Teach First. Now there’s an organisation that really is making a difference.
It was founded in 2002, and it takes graduates from top universities and turns them into teachers and/or leaders. Here’s the deal. Top graduates are trained so they teach for two years in the toughest and most educationally disadvantaged secondary schools in London, the North West and the Midlands.
After two years they either stay on as teachers, or join one of the sponsoring companies as an employee. The hundred or so supporting companies – Cadbury Schweppes, HSBC, McKinsey’s, Microsoft etc – invest in the charity for two reasons. Reason one is social conscience – help the community by helping to put quality teachers in the schools where they are needed.
Reason two is that the Teach First graduates who after the two years decide not to make a permanent career in teaching go to work for them. And they are a very special graduate intake, because after two years of teaching tough kids in tough secondary schools their communication skills, and their planning, organisational and creative skill, are way beyond anyone who hasn’t been through the experience.
Indeed, Teach First turns them into both elite teachers and elite human beings. Teaching, business, industry and society all benefit.
Teach first recently got a fantasically positive Ofsted Report. There have been 1000 plus participants in the scheme since it started, and this year two of the graduates joining the scheme were beneficiaries themselves of it. Yes they attended two of those educationally deprived inner city schools.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Today, a difference
An extract from the site:
Get started by doing something today. Find a simple way to make a difference to someone in the next twenty-four hours. Devote between five minutes and half-an-hour to it. Your budget: anywhere from nothing to an hour's wages.
It could be as obvious as carrying someone's groceries. It could be buying a book for a friend. It could be phoning someone who's unhappy or troubled.
Choose something simple but worthwhile, and go do it. Then see how it makes you feel: our bet is that you'll feel more fulfilled immediately.
Get started by doing something today. Find a simple way to make a difference to someone in the next twenty-four hours. Devote between five minutes and half-an-hour to it. Your budget: anywhere from nothing to an hour's wages.
It could be as obvious as carrying someone's groceries. It could be buying a book for a friend. It could be phoning someone who's unhappy or troubled.
Choose something simple but worthwhile, and go do it. Then see how it makes you feel: our bet is that you'll feel more fulfilled immediately.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Nobel Peace Prize winner: Mohammad Yusuf
Mohammad Yusuf is the man who started the micro loans revolution. An economics professor at Chittagong University in Bangladesh, he was devastated by the poverty around him, worsened by crop failure and famine that was going on at the time. He determined to find some way of applying the economic principles he was teaching to the dire state of the personal economies of people just beyond the campus gates.
He spoke to some of the villagers to see if he could do something – anything – to help. Talking to an old woman selling bamboo stools, he discovered she was making a profit of about 2 US cents a stool. This was after paying 20 cents for the bamboo.
What made her profit margin so desperately small was that she, along with countless others, was so poor she couldn’t fund the 20 cents capital for the bamboo. She had to borrow it from a moneylender, at an extortionate rate – sometimes as high as 10% a week. In reality she was a bonded slave to the moneylender, with no chance of breaking out of the vicious circle of slave labour and debt.
Yusuf sent a student to the village to find out how many other people were in the same situation, and how much there total debt was. The student reported that there were 42 people in a similar situation, and their total debt was $27.
Yusuf, realising such people were outside the conventional banking system, and thus unable to get bank loans, took the money from his own pocket. He told the student to lend the appropriate sums to the villagers on the firm understanding that it was a loan, not a gift, and that they should pay it back when they could afford to do so.
The villagers were enraptured, and took – and repaid – the seed corn money that helped them to survive through their own hard work. Yusuf realised this could be the mechanic that fanned the spark of personal enterprise and initiative that could pull them out of poverty.
The scheme spread, despite the resistance of conventional banks, who thought lending to such people was absurdly risky. In fact, their trustworthiness was outstanding. As the operation grew over time, two remarkable facts emerged.
The first was that 94% of loans were to women. The second was that 98% of loans were repaid – a much higher figure than for conventional banks.
The scheme grew (with little help from the financial community) into what is now the Grameen Bank. It has cumulatively lent over $5 billion dollars since 1983, and set countless people who were hardworking and honest, but penniless, free from financial servitude.
Well done the Nobel Peace Prize committee for recognising this fantastic act of Difference Driving.
He spoke to some of the villagers to see if he could do something – anything – to help. Talking to an old woman selling bamboo stools, he discovered she was making a profit of about 2 US cents a stool. This was after paying 20 cents for the bamboo.
What made her profit margin so desperately small was that she, along with countless others, was so poor she couldn’t fund the 20 cents capital for the bamboo. She had to borrow it from a moneylender, at an extortionate rate – sometimes as high as 10% a week. In reality she was a bonded slave to the moneylender, with no chance of breaking out of the vicious circle of slave labour and debt.
Yusuf sent a student to the village to find out how many other people were in the same situation, and how much there total debt was. The student reported that there were 42 people in a similar situation, and their total debt was $27.
Yusuf, realising such people were outside the conventional banking system, and thus unable to get bank loans, took the money from his own pocket. He told the student to lend the appropriate sums to the villagers on the firm understanding that it was a loan, not a gift, and that they should pay it back when they could afford to do so.
The villagers were enraptured, and took – and repaid – the seed corn money that helped them to survive through their own hard work. Yusuf realised this could be the mechanic that fanned the spark of personal enterprise and initiative that could pull them out of poverty.
The scheme spread, despite the resistance of conventional banks, who thought lending to such people was absurdly risky. In fact, their trustworthiness was outstanding. As the operation grew over time, two remarkable facts emerged.
The first was that 94% of loans were to women. The second was that 98% of loans were repaid – a much higher figure than for conventional banks.
The scheme grew (with little help from the financial community) into what is now the Grameen Bank. It has cumulatively lent over $5 billion dollars since 1983, and set countless people who were hardworking and honest, but penniless, free from financial servitude.
Well done the Nobel Peace Prize committee for recognising this fantastic act of Difference Driving.
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Making a difference to Falklands Post Traumatic Stress
Here are some chilling figures on the Battle of the Falklands, which took place 25 years ago.
• 30,000 service personnel took part
• 255 were killed in Combat
• Over 300 Falklands veterans have committed suicide since the end of the war
• 2,700 are likely to develop late onset, complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, emotional shutdown, hyper-arousal and avoidance behaviour.
• Relationships fail; self medicating with drugs and alcohol causes unemployment and homeless or imprisoned and many use suicide for relief.
Take it down to the level of the individual, and it becomes even more chilling.
Doug P. doesn't claim to be a war hero. He served in the Falklands war but doesn't have any medal for gallantry.
Doug joined the British Army in 1976 and trained as a combat medical technician. In 1982 he was serving with 55 Field Surgical Team attached to the 2nd Field Hospital in the Falklands.
He was an army medic onboard Sir Galahad when an Argentinean bomb exploded amongst the Welsh Guards waiting to be disembarked. Doug's actions in the horror of the burning tank deck saved many lives.
But the lives he couldn't save have haunted him for 25 years. To the point where he was self medicating with alcohol and drugs, his relationships all ended in failure and he attempted suicide four times.
On returning home from the Falklands his marriage started to fail and he was divorced by 1988. His drinking increased dramatically after the Falklands and he left the Army in 1989.
After the Army, he drifted between various jobs and transient relationships. The failure of the relationship involving his daughter - pushed him to the point of his first suicide attempt in 1999. At this time he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Since then Doug had three more suicide attempts and many years using alcohol to self medicate his condition. The limited support provided by the NHS did little to alleviate his symptoms.
The man who made the difference
David Walters, of Workplace Stress, a specialist in undoing workplace stress, heard about the problem of military veterans suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). And the fact that both the NHS and the Army seemed to be doing very little to help the sufferers.
He decided to do something to help, so he created the PTSD resilience training course. In the pilot programme over 70% of trainees were symptom free and able to self manage their symptoms after only 28 days.
David did the work unpaid.
The leading charity P3, has now offered their services to deliver David's revolutionary PTSD resilience training programme to all veterans with PTSD across the UK. This, sadly, will begin to include combatants from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Happily, Doug P. has recently completed the PTSD resilience training, and has now finished his journey back from the horror of the past twenty five years.
www.AfterTheFalklands.com
• 30,000 service personnel took part
• 255 were killed in Combat
• Over 300 Falklands veterans have committed suicide since the end of the war
• 2,700 are likely to develop late onset, complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, emotional shutdown, hyper-arousal and avoidance behaviour.
• Relationships fail; self medicating with drugs and alcohol causes unemployment and homeless or imprisoned and many use suicide for relief.
Take it down to the level of the individual, and it becomes even more chilling.
Doug P. doesn't claim to be a war hero. He served in the Falklands war but doesn't have any medal for gallantry.
Doug joined the British Army in 1976 and trained as a combat medical technician. In 1982 he was serving with 55 Field Surgical Team attached to the 2nd Field Hospital in the Falklands.
He was an army medic onboard Sir Galahad when an Argentinean bomb exploded amongst the Welsh Guards waiting to be disembarked. Doug's actions in the horror of the burning tank deck saved many lives.
But the lives he couldn't save have haunted him for 25 years. To the point where he was self medicating with alcohol and drugs, his relationships all ended in failure and he attempted suicide four times.
On returning home from the Falklands his marriage started to fail and he was divorced by 1988. His drinking increased dramatically after the Falklands and he left the Army in 1989.
After the Army, he drifted between various jobs and transient relationships. The failure of the relationship involving his daughter - pushed him to the point of his first suicide attempt in 1999. At this time he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Since then Doug had three more suicide attempts and many years using alcohol to self medicate his condition. The limited support provided by the NHS did little to alleviate his symptoms.
The man who made the difference
David Walters, of Workplace Stress, a specialist in undoing workplace stress, heard about the problem of military veterans suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). And the fact that both the NHS and the Army seemed to be doing very little to help the sufferers.
He decided to do something to help, so he created the PTSD resilience training course. In the pilot programme over 70% of trainees were symptom free and able to self manage their symptoms after only 28 days.
David did the work unpaid.
The leading charity P3, has now offered their services to deliver David's revolutionary PTSD resilience training programme to all veterans with PTSD across the UK. This, sadly, will begin to include combatants from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Happily, Doug P. has recently completed the PTSD resilience training, and has now finished his journey back from the horror of the past twenty five years.
www.AfterTheFalklands.com
Making a Difference in Prison
A month or so back, I saw an amazing example of someone giving selflessly to make a difference.
I went to see a play, put on by the prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs prison, in West London. The play was John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. It was brilliant. Very moving, and incredibly well acted, especially given the fact that none of the prisoners had acted in anything before.
It had been put together by a wonderful charity – Only Connect – which works in prisons to help prisoners find themselves in acting – and then helps them find work in the theatre or allied crafts when they leave prison. The charity workers were ex, or current actors, and the standard they had achieved after just a few months of rehearsals was fantastic.
It was even more fantastic given the fact they kept losing key actors as prisoners were moved on to other prisons because of prison overcrowding.
At the end of the performance the applause was deafening, and prolonged. When it died down, one of the prisoners made a heartfelt vote of thanks to Prison Officer Mills, one of the officers in attendance at the performance.
It transpired that a week away from the first night, when the actors were still very unsure of their lines, there was a danger of rehearsals having to stop altogether. A shortage of prison officers meant that there was no one to escort the prisoners to the rehearsal rooms, or guard them while they were there, so rehearsals would have to be terminated.
Into this crisis stepped Prison Officer Mills. He gave up a week of his annual leave to do the work, escorting them to and fro from their different wings of the prison, and looking after them while they were there.
This act of amazing generosity enabled the rehearsals to carry on, and the play to become the triumphant success it undoubtedly was.
Prison Officer Mills made a huge difference.
I went to see a play, put on by the prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs prison, in West London. The play was John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. It was brilliant. Very moving, and incredibly well acted, especially given the fact that none of the prisoners had acted in anything before.
It had been put together by a wonderful charity – Only Connect – which works in prisons to help prisoners find themselves in acting – and then helps them find work in the theatre or allied crafts when they leave prison. The charity workers were ex, or current actors, and the standard they had achieved after just a few months of rehearsals was fantastic.
It was even more fantastic given the fact they kept losing key actors as prisoners were moved on to other prisons because of prison overcrowding.
At the end of the performance the applause was deafening, and prolonged. When it died down, one of the prisoners made a heartfelt vote of thanks to Prison Officer Mills, one of the officers in attendance at the performance.
It transpired that a week away from the first night, when the actors were still very unsure of their lines, there was a danger of rehearsals having to stop altogether. A shortage of prison officers meant that there was no one to escort the prisoners to the rehearsal rooms, or guard them while they were there, so rehearsals would have to be terminated.
Into this crisis stepped Prison Officer Mills. He gave up a week of his annual leave to do the work, escorting them to and fro from their different wings of the prison, and looking after them while they were there.
This act of amazing generosity enabled the rehearsals to carry on, and the play to become the triumphant success it undoubtedly was.
Prison Officer Mills made a huge difference.
A Formative Experience by Mark Goyder
Mark Goyder is the Founder Director of Tomorrow's Company. This piece is written especially for this blog...
The one thing I wish for my own offspring and for people everywhere is that they will meet someone who inspires them as Alec Dickson inspired me.
I was 17 years old, sitting in a waiting room for a gap year interview when Alec walked in and asked me who I was. He looked nondescript, with a shiny dome on his head framed by white hair. But there was an intense look in his eye and determined drawl in his voice.
As Alec asked about me, I felt my own self-esteem rising. Clearly he believed me capable of almost anything. I started to believe it myself.
And so I embarked on seven months as a full-time “catalyst” volunteer with CSV (Community Service Volunteers) – the most formative experience of my life.
I was away from exam revision, school rules and restrictions. Suddenly I was an independent adult, with a role in the community in a small town in Shropshire where people needed me. I lived in a hostel for those with learning difficulties: I had access to all the local schools and my task was to connect people with time to give with people who needed their help or company.
Never mind the details of what I did. Enough that nobody asked for a qualification; nobody prejudged me; and I discovered what I was good at (mixing, getting people to listen, seeing opportunities) and what I was bad at (disciplining anyone, keeping records, focusing on a single task)
You cannot think your way into a new way of acting. You need to act your way into a new way of thinking.
That’s what the experience of community service did for me. I saw it happen to others, including a group of young offenders who didn’t have the choice.
Then I noticed something about many of the adults now in their 70s. When I asked them what shaped them they kept talking about how narrow their lives had been until they were forced to do national service. Suddenly they were forced to mix; forced to readjust their prejudices; forced to try things they thought they could not do; forced to learn skills they thought they weren’t interested in.
I spent years trying to persuade political parties to create voluntary community service schemes. We have these now.
I am now convinced that we need to overcome our hang-ups about compulsion. We should make national service/community service compulsory.
To earn entitlement to all the benefits that the state offers (pension, social security, etc) everyone between the age of 18 and 25 would be obliged to undertake a period of service to the community.
Let them choose what they do and where they do it and when, within that window of time they do it. But make it a requirement. For a determined 20% there would be no benefit: these are either the ones who have always known what they want to do with their lives, or the ones who are utterly determined not to give any new experience that is imposed on them a chance. For 60% it would be a great learning experience, albeit negative - finding out one or two things they are not good at. For 20%, it would be as it was for me, a revelation of the potential their formal schooling had never alerted them to.
That’s the balance sheet from the point of view of the individual. Now look at it from the point of view of society. This is living citizenship. Getting stuck in to make your community in some way a better place. Learning the hard way that you do not get something for nothing. Whether upper class or underclass, seeing how the other half lives and learning that the world is more than a consumer magic roundabout ready to dish out all the material goodies you need. What better way of getting Pakistanis and Poles, atheists, Moslems, and Goths to recognise they are all part of one community and they need each other?
Our society is only what we make of it. It isn’t made or protected by anything that elected governments do. Ultimately it is made and maintained by us. We all of us need to learn this before it is too late.
Years ago I was part of an exercise that did all the sums. Measured conventionally, a national community service scheme is prohibitively expensive. But imagine the savings from reducing by 10% the money we spend on the juvenile courts and prison system; and increasing by 10% the motivation of just 20% of our citizens; reducing by 10% the numbers of people with no interest in contributing to the economy or society.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have their Alec Dickson moment. But collectively we need a handbrake turn in our social attitudes. We need a new focus on the potential each one of us has to contribute to enriching our society. For me compulsory community service represents the best catalyst. Oppose it by all means. But what is your alternative?
Mark Goyder
The one thing I wish for my own offspring and for people everywhere is that they will meet someone who inspires them as Alec Dickson inspired me.
I was 17 years old, sitting in a waiting room for a gap year interview when Alec walked in and asked me who I was. He looked nondescript, with a shiny dome on his head framed by white hair. But there was an intense look in his eye and determined drawl in his voice.
As Alec asked about me, I felt my own self-esteem rising. Clearly he believed me capable of almost anything. I started to believe it myself.
And so I embarked on seven months as a full-time “catalyst” volunteer with CSV (Community Service Volunteers) – the most formative experience of my life.
I was away from exam revision, school rules and restrictions. Suddenly I was an independent adult, with a role in the community in a small town in Shropshire where people needed me. I lived in a hostel for those with learning difficulties: I had access to all the local schools and my task was to connect people with time to give with people who needed their help or company.
Never mind the details of what I did. Enough that nobody asked for a qualification; nobody prejudged me; and I discovered what I was good at (mixing, getting people to listen, seeing opportunities) and what I was bad at (disciplining anyone, keeping records, focusing on a single task)
You cannot think your way into a new way of acting. You need to act your way into a new way of thinking.
That’s what the experience of community service did for me. I saw it happen to others, including a group of young offenders who didn’t have the choice.
Then I noticed something about many of the adults now in their 70s. When I asked them what shaped them they kept talking about how narrow their lives had been until they were forced to do national service. Suddenly they were forced to mix; forced to readjust their prejudices; forced to try things they thought they could not do; forced to learn skills they thought they weren’t interested in.
I spent years trying to persuade political parties to create voluntary community service schemes. We have these now.
I am now convinced that we need to overcome our hang-ups about compulsion. We should make national service/community service compulsory.
To earn entitlement to all the benefits that the state offers (pension, social security, etc) everyone between the age of 18 and 25 would be obliged to undertake a period of service to the community.
Let them choose what they do and where they do it and when, within that window of time they do it. But make it a requirement. For a determined 20% there would be no benefit: these are either the ones who have always known what they want to do with their lives, or the ones who are utterly determined not to give any new experience that is imposed on them a chance. For 60% it would be a great learning experience, albeit negative - finding out one or two things they are not good at. For 20%, it would be as it was for me, a revelation of the potential their formal schooling had never alerted them to.
That’s the balance sheet from the point of view of the individual. Now look at it from the point of view of society. This is living citizenship. Getting stuck in to make your community in some way a better place. Learning the hard way that you do not get something for nothing. Whether upper class or underclass, seeing how the other half lives and learning that the world is more than a consumer magic roundabout ready to dish out all the material goodies you need. What better way of getting Pakistanis and Poles, atheists, Moslems, and Goths to recognise they are all part of one community and they need each other?
Our society is only what we make of it. It isn’t made or protected by anything that elected governments do. Ultimately it is made and maintained by us. We all of us need to learn this before it is too late.
Years ago I was part of an exercise that did all the sums. Measured conventionally, a national community service scheme is prohibitively expensive. But imagine the savings from reducing by 10% the money we spend on the juvenile courts and prison system; and increasing by 10% the motivation of just 20% of our citizens; reducing by 10% the numbers of people with no interest in contributing to the economy or society.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to have their Alec Dickson moment. But collectively we need a handbrake turn in our social attitudes. We need a new focus on the potential each one of us has to contribute to enriching our society. For me compulsory community service represents the best catalyst. Oppose it by all means. But what is your alternative?
Mark Goyder
Friday, 21 December 2007
WHO TOOK PART IN THE SURVEY
These pie charts show who responded to the survey. We conducted our survey in August 2007. We received replies from 87 people from businesses of all sizes. Over two thirds were directors or owners of their organisation. The organisations were of all sizes, split roughly one-third small (up to 10 people), one-third medium (up to 250 people) and one third large.
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