitchen had two big glass windows separating it from the dining hall which meant we could see the porters and family chatting and eating. Prem told us that guides and porters usually want nothing to do with the trekkers once the reach the tea house but he likes talking too much so ends up spending more time with trekkers.  While walking during the day Prem, dad and I had a long chat about the holocaust, Israel and US motivation for joining WWII.  He remembers so many facts I’m astounded.  He’s studying cultural trauma, which I’ve never heard of before – not your typical guide that’s for sure!  I do like the way Prem talks to the people we meet at our tea stops.  At one place, we could hear a shrill American voice for about five minutes before we saw a couple of young women walking along, their porter on his mobile, who passed us without acknowledgement and were deep in conversation about which books and films they’d seen.  Prem seemed to make a snap judgment about them being the kind of people who don’t really appreciate where they are and he made some disparaging remarks them to dad and I.  But then he appeared to say the same thing to the tea stop woman as she made a face and laughed at his remarks – just as dad and I had done.  I liked this equal treatment. It has helped dad and I to feel part of these little conversations that take place between Prem, Kailash and all the people we’ve met along the way.  Sometimes they’ve been about the farming techniques or plants and trees in the vicinity.  I love the fact that dad knows about farming – it’s broken the ice with a number of people and brings a small part of their world (actually a large and important part) to life for me.