Month: July 2017

My first week at Clarity

My first week at Clarity passed by quicker than expected. But that could be the result of starting on a Tuesday and finishing early on the Friday. But before I dive into the events of my first week at the charity, let me provide you with an insight into what they’re all about.

Clarity is a social enterprise that produces home care and personal care products. The company has charitable status as the majority of their workforce has some form of disability. The charity uses the money that they make from the sale of their products to support and provide employment for those with disabilities.

First Two Weeks at The Brilliant Club: The First Project

My Charity Insights internship is at The Brilliant Club – a charity that aims to increase the number of students from under-represented backgrounds at highly-selective universities in the United Kingdom. The Brilliant Club office is located in the Kensington Centre on Hammersmith road, next to Kensington Olympia. The entire London branch of the organisation is housed in a large open-space office which is shared together with Future First and has a seating capacity of approximately 100 people. My motivation to undertake a placement at this organisation stemmed from my previous experience of working for People In Need – a Czech charity focused on educating children from excluded Roma communities in the Czech Republic, and from my long-held belief that is it through education that growing world inequality should be tackled.

My First Week at Full Fact

Full Fact, the charity I’m currently working at, is an independent factchecking charity that “…provide free tools, information and advice so that anyone can check the claims we hear from politicians and the media.” They do factchecks in a variety of areas from the NHS to student debt, and factcheck claims made during the Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), among others.

While Full Fact factchecks claims in many different areas, they have yet to touch claims/questions made regarding the metaphysical realm, such as “What is life?” or “To be, or not to be?” or “I think, therefore I am.” Such questions are best left to the reader to consult Quora.com,

Team Up – tackling educational inequality

Educational inequality is a huge problem throughout our education system. At primary school, only 1 in 3 children from poorer families achieves the expected levels in reading, writing and maths at age 11. At secondary school, 33% of pupils on Free School Meals achieved 5 A*-Cs at GCSE compared to 60.5% of all other pupils. Of these students, 1 in 4 make it to university compared to nearly double the amount of all other students. These students have a 1 in 1500 chance of making it into Oxford or Cambridge whereas 1 in 20 students from private schools go on to study at these universities.[1]

First week at Marches Energy Agency

It is the 9th of July and it has been exactly one week since I started working in Marches energy agency. Thanks to my previous visits I managed to get used to the working place fairly quickly and made myself comfortable in a nearby accommodation. So overall speaking it’s not a bad start and I’m really enjoying this whole experience.

In case you didn’t know, the charity I am working with (MEA) is an energy charity located in Shrewsbury, it’s an organization full of talented and passionate people who are dedicated to fight local fuel poverty and climate change. My role comes in to research the new green energy applications which can be potentially used by MEA in the future, also to look for new possible services MEA could bring in the future by learning from other bigger organisations.

Marylebone FoodCycle: this is not my last goodbye

So here I am writing my ultimate blog for Charity Insights at the end of my internship at Marylebone FoodCycle. It has been a month full of new encounters, impactful experiences and blissful moments shared with the people I have met on my volunteering journey. I have written my last report and sent the last few emails as part of my project, and it is now time to reflect upon my experience.

Working for Marylebone FoodCycle at St. Paul’s Church allowed me to get an insight into what working for the charity and social sector is like; it gave me a deeper understanding of the dynamics involved in such organisations.

Marylebone FoodCycle: the journey continues

As most – if not all – precious participants of Charity Insights reflected in their blog posts, I  too cannot believe three weeks have already flown by. I have learned and shared so much on my ongoing journey in the volunteering and non-for-profit sector. Since this post is meant for the reader, whatever brings you to read these words, to get a glimpse of my placement, I thought I’d share the most important and decisive moments I have had so far.

The key week was the second week, which involved lots of networking events where I had the opportunity the exchange thoughts with people from various backgrounds, ranging from hotel managers to social workers.