No, it’s not me. I don’t think I’d manage a week without tea… or maybe the rest of the world wouldn’t manage me without my tea! My lovely inspiring friend Caroline is doing the challenge, so when we had lunch together earlier, I had a bag of Tilda rice and she had her concoction of rice and beans.
She seemed genuinely shocked that I had literally brought a bag of rice to eat beside her, but I believe so strongly in keeping my circles supportive that to me it would have been unthinkable to eat a juicy sandwich in front of her!
The plight of the refugees is a cause close to my heart. Back in 2009 when I made the decision to change my life and only do what was meaningful, I joined the Prince’s Trust. It was one hell of a culture shock for me, with everything from the dress code and culture to the age of the IT equipment jarring with what I had become accustomed to. It was also one of the best things I have ever done.
It came about by chance. I had skipped out of a job that was making me hate myself and needed something to fill my time while I figured out a new direction. An old friend randomly emailed me and I replied asking him if there was anything I could do to help at the Trust while I was at a loose end. I became that year’s Celebrate Success volunteer, a role that paid more in soul replenishment than any money ever could. I got to spend my days meeting with young people who had turned their lives around with the support of the Trust.
I met ex gang members who were on track to be foremen of building sites, a young lady building a luxury jewelry empire off the back of the business programme, and a young man who was to become my mentee. He had arrived in the UK in the back of a lorry at the age of 15, speaking no English. As an unaccompanied minor, he was put in the care system, but the support he was able to access was woefully inadequate and as soon as he turned 18, he was thrust out into the world.
By the time I met him, he had used a grant from the Trust to start a community football club to pass on what he had been given after accessing some football coach training. His focus was outwardly positive, but his self belief was fragile.
The time I spent with him was eye opening and heart breaking. A beautiful soul, almost crippled with PTSD, trying to find his way in a world that largely didn’t seem to care. There are so many things we take for granted that people like him are baffled by – even things like computerised standard letters would be enough to knock him sideways because he read them as if the letter was coming from somebody who had read his case file and didn’t care about his circumstances and just wanted to get paid, or else.
Together, we sorted out his housing, his right to remain and his confidence that he was a person of worth. We lost touch after a couple of years, but have recently found each other again. He told me that he still tells people about the impact having somebody believe in him that strongly had on him and his life, and about how he now does it for others. I will always be in his corner.
One of the key life lessons I learned from hanging out with him? Be grateful for what you have. If you have a roof over your head, you are lucky. If you have a comfortable bed, you are lucky. If you have clean clothes to wear and an education, you are winning at life. We spend far too much time and energy in the “First World” being suckered into marketing that says we need more to be happy. We don’t. We need to appreciate what we do have.
When the refugee crisis hit the headlines back in the summer of 2015, I couldn’t bear to watch it unfold and do nothing. When I saw footage of the body of a little girl around the same age as my daughter floating face down in the sea, I knew I had to do something. I started collecting for the refugees, others joined my team, then I had to figure out how to ship it to those in need. I was very lucky in that I found a man who was driving his own truck, quietly and without fanfare and he wasn’t charging to take donations with him.
Then there was the cash. A local artist put on a performance to raise funds and it presented me with a different problem. Who should I trust with it to make sure it did what the donors hoped it would? There were rumours we could order groceries from the LIDL on Kos that volunteers from Kos Kindness could collect and distribute to teams who were cooking meals to feed the hungry. I tried, but the store manager said no. I didn’t want to donate to a bigger charity as our £400 could be swallowed so easily in the costs of providing aid. Then I struck gold. I found a way we could use the money, at £2 per head, to buy 200 hot meals. Not just food, but a life affirming experience – the meals were to be eaten sitting on chairs at tables with real cutlery like real human beings of value through Mercy Corps. This was the best way I could think of to challenge the tabloid and right wing depiction of these desperate families as cockroaches or vermin.
I’m not telling you this in the hope you’ll blow smoke up my ass. I’m telling you this because when you want to help people in these horrific situations, it is mind blowingly difficult to figure out how. You don’t want to give money to the wrong organisation – corruption is rife in warzones and you could accidentally be funding guns – and you listen to so much conflicting information on the media that you don’t know who to trust.
The number one way we can help is to be open to the movement of people from places where there is no hope to places where the glimmer of light can flicker again inside them. The politics of this situation aren’t actually complicated. Governments who would rather these families drowned and prosecute the people who try to rescue them are part of the problem. People who don’t say anything to the neighbour or relative who spouts ignorant bigoted opinions (often recycled from the vile and inflammatory tabloids) are also part of the problem. We all need to take personal responsibility. Welcome the people who get resettled in your town or city, help them to integrate.
And in the meantime, if you’d like to find out about why Caroline is doing the challenge, here is her blog on LarkOwl or the quick link if you’d like to sponsor her is here https://my.rationchallenge.org.uk/carolinedanks
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