So here,  in no particular order, is what’s on MY mind.

Thought for the day … is the concept of dressing for success only a female thing?

I’m currently doing some interim in-house corporate communications work around connecting the employee engagement and diversity agendas.  Part of this has entailed helping the company to set up a women’s network, which launched earlier this week (hence, no blogging).  At the same time,  we’re also working to plan some events for the rest of the year and debating what they may be and who best to involve.  One suggestion has been that we co-create an event with the community affairs and philanthropy team,  and perhaps do something together which will benefit a women’s group or charity.

Now obviously,  I love this idea and am looking forward to the meeting where we can discuss this a bit more.  Another suggestion has been that we do something around the concept of “Dressing for Success” and do something for or with the charity of that name … and that made me wonder if such a concept even exists for men?

DfS (who I think are fabulous and do great work,  by the way – I’m not having a pop) was “set up by women to help other women get a job and become financially independent”.  But in all my years in the corporate world,  I’ve never seen anything similar for men – have you?

Imagine it:

• a poster campaign in the lift and around the office
• - which asks men to donate their unwanted suits and ties.
• Men providing other men with interview advice

Is this because men don’t need this help,  don’t want it or some other reason?  Is the help in question perhaps provided more casually?

* * * * *

Also on my mind … an article from last Sunday’s Observer, which has been circling around and around ever since I read it. Dr. Abhay Bang’s programme to reduce infant mortality in Maharashtra has achieved dazzling results but they -

“.. owe little to the orthodoxy of western medicine and everything to his team of neonatally trained rural women.”

Click here to read more.

* * * * *

I went to hear Sonia Gandhi deliver the Commonwealth Lecture in central London a few weeks ago.  The theme of her talk (and of this year’s programme of Commonwealth activities) was “Women as Agents of Change”, which celebrates women whose work has made a positive difference to the lives of others and emphasises the message that, by investing in women and girls, we can accelerate social, economic and political progress around the world.  My big “wow” moment from the talk – which you can read here – was to learn that 60% of all women in the Commonwealth are in India.

* * * * *

And finally … when I was in Mumbai in December,  I met a very interesting man called Abhi Naha,  who is working, through his company Zone V,  to develop a mobile phone for use by the blind.  Abhi told me that over two thirds of the 415 million blind and partially sighted people in the world are women, which is why he is so passionate about empowering blind women through mobile phone technology.  Zone V‘s motto is:

“Imagine a world where lack of sight does not mean lack of vision”

- and Abhi certainly doesn’t lack vision,  in any sense of the word.  A few days ago,  he texted me and asked – “If you could have an ‘empowerment button’ on your mobile phone for women in developing countries, what would you make it do?”

I replied:

“I’d use it to educate the 62 million girls around the world who don’t even get to go to primary school.”

How about you – what would YOUR empowerment button do?



For me,  IWD was all about spending the day at a university,  at which I spoke and chaired an event called “Breaking Glass”.  I heard about the glass ceiling as it exists within academia and learned,  not altogether surprisingly,  that the issues faced by female staff at universities (reasonably high numbers at entry level, falling away at a career mid point,  subsequent difficulties in progressing to the top tier) mirror almost exactly those faced by their sisters in the corporate world.

I used the centenary of IWD to structure my talk around the way in which the world has changed for women since 1911 and the key events and people who have made those changes come about.  My brief had been to “make it light”,  so I peppered my slides with a few key quotations – some of which I share now.

“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women …”

– Madeleine Albright, the first female US Secretary of State, 1997 – 2001

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what a feminist is.  I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

– Rebecca West, writer, 1913

“Well behaved women seldom make history …”

– Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, professor at Harvard University

“I wanted to work there because I wanted to become a writer. I was quickly assured that women didn’t become writers at Newsweek. It would never have crossed my mind to object … It was a given in those days that if you were a woman and you wanted to do certain things, you were going to have to be the exception to the rule.”

– Nora Ephron – writer, novelist, film director [on starting her career in 1962]

My favourite quotation,  which I didn’t use because I hadn’t then read the originating article,  comes from Mariella Frostrup in The Observer,  who,  in a blistering and truly excellent piece of journalism, reminded us that the struggle is far from over and that,  within the closed world of UK politics:

“… there are more blokes called Dave and Nick in government than there are women MPs. Women continue to hover at a steady 19% in the chamber, put off perhaps by a testosterone-fuelled climate where the last two prime ministers’ wives have given up high- flying careers to support their husbands or simply to satisfy the perceived demands of middle England.”

Check it out – one of the best and most impassioned articles on feminism you may read.

It’s been a busy week, with a mixture of freelance writing, charity work for Educators’ Trust India and, unexpectedly,  a sidebar trip to Chennai.

Monday saw me spending the day working on the “Volunteer with Us” section of their website,  and hammering out the framework by which ETI can take on around 20 volunteers for the 2011/2012 tourist season.  We also identified 20 children who are in need of monthly sponsors and talked about how that model will work … feel free to email me if you’d like more details.

On Tuesday I went back to the slum with the Morning Light project and spent five hours there, washing the children, handing out samosas and being in charge of Operation Underwear.  Two Swedish supporters,  Jane and Bjorn,  donated a large shopping bag full of assorted pairs of differently sized knickers … so we had a system going whereby we washed the kids,  treated their hair for nits and they then lined up in order to receive a new pair of pants.

(Over which they then re-dressed themselves in their filthy old clothes.)

Jane also provided each child with a Mickey Mouse toothbrush,  so we had an “up and down, side to side, rinse and SPIT” teeth brushing lesson in the open air.

Two children were particularly affectionate this week; brother and sister,  they came running over as soon as they saw me and then attached themselves to me for the duration of my visit,  each one clinging to a hand. Diego translated for me and I learned that the lady with them,  whom I had assumed was their mum,  is in fact their nanni – they are the children of her son and she is raising them,  as their mother died a few years ago.  I was so sad to leave them – lots of hugs all round and they cried when we drove away.  I wonder if I’ll ever see them again?

On Wednesday I spent a long, dusty and above all HOT morning at Anjuna market;  until this trip,  it’s just been the place that I visit to shop and sightsee and take colourful photos,  but this time,  I spent the morning working with Diego on the ETI fund raising stall.  I gave out leaflets,  explained what we do (“we run schools for slum children” – how about that for an elevator pitch?) and took donations of clothes, toiletries, books and money.  Some very clear national divides emerged between the passersby: Indian tourists walked straight on,  Russians stopped to look and then barked “No!” or even,  charmingly, “F*ck off!” if you offered them a leaflet; Americans were friendly, interested but usually backpacking, so had very little money to offer but always managed around 100 rupees (c. £1.40) as a donation,  with an apology that it couldn’t be more; northern Europeans from places such as Germany and Scandinavia didn’t want to chat but always stuffed a generous donation into my collecting box before walking on.

Most of the money came from the British tourists,  who were uniformly friendly, positive, supportive and generous – it gladdened my heart to meet so many lovely people,  who gave so freely of their time and their possessions. I only did four hours there and was knackered at the end of it – and there’s poor Diego,  doing a 12 hour day week in, week out, every Wednesday.  What a star.

Thursday saw a complete gear change for me;  I cobbled together a vaguely “smart” outfit from things in my traveller’s wardrobe plus some borrowed shoes and flew to Chennai on the other side of India for a business meeting-cum-interview.  After three weeks in the universal melting pot of Goa,  it felt strange to be on a plane where I was the only woman aside from the staff and the only westerner – everyone else was a dark skinned business man with a laptop and a bushy moustache.  Upon arrival at Chennai airport, I saw a billboard welcoming the England cricket team and a sign saying “hello Thompson mr”  and was then whisked away to the Sheraton hotel,  courtesy of my hosts.

TV! Hot water! Room service! A vibrating massage chair … what a contrast to the start of my week.

My “Alice down the rabbit hole” feeling continued the next day,  when I managed to have an interview, meet the England cricket team (obtaining some autographs for my taxi driver Satish in the process – he is now “Top Man in Goa”, apparently), chat to the Sky Sports camera team and meet my friend Priya from Bangalore for lunch … before flying back to Goa to head up the ETI team in a pub quiz – which we won!

Yesterday I rested,  before going to a wedding in the evening.  I knew neither bride (Feliciana) or groom (Romeo)  but was invited as a guest through my friend Renee; her landlord is the bride’s uncle (or something). So Satish drove us through the twilight to a huge, open air wedding venue,  where we joined around 500 other people in celebrating their marriage. Fireworks, confetti, party poppers, spray string, fabulous food,  Bollywood dance moves and a free bar …

Today I’m blogging, packing,  saying goodbye to my friends (although quite a few people have already left for home;  this is the Big Exodus weekend) and then heading out to a concert by the ETI children – they’re performing some dance moves – like this – at a local restaurant and we’re hoping to raise a few more donations from it.

I’m leaving on a jet plane,  don’t know when I’ll be back again – but I hope it’s soon.

* * * * *

Namaste, as we say in India – it is a lovely greeting from the heart. The greeting has inner significance, let me just explain briefly.  By holding both hands in a prayer position and looking at the eyes of the person you are greeting, this means that with my five senses of perception, five organs of action and with my soul I greet you. It also means that I see God in you and I welcome you with that intention and purpose. This is much better than our western greeting of just saying hello or shaking hands.

Having read Cleo’s article on the work of Educators’ Trust India, I was very impressed. It carried the point home to the reader: that in India, we have a tremendous gap between the poor and the rich, and yet out there we still have noble people who want to make a difference.

Let’s get serious.  My mind boggles to see this extreme poverty, this obvious carelessness and selfishness which is quite apparent when we visit the slums. I have the deep feeling that in the 21^st century, this should not be allowed to exist – the obvious pain, the suffering born of  hunger and illness, no proper human being should allow this to happen. Well, it is happening, what are we doing? This world belongs to us all, not just the Goan, the Indians, the British but to us all, and our teaching from the great books says it all, that there should be no class based, creed based, religious based, colour based discrimination.  As humans, we  should be utterly ashamed of our apparent lack of love and concern for the needs of these poor, displaced people in our society.

At Educators’ Trust India, we are empowering these children through education and trying to give a few of them food and clothing, but this is a drop in the ocean.

Our Morning Light project,  where we provide a mobile health, education, sanitation and nutritional service to slum dwellers  is the best that I have ever undertaken.  I say this with experience – my voluntary missionary work and philanthropy in medical fields have taken me to various parts of the world – but this is the ONLY project in Goa where we are going to the poor, the destitute and displaced people.  These people are so poor, so illiterate, so hungry that they do not have the energy to know how to fight their corner.  India is boasting that they are a world power; I disagree,  as one cannot be rich by means of acquiring  gold or dollars, one gets richness when the hearts and mind and the physical health of all its citizens are fulfilled, without hunger, homelessness, illiteracy  or holding out of the hands for a few rupees.  It makes me not angry, but sad at the thought of such treatment in an open society as ours. Remember,  slavery is now forbidden, but in reality it still exists.

At Morning Light each week, our volunteers, all of whom come from wealthy Western backgrounds, see no difference in colour,  creed or race, they see all as one and the love flows. Everyone is engaged in various tasks – you will see them washing, bathing, shampooing the children hoping to get rid of their suffering due to head lice. These children just do not have the simple itching manifestation of head lice:  they have bleeding, scarring and intense itching – why? It is obvious they have been neglected.  You can also see our volunteers playing, cuddling with joy and affection at the same time as teaching some basics to the children.  I am engaged in treating the illness that comes alone, with the help of our nurse.  We may be doing basic treatments and they do not need somebody like me with extensive experience to deal with minor illnesses, but the point is that we care for them and it is done with unconditional Love.

Remember,  Love heals.

This requires patience, tolerance, fortitude, equanimity and fraternity – these will prove invaluable attributes in our pilgrimage to the souls of the poor and the needy. Remember, we need to be a flower which radiates charm and fragrance, whether it is for a poor child or a rich child.  As with all things good and noble, the project, as a mobile clinic bringing medical relief, feeding and education, empowering and educating the neglected Indians in the squalor of the slums, brings home the lesson that Love and Service are like the two wings of a bird.

Flight is not possible with just one wing alone.

* * * * *

Educators’ Trust India now have a Justgiving page. Please click here to make a donation if you can – even a few pounds or dollars makes a huge difference to both these children’s lives and to the work carried out by Dhiru and his team. Thank you.

Sangeetha, it turns out,  is 28 years old and a married mother of three.  She is very small in stature, probably no taller than 5 foot,  very, very slim – she actually looks malnourished, in terms of her eyes and her cheekbones and her whole demeanour.  She’s also disabled  and she walks with a very pronounced limp. When she moved the folds of her sari to sit down, I saw that she had a withered foot and leg and I later discovered that she’d been born like that.

She speaks limited but reasonably clear English and so we talked freely as long as I spoke slowly.  She must have been born into quite a good family,  as she stayed in education up to the age of 18.  Given that school in Goa is only free until you’re 13,  that indicates, I think, some family resources behind her.  She was married at 18 and has 3 children,  the oldest of whom is 11, a girl; there are also sons of 9 and 5. She came to the attention of Diego and the ETI team when her 5 year old son, Parras (pictured above, in the blue shirt) came to the Leading Light school. She lives in the same village as the school, Canca and her other two children go to another school nearby via bus. As I mentioned before,  education here is “free” – in that the actual schooling is free, but then you have to pay for bus fares, uniforms, meals,  sometimes textbooks and so on.

Sangeetha is the sole wage earner for a family:  herself, her husband and the three children and she works as a cleaner for a local business,  where she earns 500 rupees per month.

That’s about £7.

I can’t even begin to imagine how they can survive on that – by way of a contrast, 500 RS is about the budget I give myself for my nightly evening meal.

Another useful comparison figure is that the “room boy” (Indian for “chamber maid”) at my hotel earns c. 3000 RS (£42) per month plus room and food – which makes it sound like quite a good job in comparison to Sangeetha’s role.

The reason that she is the sole wage earner is due to her husband being paralysed.   That in itself sounds tragic – but I also learned that her husband was a drug dealer and user and contracted HIV through the use of shared, dirty needles.  He subsequently had a paralytic stroke and so he is now at home, all day, paralysed,  whilst Sangeetha is forced to do what she can to earn a living.   She managed to get Parras into the ETI school and Sangeetha then approached Diego, the charity’s founder  and asked if there was any work for her at the school.  She pointed out that she’s smart,  she’s educated,  she went to school until she was 18,  she can speak some English and she’s a very fast learner.  And she promised that she would work very hard,  she would do anything at all that they needed her to do,  as long as they could pay her more than 500 RS per month – and would it also be possible for her other children to transfer from their schools and join this school?

Diego, who has a heart as big as the world,  asked us if we could chat to Sangeetha – which was where I came in.  So,  just sitting down with her,  this was what I heard – and we tried to find a way that was both possible and dignified for her to come and work here. She’s now paid 1000 RS per month and has started work as a “Classroom Assistant”;  she helps in the kitchen,  tidies the classroom,  helps to organise the children when we take them to the beach and so on.  One of the things that she told me was that she’s never been to the beach or seen the sea!  She was born and has grown up maybe 10 miles inland from this beautiful coastline and yet neither she nor her children have ever been there – so imagine what it’s going to be like when we take her family to the beach for the first time next week.

So that’s what’s in Sangeetha’s future;  what I think is particularly encouraging about her story is that it shows how the charity are starting to work with people from within the Goan community as well as with those who travel here from elsewhere.   One of the things that’s a constant in charity work here is the fact that some Goans are suspicious of and tend to have a dislike of NGOs who work with migrant communities.  They can think of the migrants that “… these problems are of their own making – if they stayed in their home state, they wouldn’t bring themselves and their problems into our beautiful state of Goa”.

But what we’re seeing now is that the charity has an infrastructure to support those people within Goa who also live in poverty.  Diego will never turn away a child in need,  especially if that child has parents who want their child to be educated. He’s not going to check where they’re from – he just sees a child in need and wants to help.

So, I think the fact that there will be “local” children in the schools may make a difference to the way in which the more affluent Goans start to perceive the charity.  Let’s hope so.

I arrived here on Saturday evening,  just in time to join the Educators’ Trust India team at a fund raising event at a local restaurant.  Some of the volunteers had taught the children a dance routine,  so they came into the restaurant and performed,  whilst we passed around the hat, sold raffle tickets and ran an auction,  with prizes such as a trip to the local monkey sanctuary or dinner for two at the restaurant.  In a moment of madness,  I bid for the chance to push Ian,  the on-site project manager into the swimming pool … he’s a big guy and it was extremely satisfying to shove him in for the price of c. £70 …

All in all,  we raised nearly £350,  which is enough to buy one of the key items on the charity’s wish list: a mobile water filter,  which they can take around to the various rural slums and use to provide fresh, clean water for the children and their families.  Drinking filthy water from polluted ponds and streams has had some truly horrific health consequences (a little girl I visited in the Panjim hospital last November has, I learned yesterday,  died of kidney failure due to bad water), so it’s great that the tourists’ generosity has led to the acquisition of something so tangible.

Later today, I’m going over to the Leading Light school in order to do some work on the website and to hand over my huge bag of gifts and donations from the UK.  Here’s some of what I brought – all in all, I arrived with 46 kgs of luggage,  of which about half  is for the charity. Again,  I’m grateful for the generosity of my friends and family back home: my mother has set up a monthly standing order for the charity and also gave me some money to buy the #1 item on the “we need it NOW” wish list – head lice lotion.  Another friend donated her Boots Advantage card points,  which I used to buy lots of bottles of hand sanitiser and Liz did loads of printing for me – small gestures but very much appreciated and they will make a world of difference to the children.  

While I’m here,  I want to interview some Goan women for Mother India and to spend some time at the Mother and Baby home and at the HIV clinic – my friends Jim and Moe have arranged for me to interview Sister Jessie,  the nun who runs it.

My taxi driver Satish has kindly invited me to his sister’s wedding next weekend,  so my dance card is filling up – and I will also make a flying visit to Palolem in south Goa (stick “Palolem beach Goa” into Google images and you’ll see why)  in order to catch up with my backpacking friend Natasha.

More next time,  when I can get online again …

My interviews for Mother India have gone really well so far – there’s a small update about them over at the book site if you’re interested. And tomorrow I head to Goa to do some more interviews, scope out the book’s opening chapters and see my friends at Educators’ Trust India. They’re having a fund raiser at a local restaurant in the evening, featuring some of the children performing and dancing, which should be fun.

I’m often asked – “why India?” and it’s a great question.  Here’s what I love about India:

… the people, the vibrancy, the history, the culture, the blend of old and new, the colonial and the rural, the scenery, the food.

I find difficult … the poverty, the contrast between the wealth and the poverty, certain elements of Indian behaviour (for example, they hate breaking bad news so will often lie instead …), the fact that I am dish of the day for the mosquito population, the intermittent internet access, the fact that my BlackBerry never ever works in Bangalore – the so-called Silicon Hub of India … etc.

This trip is going to be different, though.  This time, I’m working on a book – not my Great Goan Novel, but a new idea;  one about which I’m really excited.  When I was first made redundant at the end of 2009,  a lot of people asked me if I was going to write a book,  or suggested that I should.  I was offered the chance to ghost-write for a contact,  and to collaborate with someone else on their book – but,  in both cases,  I felt quite strongly that,  if I was going to work that hard on a book,  I wanted my name in a nice big font on the cover.  I also felt that one needs to have a Big Idea in order to write a book and,  at that point,  I just didn’t have my Big Idea.

But,  now I do.  The Big Idea has landed. I’m writing a book about women in India,  twenty-first century women in their many guises and the current working title is Mother India. I’ve set up a new blog site which I’ll be updating with details of the project and of the women I meet and interview,  so feel free to take a look and/or sign up for regular updates.   If you’re a film buff,  the title of Mother India may sound faintly familiar – and I reference what and why this is over at the book site itself.

I’ve already organised my first three interviews for later this week in Mumbai and have been really encouraged by the positivity with which my requests for interviews have been revceived,  and how welcoming everyone has been towards my Big Idea;  one woman commented that:

“I’m also thanking you on behalf of all Indian women for taking up a topic such as this, which is not known or understood in totality to the western world. Your project sounds wonderful and I’d be more than happy to help in any way.”

So – goodbye London, namaste Mumbai.

The article starts:

Goa: the smallest and the richest state in India; a former Portuguese colony, a place of beautiful golden beaches, swaying palm trees and over a million domestic and foreign tourists per year. The wealth brought by the tourists also brings an influx of economic migrants. In search of work and money, they travel to this tiny state in western India from other areas – hundreds and in some cases thousands of miles away.

I first visited Goa in 1999, have been back many times since then and have seen the volume of both tourists and of workers from other parts of India soar in the intervening years. Unsurprisingly, the Goan infrastructure is now creaking under this flood of people; from a tourist’s point of view, power cuts and water shortages are increasingly common but can be dismissed as being “part of the Indian experience.” However, what many tourists never see are the living environments of many of the migrant workers – and, more particularly, how this impacts the health and education of their children.

- and can be read in its entirety by clicking here.

This week,  I’ve been writing copy for some of the other pages on the ETI website and I had a Skype call with the team in Goa in order to get some ideas for content and to check some details and facts.  Here’s what they told me when I asked what they’d buy with certain specific cash sums:

£5                                Buys 5 pairs of flip flops to protect children’s feet from injuries and blood poisoning

£10                              Provides rice, milk and eggs for a dozen pregnant and breast feeding women

£15                              50p per day pays for a month’s medical supplies such as antibiotics, plasters, dressings, headlice treatment, cough medicine, anti-malarial tablets etc

£20                              Funds materials such as a week’s worth of petrol to drive between their projects and visit the mobile schools, take sick children to hospital and so on

£25                              Pays for one week’s rent at one of the two permanent schools

£50                              Buys a DVD player and educational DVDs

£100                            Pays for one teacher’s salary for a month.

As I say in the article,  these figures certainly put my daily latte habit (c. £50 a month!) into perspective …