Friday 11 July 2008
Optimist World
The Esther Benjamins Trust is currently featured on the new website Optimist World. If you can spare a couple of minutes to register on the site, you can then vote for us - free - to become their Charity of the Week and hopefully win the cash prize that goes with it. We need that money really badly!
Visit www.optimistworld.com/Charities.aspx to register. You can vote for the Trust in the left-hand column of the ‘Charities’ page. Voting has just opened today, Friday 11th, and will last for one week only. If we are successful, we could then become a candidate for a really big cash award as their Charity of the Year.
And pass the message on to your address book please. Ours is a great cause.
Visit www.optimistworld.com/Charities.aspx to register. You can vote for the Trust in the left-hand column of the ‘Charities’ page. Voting has just opened today, Friday 11th, and will last for one week only. If we are successful, we could then become a candidate for a really big cash award as their Charity of the Year.
And pass the message on to your address book please. Ours is a great cause.
Unique Selling Proposition
Trustee Paddy Magee and staff member Chris Kendrick joined me on yesterday's interview board. Try as we might we were unable to find a female board member but in the end with six females and one male shortlisted for interview it would be hard to accuse us of having been at all discriminatory.
In line with good equal opportunities practice, the questions were identical for all candidates, but we did try to avoid those standard ones like "What has been your greatest/most rewarding achievement in life?" the answer to which can be rehearsed in advance by a savvy candidate. That said I did include the predictable, but horrible, question "What is your greatest weakness?". All the interviewees bar one resorted to the trick of presenting a virtue such as "being too conscientious" or "too much the perfectionist" as a weakness but their ploy was very transparent. The one who was honest enough to declare a true weakness said that she might be shy of asking for money off important people. She didn't get the job but made a good impression nonetheless through her frankness.
The first question, asked by Paddy, was "Who was Esther Benjamins?" to test if the interviewee had studied our website and could then make the link to me after I had previously introduced myself as being the Founder of the charity. All the candidates knew the answer to that apart from one girl who, amazingly, declared that she had absolutely no idea. We graciously continued the questions but, as Paddy said afterwards, her interview started badly and got worse with her remarking that she had a tendency to have her head in the clouds.
The other question planned and posed by Paddy was "What do you see as being the unique selling proposition (USP) of The Esther Benjamins Trust?". I mused further on his question this morning as I jogged past the home of the late Dr Kingsley Whitmore, who lived two doors down from my in laws' home in Welwyn Garden City. Kingsley, a retired consultant paediatrician, passed away in April last year at the age of 93. He had been introduced to the work of the charity by my mother in law and became a regular and generous donor in the two years preceding his death. On my return visits from Nepal he would be invited up to the house where he would sit with a sherry and listen bright-eyed and attentively to my accounts of the work of the charity in Nepal and India. Afterwards he told me that he wished he were years younger so that he could do something for us over there but that he was in any case "full of admiration" for our work.
The last time I saw him was in February last year when walking past his home I spotted him rummaging in his garage. I went over to say hello and after a short conversation he told me that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer. He was quite philosophical about it, telling me that he'd had a good life and, wrinkling his nose, that he might manage another year. Before we parted he advised me that he had remembered the Trust's work in his Will. Kingsley died peacefully in his sleep just two months later. I was relieved for him that he had been spared the pain and discomfort of a slower death.
From our exchanges I expect for Kingsley the USP was the very edgy nature of our work with its tangible highly worthwhile outcomes, but most of all the very personal nature of the Trust. Unlike the big charities we are still very close to our roots, with my link to Esther and two Trustees (including Paddy) who knew her very well. We pride ourselves in how we interact on a very personal level with supporters by e mail, letter, and face to face both in UK and Nepal.
Nadia Kamel, the successful (and very impressive) candidate from yesterday, should be very proud that she has been selected to join such an organisation and given the opportunity to play her part in upholding its core values.
In line with good equal opportunities practice, the questions were identical for all candidates, but we did try to avoid those standard ones like "What has been your greatest/most rewarding achievement in life?" the answer to which can be rehearsed in advance by a savvy candidate. That said I did include the predictable, but horrible, question "What is your greatest weakness?". All the interviewees bar one resorted to the trick of presenting a virtue such as "being too conscientious" or "too much the perfectionist" as a weakness but their ploy was very transparent. The one who was honest enough to declare a true weakness said that she might be shy of asking for money off important people. She didn't get the job but made a good impression nonetheless through her frankness.
The first question, asked by Paddy, was "Who was Esther Benjamins?" to test if the interviewee had studied our website and could then make the link to me after I had previously introduced myself as being the Founder of the charity. All the candidates knew the answer to that apart from one girl who, amazingly, declared that she had absolutely no idea. We graciously continued the questions but, as Paddy said afterwards, her interview started badly and got worse with her remarking that she had a tendency to have her head in the clouds.
The other question planned and posed by Paddy was "What do you see as being the unique selling proposition (USP) of The Esther Benjamins Trust?". I mused further on his question this morning as I jogged past the home of the late Dr Kingsley Whitmore, who lived two doors down from my in laws' home in Welwyn Garden City. Kingsley, a retired consultant paediatrician, passed away in April last year at the age of 93. He had been introduced to the work of the charity by my mother in law and became a regular and generous donor in the two years preceding his death. On my return visits from Nepal he would be invited up to the house where he would sit with a sherry and listen bright-eyed and attentively to my accounts of the work of the charity in Nepal and India. Afterwards he told me that he wished he were years younger so that he could do something for us over there but that he was in any case "full of admiration" for our work.
The last time I saw him was in February last year when walking past his home I spotted him rummaging in his garage. I went over to say hello and after a short conversation he told me that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer. He was quite philosophical about it, telling me that he'd had a good life and, wrinkling his nose, that he might manage another year. Before we parted he advised me that he had remembered the Trust's work in his Will. Kingsley died peacefully in his sleep just two months later. I was relieved for him that he had been spared the pain and discomfort of a slower death.
From our exchanges I expect for Kingsley the USP was the very edgy nature of our work with its tangible highly worthwhile outcomes, but most of all the very personal nature of the Trust. Unlike the big charities we are still very close to our roots, with my link to Esther and two Trustees (including Paddy) who knew her very well. We pride ourselves in how we interact on a very personal level with supporters by e mail, letter, and face to face both in UK and Nepal.
Nadia Kamel, the successful (and very impressive) candidate from yesterday, should be very proud that she has been selected to join such an organisation and given the opportunity to play her part in upholding its core values.
Thursday 10 July 2008
A World of Difference
My last few days in Nepal before returning to UK on Tuesday evening were so hectic with trying to fit everything in that I was even denied my little pleasure of blogging. Business has now resumed, but only temporarily before I go for two weeks' holiday to The Scilly Isles on Saturday. I don't expect there to be any blogging from there and I really hope that there is very little to report upon in any case.
Driving from the airport on Tuesday I was struck by the clarity of the air - a stark contrast from the car exhaust polluted air of Kathmandu - and the beauty of the landscape even when viewed from the M25 motorway. Those who live in the UK and complain about it don't know their good fortune. Mind you I was beginning to wonder a little myself yesterday as I contemplated the incessant rain and took on board the flood warnings that were being issued by the Met Office. I thought that I had been escaping the monsoon.
Stepping out of the door of my in laws home in Welwyn Garden City for my early morning (6.00 a.m.) jog, I knew immediately that this would be quite a different experience, a world away from pounding the back streets of Kathmandu. The air was crisp and clean and all felt fresh after a thorough soaking yesterday. But there was more to savour, as I enjoyed the security and comfort of even footpaths and pavements, the manicured gardens and hedges and the silence of public woods. The well trodden forest paths (probably kept in control by the genteel locals with their labradors) were a delight, with no hint of the dog mess that one has to avoid in Kathmandu. This was my longest run since I resumed regular exercise two weeks ago however that was not a case of my being virtuous. The truth of the matter is that I became lost in the oneness of it all and eventually had to retrace my steps to trudge my way home.
This afternoon I will be chairing an interview board for a replacement for one of my two London office staff members, Camilla Kinchin, who has resigned her appointment after a great four years' service to the Trust both in UK and Nepal. This will represent a temporary setback for us as we have to stand the (unavoidable) costs of advertising in the national press for a replacement who will then of course have to be trained up to meet our needs. But yesterday there came an unexpected bonus.
Earlier in the day I had been telling my father in law how I felt that I needed not just a replacement for Camilla but an extra staff member to support me in Nepal. Even that would still represent skeleton staffing but it would give the balance of having two staff in each country and allow me a better chance of meeting those deadlines that seem to slip all the time.
The Good Lord was one ahead of me for hours later in came an e mail from a young lady who had seen the advertisement for the vacancy in the London office. She is intending to apply to the Vodafone "World of Difference" programme that pays the salary and expenses for a staff member for one year and wishes to do so on the basis of joining our team. It may not come to anything but she has very strong credentials within the sector and if successful that would allow the two appointments in London to be shared by three individuals allowing rotation of support to the Nepal office.
Ours is a very small charity that achieves a great deal and has big ambitions in the fight against child trafficking. An extra pair of hands really would make a world of difference.
Driving from the airport on Tuesday I was struck by the clarity of the air - a stark contrast from the car exhaust polluted air of Kathmandu - and the beauty of the landscape even when viewed from the M25 motorway. Those who live in the UK and complain about it don't know their good fortune. Mind you I was beginning to wonder a little myself yesterday as I contemplated the incessant rain and took on board the flood warnings that were being issued by the Met Office. I thought that I had been escaping the monsoon.
Stepping out of the door of my in laws home in Welwyn Garden City for my early morning (6.00 a.m.) jog, I knew immediately that this would be quite a different experience, a world away from pounding the back streets of Kathmandu. The air was crisp and clean and all felt fresh after a thorough soaking yesterday. But there was more to savour, as I enjoyed the security and comfort of even footpaths and pavements, the manicured gardens and hedges and the silence of public woods. The well trodden forest paths (probably kept in control by the genteel locals with their labradors) were a delight, with no hint of the dog mess that one has to avoid in Kathmandu. This was my longest run since I resumed regular exercise two weeks ago however that was not a case of my being virtuous. The truth of the matter is that I became lost in the oneness of it all and eventually had to retrace my steps to trudge my way home.
This afternoon I will be chairing an interview board for a replacement for one of my two London office staff members, Camilla Kinchin, who has resigned her appointment after a great four years' service to the Trust both in UK and Nepal. This will represent a temporary setback for us as we have to stand the (unavoidable) costs of advertising in the national press for a replacement who will then of course have to be trained up to meet our needs. But yesterday there came an unexpected bonus.
Earlier in the day I had been telling my father in law how I felt that I needed not just a replacement for Camilla but an extra staff member to support me in Nepal. Even that would still represent skeleton staffing but it would give the balance of having two staff in each country and allow me a better chance of meeting those deadlines that seem to slip all the time.
The Good Lord was one ahead of me for hours later in came an e mail from a young lady who had seen the advertisement for the vacancy in the London office. She is intending to apply to the Vodafone "World of Difference" programme that pays the salary and expenses for a staff member for one year and wishes to do so on the basis of joining our team. It may not come to anything but she has very strong credentials within the sector and if successful that would allow the two appointments in London to be shared by three individuals allowing rotation of support to the Nepal office.
Ours is a very small charity that achieves a great deal and has big ambitions in the fight against child trafficking. An extra pair of hands really would make a world of difference.
Thursday 3 July 2008
Surveying Godawari
Over the last few years I have been working to break out of the static inward-looking "children's home" mentality that is so prevalent in Nepal. This has been reflected in offering more to the children who are in our care than merely catering for their basic needs and education. Accordingly our Child Education, Development and Reintegration (CEDAR) Programme incorporates elements like introducing children to activities that will identify and develop other, non-academic, talents (see my post of 11th Feb on The International Award) and encourage children to become good young citizens who are socially aware and up for a challenge in life.
Recently I have been considering out to take CEDAR a step further by broadening our service provision to the communities that lie in the locality of our children's facilities in Godawari, near Kathmandu. This would allow us to work beyond the refuge walls offering rewarding activities to underprivileged children in the neighbourhood and to fully incorporate our resident children better within the wider community through involving them in projects with village children.
To get the ball rolling on this embellishment we've just started an in depth needs analysis to establish what we might do in future to help the local community's children. Over the last week UK-based volunteer Mike ("Mac") McCurry has been trudging through rain and muddy hillside with our local researchers Bijay Karki and Reena Paudel to lay the foundations for the study. Their early findings have been thought-provoking. Although Mac goes back to UK on Saturday he will continue to support Bijay and Reena from afar in their research and report writing for the guidance of the Trustees of the charity.
I joined them for a stroll today, looking over possible landsites for our future children's facilities that will serve as refuge and community centre. One in particular that caught my imagination was a very verdant one that I gather could one day have the planned Kathmandu outer ring road ploughed through it. Maybe if we can get there first we can develop it very sensitively preserving its wealth of flora and fauna and hope that the ring road skirts around us and through a less environmentally sensitive area. An intriguing project.
At the end of the tour I called to see our local Director's home which is now under construction. Shailaja is very proud of her bungalow, not least of the large hall that she has incorporated into the construction. With a chuckle she told me how she could use this as a children's recreation facility during the school holidays.
Shailaja can never resist the temptation to take some "work" home.
Recently I have been considering out to take CEDAR a step further by broadening our service provision to the communities that lie in the locality of our children's facilities in Godawari, near Kathmandu. This would allow us to work beyond the refuge walls offering rewarding activities to underprivileged children in the neighbourhood and to fully incorporate our resident children better within the wider community through involving them in projects with village children.
To get the ball rolling on this embellishment we've just started an in depth needs analysis to establish what we might do in future to help the local community's children. Over the last week UK-based volunteer Mike ("Mac") McCurry has been trudging through rain and muddy hillside with our local researchers Bijay Karki and Reena Paudel to lay the foundations for the study. Their early findings have been thought-provoking. Although Mac goes back to UK on Saturday he will continue to support Bijay and Reena from afar in their research and report writing for the guidance of the Trustees of the charity.
I joined them for a stroll today, looking over possible landsites for our future children's facilities that will serve as refuge and community centre. One in particular that caught my imagination was a very verdant one that I gather could one day have the planned Kathmandu outer ring road ploughed through it. Maybe if we can get there first we can develop it very sensitively preserving its wealth of flora and fauna and hope that the ring road skirts around us and through a less environmentally sensitive area. An intriguing project.
At the end of the tour I called to see our local Director's home which is now under construction. Shailaja is very proud of her bungalow, not least of the large hall that she has incorporated into the construction. With a chuckle she told me how she could use this as a children's recreation facility during the school holidays.
Shailaja can never resist the temptation to take some "work" home.
Wednesday 2 July 2008
A Study on Male Trafficker Prisoners
Last evening I read a report by The Daywalka Foundation, Nepal, on their research conducted in March 2006 of male trafficker prisoners inside Kathmandu jails. Of the 4,153 prisoners nationally (90% male, 10% female), 252 were males who had been convicted for trafficking and 91 female. Although the purpose of the study was stated as being designed to explore human trafficking from a "holistic" point of view it was not clear why it should have been based solely on interviews with male prisoners. Nor was it clear why prisoners in the rural jails were excluded from the research.
The principal investigator was a lawyer, Adv Shyam Pokharel. The information he obtained from the prisoners was very useful in terms of how they had gone about their activities and the economics of buying and selling human beings. But I was really shocked at how in a detached way - as if it seemed perfectly normal - he reported on the use of physical and mental torture on suspects while in police custody. The former includes practices like handcuffing, beating, electric shocks, denial of water and solitary confinement while the mental torture ranges from abusive language to death threats to promises to parade the suspect's wife naked in public. Almost 73% of those interviewed reported some form of torture, with 15% of these indicating physical torture and the remainder mental torture.
That was all bad enough, but then I read of how the researcher's analysis (and he is clearly no fool) suggested that almost 17% of those convicted were probably innocent of any crime. They were more likely to have been in jail because of the denunciation of others due to a personal vendetta (common practice in Nepal) or because of a misinterpretation of evidence. The inmates concerned were considered too poor to be able to fight a legal battle to establish their innocence. Pokharel gave an example of four youths who had joined a young girl on a trip to India at the promise of "work" by an agent. They were stopped by the police and themselves charged with trafficking. The prosecutor asked the court to impose a 5-10 year sentence but the court in the end awarded terms of 2.5 years. Pokharel felt that the reduced term indicated that the court recognised that they were innocent! In another case report he tells of how an uncle denounced his nephew as a cross border trafficking agent following the uncle's wife leaving home after a domestic quarrel. The nephew received a 12 year prison sentence. One year later when the aunt heard about this (she had settled elsewhere in Nepal and re-married) she came to Kathmandu to set the record straight and secure the lad's release. However The Supreme Court ruled against her as an appeal should have been lodged within 70 days of his original conviction.
Rather remarkably, considering that the report has been written by a lawyer, it gives no indication as to what action (if anything) has been taken or should be taken over these apparent miscarriages of justice. While I haven't the slightest sympathy for legitimately jailed agents - I know only too well the consequences of their crimes upon children - I am appalled at the injustices that go with the conviction of supects and the subsequent lack of redress for those who have been wrongfully jailed. Of course in the West, those 73% who experienced some form of torture (if true) would have had their cases thrown out of court on the grounds of inadmissable evidence irrespective of whether or not they were really guilty.
Nepal needs some really good human rights lawyers who will stand up for the prisoners as well as for their victims.
The principal investigator was a lawyer, Adv Shyam Pokharel. The information he obtained from the prisoners was very useful in terms of how they had gone about their activities and the economics of buying and selling human beings. But I was really shocked at how in a detached way - as if it seemed perfectly normal - he reported on the use of physical and mental torture on suspects while in police custody. The former includes practices like handcuffing, beating, electric shocks, denial of water and solitary confinement while the mental torture ranges from abusive language to death threats to promises to parade the suspect's wife naked in public. Almost 73% of those interviewed reported some form of torture, with 15% of these indicating physical torture and the remainder mental torture.
That was all bad enough, but then I read of how the researcher's analysis (and he is clearly no fool) suggested that almost 17% of those convicted were probably innocent of any crime. They were more likely to have been in jail because of the denunciation of others due to a personal vendetta (common practice in Nepal) or because of a misinterpretation of evidence. The inmates concerned were considered too poor to be able to fight a legal battle to establish their innocence. Pokharel gave an example of four youths who had joined a young girl on a trip to India at the promise of "work" by an agent. They were stopped by the police and themselves charged with trafficking. The prosecutor asked the court to impose a 5-10 year sentence but the court in the end awarded terms of 2.5 years. Pokharel felt that the reduced term indicated that the court recognised that they were innocent! In another case report he tells of how an uncle denounced his nephew as a cross border trafficking agent following the uncle's wife leaving home after a domestic quarrel. The nephew received a 12 year prison sentence. One year later when the aunt heard about this (she had settled elsewhere in Nepal and re-married) she came to Kathmandu to set the record straight and secure the lad's release. However The Supreme Court ruled against her as an appeal should have been lodged within 70 days of his original conviction.
Rather remarkably, considering that the report has been written by a lawyer, it gives no indication as to what action (if anything) has been taken or should be taken over these apparent miscarriages of justice. While I haven't the slightest sympathy for legitimately jailed agents - I know only too well the consequences of their crimes upon children - I am appalled at the injustices that go with the conviction of supects and the subsequent lack of redress for those who have been wrongfully jailed. Of course in the West, those 73% who experienced some form of torture (if true) would have had their cases thrown out of court on the grounds of inadmissable evidence irrespective of whether or not they were really guilty.
Nepal needs some really good human rights lawyers who will stand up for the prisoners as well as for their victims.
A Kathmandu snake
The beautiful creature pictured on the right passed through my garden this morning before vanishin
g up a drainage pipe, although, obligingly, he did turn around and pose for the camera before he departed. I am not sure what kind of snake it is (maybe someone can e mail me an answer?) but my security guard, Habula, assures me it's harmless. The snake must have had a good run of late ever since my dog Bryher killed a mongoose in the garden a couple of weeks ago. And on top of that the monsoon frogs seem to have been croaking a bit less outside our bedroom window these past few nights....
g up a drainage pipe, although, obligingly, he did turn around and pose for the camera before he departed. I am not sure what kind of snake it is (maybe someone can e mail me an answer?) but my security guard, Habula, assures me it's harmless. The snake must have had a good run of late ever since my dog Bryher killed a mongoose in the garden a couple of weeks ago. And on top of that the monsoon frogs seem to have been croaking a bit less outside our bedroom window these past few nights....
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