Jun 13

The house of dreams: pioneering work for girls in a Mumbai orphanage

This week’s Sunday Telegraph magazine, Stella, contained an uplifting article by Sally Howard, which I have yet to find online; if you can find it and read it, do. In it, she describes a visit to Shraddhanand Mahilashram, an orphanage for girls in Mumbai, India, where girls are taught to be independent, confident young women, and the story she tells is one of hope and determination to carve out a better future for some of the most disadvantaged in society. Education is an important part of what is provided for the girls in the orphanage; and the girls are encouraged to develop skills which will be of practical commercial use to them in the world in which they will grow up. I was struck – as, clearly, was the author – by how the orphanage prepares for this future, quoting Unicef’s Aniruddha Kulkarni talking disparagingly about the current trend in Indian orphanages and other institutions for teaching traditional handicraft skills as part of their core activity: “Girls weaving sari borders make great pictures for brochures aimed at foreign donors … [but] what use are such skills to young women in the cities of a booming 21st-century nation? Institutions have to be relevant. They have to give children the skills they need to be part of India’s success story.”

Such a focus at the orphanage also liberates the girls, giving them the means to break free of the cycles which have prevented them from having the same range of choices as boys. The sad – and shocking – truth is that girl babies are still less desirable than boy babies. The birthrate of boys compared to girls in India is still suspiciously high; people talk of the 8 million ‘missing girls’, the number of female foetuses estimated to have been aborted over the past ten years because they were not boys. Boys have – still – the potential to bring greater financial security to their families, and, when they marry, to bring a wife (plus dowry) into the family to contribute to the domestic labour. Girls, on the other hand, are costly – they are raised to the point where they are sent off in arranged marriages, plus dowry, to provide labour for another family. It is little wonder, while these expectations remain in place, and while girls are not given the skills to provide financially for themselves, that newborn girls are more likely to be abandoned by their parents, and that orphanages such as Shraddhanand Mahilashram will continue to have a role to play in helping to support them.

As with the issue of forced and early marriage, which has finally been outlawed in the UK, and has been the focus of worldwide attention through the Commonwealth, for too long people have shied away from criticising cultural practices which have disadvantaged or harmed girls, for fear of seeming to be culturally insensitive. In actual fact, any practice which harms girls or their life chances is wrong, and we must not be afraid to say so. In this world of instant communication, and easy connection, we have to find ways not just of passing on this message, but of helping to break the cycles of poverty which allow them to become embedded.

We have so much to do …

 

Jun 11

A small victory for Afghan equality

It is so easy to get caught up in day-today issues, and to lose an awareness of what is happening in the world. We take so many of our rights for granted, and we are so quick to challenge perceived injustice, that we can sometimes lose a sense of perspective about how lucky we are, and how other people do not have the same privileges that we do. It can take a news story from another part of the world, another culture, to humble us into a sense of reality, and this is exactly what happened when I read this article recently: “Women’s net cafe is small victory for Afghan equality”.

This story highlighted the success of a women-only internet cafe in Kabul, a project set up by a small Afghan non-profit organisation, Young Women for Change. The reason an internet cafe for women is so important is that it allows the women who use it to connect with the outside world in a way which is often denied to them in their homes, and – unfortunately and worryingly, increasingly – in their communities. Mixed internet cafes are intimidating places for Afghan women – as the author of the article describes them, they are “frequented mainly by underemployed men sitting around watching porn and harassing female customers” – and so the institution of a women-only zone is liberating and empowering.

The real victory, however, is not in the setting up of the cafe, but in the fact that a third of the 45 members of Young Women for Change are actually young men, who volunteer their time to speak to other men about women’s rights and to make changes that suit women (including this cafe). In a country where women suffered terrible abuses under the rule of the Taliban, and where it is feared that as international support withdraws in 2014, a repressive conservative regime may be reintroduced, the fact that young men are willing to speak up for women’s rights is tremendously encouraging.

No-one – man or woman – should accept a situation where any other human being faces discrimination, violence, restriction of liberty and injustice just because of their gender. The story of this Afghan internet cafe has a spark of hope within it. Let us hope that it lights a beacon.

 

Jun 07

Dedication to the lives of others: the way to bring harmony to the world

I very much enjoyed listening on the radio to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon during the National Service of Thanksgiving in St Paul’s Cathedral on Tuesday, as part of the celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Ever thoughtful, Rowan Williams, reflecting on the Queen’s 60 years of service to the nation, took the opportunity to remind us all that it is our responsibility to look out for others, to serve others, and to dedicate ourselves to the life of others, for this is how society functions: alone we are only a shadow of ourselves, and together we are richer and fuller.

This latter point was the point he made most eloquently: that by dedicating ourselves to others in society, we are not entering upon some hard and unrewarding path of self-denial, but rather enriching our lives and bringing greater joy into them. As we start the process, he said “You will begin to discover that the other person is a source of nourishment, excitement, pleasure, growth and challenge. And if we broaden this out to an entire community, a nation, a commonwealth, it means discovering that it is always in an ever-widening set of relations that we become properly ourselves. Dedication to the service of a community certainly involves that biblical sense of an absolute purge of selfish goals, but it is also the opening of a door into shared riches.”

Dedication to others is severely underrated in our world, where the mantra of ‘greed is good’ often still underpins much of how people act. Yet this kind of selflessness is essential to our survival. As the Archbishop put it, “This alone is what will save us from the traps of ludicrous financial greed, of environmental recklessness, of collective fear of strangers and collective contempt for the unsuccessful and marginal – and many more things that we see far too much of, around us and within us.” Looking out, beyond ourselves, to our collective social good, can and will make a difference to the world.

The Queen is a shining example of dedication to others, of duty and of service. The point that Rowan Williams made was that she has also found joy in this process, and so can each of us. We need role models – our children need role models – of people who are doing precisely this: reaching out beyond their own selves to impact on the wider life of their community: “Moralists (archbishops included) can thunder away as much as they like; but they’ll make no difference unless and until people see that there is something transforming and exhilarating about the prospect of a whole community rejoicing together – being glad of each other’s happiness and safety.”

Refreshing and liberating; and food for thought. Time, I think, for a renewed purpose and action.

 

Jun 04

A marvellous day – and a tremendous cause

What historic times we are living in! Yesterday – the day of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee on the Thames – may have dawned grey and cold, and the rain may have caught up with us all before the afternoon was out, but there was no denying the fact that everyone who was present on the riverbanks or the bridges of London shared in marvelling that this was an occasion that would not happen again in our lifetime, if ever. For a monarch to reign for 60 years is an amazing feat of longevity; to have done so, as our Queen has, with dignity and honour, through the vicissitudes and upheavals of the twentieth century, is remarkable. The Thames was covered – literally, covered – in boats of all shapes and sizes, and the view downriver as they passed and the flotilla grew in front of our eyes was breathtaking. Canaletto’s 1747 painting of the Royal Pageant may have communicated similar vibrant colours, but it could not communicate the music, the cheers, and the roar of excitement when the Royal Barge came into view, with Her Majesty aboard. The crowds were there to honour the duty she has demonstrated to her country, through thick and thin, and they were not to be dissuaded by the weather.

 We – girls, staff and parents from St Mary’s Calne, along with girls and staff from other girls’ schools (amongst whom I counted at least two other Headmistresses!) – were celebrating on Waterloo Bridge, from where we had a super view, but our purpose was a dual one. We were there to honour the Queen, but we were also there to support the work of Plan UK, and in particular their ‘Because I am a Girl’ campaign. This campaign, about which I have written before (and will continue to write, as I believe passionately in it) is all about highlighting – and changing – the fact that 75 million girls across the world are not in education, and yet all evidence shows that when you educate a girl, you make a significant difference not only to her life, but to the life of her family, her community and even her country.

The Queen, as Head of the Commonwealth, has been a great advocate over the years for female empowerment in the developing world, and her endorsement earlier this year at the meeting of the Heads of State of the Commonwealth countries in Perth, Australia, of Plan’s campaign to end early and forced marriage was a huge boost to community workers across the world who have been trying to end this harmful and abusive practice. Thus there was a great synergy in play when Plan UK was chosen by the Royal Household to be one of only three charities to line the bridges during the Royal Pageant. To be a part of it was amazing and inspiring in equal measure; the girls present on the bridge know that while much has changed for women in the world in the past 60 years, much more must change in the next 60 years, and it will be up to them to make the difference that the world needs.

Yesterday was a landmark – a celebration of the present and past. Standing on Waterloo Bridge amongst the crowds, I knew – and so did they – that it was also a call to move forward to a better, stronger, fairer future. Help the cause; support Plan today!

May 31

Our young people need YOU. The importance of mentors.

Earlier this week, at an excellent Footdown Leadership Forum, I came across a super organisation which mentors young people to prepare them for the world of work: SATRO. Based in Surrey and the South East, it reaches out to 15,000 young people each year (5,000 primary pupils and 10,000 secondary pupils), through a combination of programmes, festivals, workshops, challenges and one-to-one mentoring. Its Chief Executive, Dr Beccy Bowden, with whom I had an excellent and mutually affirming conversation, is clearly passionate about the need to get young people engaged with business (and, vice versa, business with young people) from an early stage, and clearly what she is doing is working.

A good mentor is someone who helps young people look up from, and beyond, the limitations of their daily lives, and helps them to aspire to a successful and fulfilling future in work. The SATRO mentoring programme focuses on students who are underachieving at school, and provides these young people with a trusted adult who can challenge them and coach them so that they can move out of negative patterns of thinking and start to explore genuine options for their future in work. Businesses benefit from these relationships too, as the mentors themselves learn a huge amount by engaging directly with young people, as well as improving their communication skills. The sense of satisfaction that comes from giving to the community and transforming a life is, too, immeasurable.

Why, though, do young people need mentors from the business world? Firstly, parents alone cannot prepare their children to be truly independent and ready to play a role in the wider world. Although most parents want their children to become independent, shades of emotional conflict – the desire to keep our children safe and protected – can hold them back. Moreover, young people need – really need – other adults to give them different perspectives on the world, and to help them understand its complexity. Without the willing engagement of other adults – adults in work, with views and experience to share – the lives of our young people are poorer, and their development harder. I firmly believe that it is our collective responsibility as a society to bring up our children, and we all need to be involved.

So … if you aren’t already mentoring a young person in some way, pick up the phone. Your time, your enthusiasm and your wisdom are all needed. Enrol today in the task.

 

May 28

Honesty in sport: a value at the heart of our society

A new book is due out in June – ‘The Dirtiest Race in History’, by Richard Moore – which deals with Ben Johnson’s victory in the 100m men’s finals in the 1988 Olympic Games, and his subsequent disgrace when he was discovered to have been taking drugs. To this day, I remember that race well – it was the summer just before I went up to Oxford – and I cannot imagine that I am alone in this memory. I remember the exhilaration and then the disbelief and the disappointment when this hero turned out not to be as we had thought. It made an enormous impact on me.

To understand the build-up to the race, you have to recall some of the background. The great names in the men’s 100m sprint at the time were Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson, and their rivalry was captivating, because it reflected the striving to beat the 10 second mark in the 100m. The first man to run 100m in less than 10 seconds was in fact Jim Hines, who broke the existing world record with 9.99 seconds in Sacramento in June 1968, and then ran a race of 9.95 seconds in the Olympic Final at the 1968 Mexico Olympics in October, but the intense competition between Johnson and Lewis made for exciting viewing.

It was in 1985, after seven consecutive losses, that Ben Johnson beat Carl Lewis, the giant of the running track, for the first time. The 1986 Goodwill Games were even more remarkable – Johnson beat Lewis, running 9.95 seconds for first place, against Lewis’ third-place time of 10.06. He also won Commonwealth Gold at the 1986 games with a time of 10.07. By the time of the 1987 World Championships in Rome, Ben Johnson had won his four previous races against Lewis and in Rome, he beat the world record, with a time of 9.83 seconds. He was the fastest man on the planet.

1988 was not though a good year for Johnson; in February he pulled a hamstring, and in August, when he faced Carl Lewis again, Lewis won in 9.93, while Johnson finished third. But then came the Olympics, and on 24th September 1988, in Seoul, Johnson beat Lewis in the 100m final and beat his own world record too. 9.79 seconds: this was how long  it took him to run the race. It was astonishing – a race replayed again, and again and again on the television. We were seeing history in the making – the fastest man in the world coming back from injury to become even faster. It was just amazing. Usain Bolt may now have run 100m in 9.58 … but back then, this was amazing.

And then … Ben Johnson was tested for drugs, and his urine was found to contain steriods. He was disqualified three days later and Carl Lewis was awarded the gold

It is hard to communicate the intense sense of disappointment which heralded this news, not least in Ben Johnson’s home country of Canada, but in fact around the world, from ordinary people just watching the race and caught up in the excitement of the build up and the competition. Ben Johnson later admitted having used steroids when he ran his 1987 world record, which caused the IAAF to annul that record as well, and which just added to the despondency. We had all thought that we were seeing something special, something incredible – testimony to the powers and endeavours of mankind – when in fact all that we were watching was actually a form of deception.

Doping in sport rears its head regularly, and is rightly condemned. As one of our national sports organisations puts it, “Doping is cheating: it fundamentally harms the essence of sport – enjoyment and fair competition. It is crucial to the enjoyment of sport that all individuals participating in sport also condemn doping in sport to ensure it is eliminated from the sporting environment. We want to promote the best athletes: athletes who have worked hard and who have got to the top without taking drugs to cheat.”

All those years after Ben Johnson’s false victory in Seoul, the memory lives on – a lesson to us all not to take values and integrity for granted. We should strive to succeed – but we should do it with honour.

May 26

A hero among heroes to lead the Jubilee pageant: Major Kate Philp

The announcement last week that a group of British heroes will lead the Queen’s Jubilee pageant on the Thames on Sunday 3rd June, sailing in the Queen’s rowbarge Gloriana, at the head of the fleet, was greeted with pleasure at St Mary’s Calne. Among the number of servicemen and women chosen to take part – all selected because they had shown great courage in battling adversity – was Major Kate Philp, who came to speak at one of our regular lectures last year, and who impressed the girls with her humility and no-nonsense approach to life. Her ‘get-up and go’ attitude was evident, and her courage in the face of personal hardship was remarkable.

Major Philp was the first female British soldier to lose a limb in combat, when, in November 2008, the Warrior tank she was commanding in Afghanistan ran over a 50kg Taliban bomb, and exploded, killing one of her team and injuring three others. Her leg was shattered in the explosion, and initially surgeons thought that they had saved it, but it soon became clear that she would have a better chance of regaining mobility if they amputated. When she discovered that with a prosthetic limb she would be able to learn again to run, play tennis and ski, then she did not hesitate, and gave the go-ahead for the operation.

Amazingly – and impressively – she said she felt (and continues to feel) very lucky. Everything was put into perspective, she said, when she encountered other soldiers with far greater impairments and far more life-limiting injuries. Her determination to make the best of life – and not just for herself, but for others, in the work she is now doing to support organisations who look after injured service personnel – was inspiring.

Gloriana will be rowed by an 18 strong crew of Olympic and Paralympic champions and hopefuls, celebrating our great rowing tradition and success. The Jubilee pageant will be a sight to behold. And Major Kate Philp most certainly deserves her place aboard.

 

May 23

Why GCSEs have had their day

John Cridland, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, is reported in today’s Daily Telegraph to be critical of GCSEs. Young people are, he says, being “failed by the system”, as growing numbers do not develop a fundamental grasp of the 3 Rs, and are leaving school unable to function effectively in the workplace. While there are many reasons why so many teenagers are not ‘work-ready’ – not the least of which is their pre-school experience and family support, which successive studies have shown to have a central importance in their subsequent educational attainment – it is also clear that our outdated examinations system shackles young people, stifles their creativity, and attempts to corral them and confine their learning to that – and only that – which can be tested. I spoke out about this in December 2010; former Education Secretary Estelle Morris said the same in January 2011. The GCSE system is, quite simply, no longer working.

Our children are over-tested. By the time teenagers leave school they will have spent literally months of their life either explicitly preparing for or taking national public examinations. There is no time for our young people to breathe. It is no wonder that teenage anxiety is on the rise. For many, the pressure starts to build in their early secondary school years, when they see the school completely physically reorganised for examinations twice a year, and when well-meaning teachers start to talk about GCSEs, preparing their charges for the onslaught of pressure that will come soon. In practice, GCSE courses usually start; many examinations and controlled assessments take place in Year 10; Year 11 is a year almost entirely dominated by examinations; and the pattern continues into Sixth Form. As the school leaving age rises to 18, there is simply no need for this deluge of examinations, all of which take valuable, precious time away from genuine learning, and the space to develop curiosity, creativity and critical thinking.

One size does not fit all. GCSE was intended to ensure equality of access to all, with grades running from A (now A*) to G. In practice, no-one pays any attention at all to grades below a C, with the result that (so as not to face an embarrassing situation where half the country repeatedly fails a public exam) the bar needed to reach to gain a C has progressively dropped over the years. Grade inflation is a recognised fact – Glenys Stacey, Chief Executive of Ofqual, admitted as such earlier this month. The annual rise in GCSE grades has become increasingly hard to equate to a gradual decline of the UK’s position in the international PISA education rankings. Around 40% of teenagers do not meet the Government’s requirement for 5 A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and Maths, a statistic hidden for years by the shameful practice of entering pupils for soft – and, quite frankly, practically useless – GCSE equivalent examinations, simply to maintain school standings in league tables.

We are educating for the 21st century, not the 19th. The system was to blame for the obfuscating tactics used by schools – the incentives were there for schools to meet target numbers, and not therefore to think creatively about the people coming through the doors. Our education system was set up in an industrial age, to prepare our young people for uniformity; today, we should be preparing our young people to be individually responsible citizens of the world, able to ride the crest of the information age. They will each bring something individual to the table, but we need to help them find their own individuality. When children come to school, we should be spending much more time assessing their own particular needs and planning programmes for them which stretch and challenge them to be extraordinary, as well as to have basic skills for life. We need to free ourselves of the industrial conveyer belt of age-related schooling, where children are pushed through schemes of work at uniform speeds. We need to talk about work and life from an early age, and excite our young people about their futures. They need to learn, retain, reproduce and use information, as exams require … but they – and we – need to remove the expectation that exams are the goal, rather than a step, a check, on the way to a goal.

Across the country, thousands of teenagers are sitting exams this week. I take my hat off to them – they have worked hard and are (for the most part) obediently doing what their country is asking them to do. We are the ones who have got it wrong. When are we going to put it right?

 

May 21

A little national pride goes a long way

London is looking amazing at the moment. Union flags are everywhere: all the way down Oxford Street, Regent Street and all the main thoroughfares, and Jubilee is in the air. The Jubilee pageant on Sunday 3rd June promises to be spectacular, and I shall be watching it with my family and lots of girls from my school on one of the bridges, as part of the Plan UK contingent. The Countdown Clock to the London Olympics, which is ticking away in Trafalgar Square, is adding to the excitement and anticipation. 2012 will be a great year for our Queen, our capital and our nation.

And Calne in Wiltshire, home to St Mary’s Calne, is looking pretty amazing as well – red , white and blue bunting has been going up over the past week, in honour of the Olympic Flame, which touched down in the UK on Friday and which will pass through Calne on Wednesday. We will all be out there along the route, waving our flags and cheering the flame on its way across the UK as it heads eventually to London and the opening ceremony of the Olympics on 27th July at the Olympic Park.

An igniting of national pride from time to time can be a really good thing: the feel-good factor it brings reminds us of the importance of togetherness and shared values. And I am not detecting any sense at all of the negatives that can easily accompany this national focus – a superiority over others, for example, or sneering about other nations. Instead, we are all, quite simply, feeling good about being human beings. We are honouring a great woman who has given 60 years of service to the UK and to the Commonwealth of Nations, and we are looking forward to honouring the great athletes – representative of nations from all over the world – who will descend upon London shortly, if they are not here already.

When we feel inspired and uplifted, anything can seem – and, I believe, is – possible. Immerse yourself in red, white and blue, marvel at the achievements of the human race, and let your imagination run free as you seek – with us all – to make this world a better place. A little national pride could take you a very long way indeed.

 

May 18

Teach boys to be positive about their identity

A pithy comment piece by Richard Godwin in this week’s Wednesday London Evening Standard, ‘Forget about sexism – we’re all victims now‘ draws its inspiration from Professor David Benatar’s new book ‘The Second Sexism: Discrimination Against Men and Boys’, which looks as though it might be worth a read. In it, according to Richard Godwin, Professor Benatar explains that women are not the only ones to suffer from sexism in our society. Stereotypes – prejudices – about men are as embedded as those about women, and this has resulted, he claims, in discrimination in, for example, child custody cases, or in the media, where men are routinely depicted as “idiots”.

Godwin, while agreeing with this – and there is most certainly truth in it – takes it further and highlights what he sees as the real issue underlying these claims of sexism and discrimination, namely the fact that we live in a society where anyone, at the slightest provocation, can claim to be “uniquely wronged”. This leads to a litigious culture, and a selfish indignation on the part of the individual, for whom it is inconceivable that he or she might be incorrect in an assumption of innocence. As a result, “…it is victimhood, rather than sexism, that is the definitive modern disease”.

He is right in many respects, of course, although we shouldn’t entirely overlook the need for us to unearth gender-based prejudices – both male and female – and do something about changing how people perceive and react to one another. Richard Godwin is, however, effectively asking us to grow up, to stop blaming others and to get on with – quite simply – doing the right thing. “I am troubled”, he writes, “by the assumption that men are emotionally illiterate and lazy. But to challenge it we need to teach boys to be positive about their identity. We shouldn’t fret about ‘the trouble with boys’, creating a narrative of failure, and we certainly shouldn’t encourage a victim mentality. That not only trivialises genuine victims of prejudice – it is quite literally self-defeating.” Straightforward, clear, and excellent advice – and it goes for girls too. We need not to project the negative on to boys – or girls – but instead we must focus on the positive, on encouraging our children to develop a strong sense of self-worth, and a healthy regard and respect for others.

Just think what would happen if we did.