Category: Charity Insights 2015

Week Two at the KCF: Leadership, Alan Johnson MP and the Daily Mail

This week heralded the arrival of our new Director, Susan Dolton, who arrives with a wealth of experience having been director at the Charity “Help Musicians UK”. Fortunately for me, she has shown a great interest in my interning at the Foundation, and has already suggested a number of new projects I could pursue whilst working here. I’ve also realised she’s a shrewd manager and extremely competent leader; it’s amazing the effect it can have on a team’s productivity when the person in charge displays a genuine interest in what you’re doing, an effect I’ve noticed first hand in myself. She gives praise where and when it’s due, yet is unafraid of criticising elements of the Foundation whilst always remaining assertive and constructive. She’s also demonstrated an ambitious outlook for the Foundation, which I think is so important, since it would be such a shame for it to stagnate now considering how far it has come. I feel like I can learn a lot simply by observing how she leads a team.

We’ve had meeting with regards to progress of the organisation of the Foundation’s biggest event: its annual celebration, this year held at the V&A and featuring Kirsty Lang interviewing Alan Johnson MP. When organising such a large event, it’s critical everyone has an idea of what everyone else is doing, whilst ensuring they complete their own objectives. I’m beginning to appreciate the complexities of its organisation, ranging from deciding who and how to invite people and charities, how much people should be charged, logistics, catering, contingency plans, volunteer requirements, marketing etc.

This week was also when I realised the true vastness of the challenge of cataloging the borough’s enormity of celebrity talent. The original list, sparse in detail and numbering less than 25, has more than doubled in quantity and been greatly embellished, and yet I know I have barely scratched the surface. I’ve been using the Electoral Roll to try and gain information about whether or not the prospects still live in the borough, whilst also analysing the philanthropic tendencies of the prospects, to see if any of them chime in with causes the Foundation allies itself with. This information will also help form how we as a Foundation eventually approach them. The good news is that the Foundation supports a vast array of causes within the borough, so theoretically there should be something for everyone. As part of my mission to find out as much relevant information as possible about these celebrities, I’ve had to sift through pages and pages of tabloid interviews and articles, especially the Daily Mail.

The things I do for charity…

Week One at the KCF: Social Inequality, Microsoft Excel and Madonna

The Kensington & Chelsea Foundation is a charity which works to raise awareness of the harsh socio-economic contrasts that exist within the borough, and to help residents support local charities and community groups by championing the work of small charities. Essentially, the Foundation wants to make the borough a place where no one is held back by a lack of opportunity, a community where people and organisations work together to improve the lives of its most vulnerable members.

The foundation provides advice and guidance to residents, schools and businesses that want to become more engaged in their community. They also work to initiate campaigns to target specific needs. For example, in April they organised “The Right Royal Ride”, a bike ride in support of local mental health and well-being charities (which was attended, unexpectedly, by the Beckham family).

I arrived at the Foundation at a time of transition, with the old Director (Diana Spiegelberg, who was an invaluable help during the application process and without whom this internship would have been impossible) leaving, and her replacement not arriving until I’m halfway through my time here. Nonetheless the foundation have been very helpful in guiding and directing me, with a trustee being assigned to me to describe in detail my project and help me along the way.

My major project on this internship is to establish contact and market the Foundation to high profile people that live locally, with the eventual goal of convincing them to support (in potential ways I’ll describe in future posts) the foundation. From Madonna to Hugh Grant to Stella McCartney, if they live in the borough, I need to research them, gain as much information about them as I can and assess the likelihood of them being receptive to the Foundation’s objectives.

For now, I’m going through countless emails and the Foundation’s database, as well as newspapers, electoral rolls, interviews, Wikipedia and various trustee/staff contacts to generate as much data as possible regarding these high profile prospects, compiling it all into a Excel spreadsheet. Once I’m done, I can move on to assessing the possible routes the Foundation can use to get into contact with these prospects, as well as our method of approach, something I’ll go into in future blog posts.

Conference Success! Week 4

This week started off with many crucial tasks, including finalizing the attendee list, printing and binding the conference packet, creating name tags for the participants, and filling the gift bags. We had a good assembly line going, though, so it wasn’t too tedious.

The programme for the conference was successfully uploaded to the INCA2015 website, which was safely accepting research abstracts and payment for participation as well.

As an intern directly responsible for the outcome of the conference, I was also in charge of catering. Because the conference was hosted by PCRF, we contacted many shops around the South Kensington area to see if they would want to contribute to our conference.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) requires that many businesses incorporate some ethical or charitable actions into their business plan. CSR through environmental, social, or philanthropic means is important for improving the local communities’ response to the company. Many of the businesses we contacted had already allocated their annual budget for charitable acts to other charities, so it was difficult finding a company that would help. We were thrilled when Starbucks agreed to supply us with free freshly brewed coffee, cups, and milk, on both days of the conference. Thanks Starbucks!

On the day of the conference, I had a chance to meet so many people from all over the world. We welcomed our guests at the registration table, and then later on were able to listen to the inspiring speakers at the conference, and speak to participants exhibiting their research posters in the coffee breaks.

The combination of work at this charity was a dedicated effort to immerse myself into a scientific career with the fundamental goal of bettering people’s lives. I’m so thankful I was trusted with so many jobs so quickly. Planning the conference took up a significant part of my time at the charity. I was able to input so many of my ideas into planning the conference, which made the whole experience rewarding and worthwhile. I’ve gained a whole set of new skills, most important of which is negotiation and tactical communication. During my time I’ve met so many kind and interesting people, and hope to work with them soon again. I want to say a massive thank you to Charity Insights and PCRF for giving me the opportunity to work and gain such invaluable experience this summer.

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Moving on–Week 3

With two weeks to go to the big “Ion Channels in Cancer” (INCA) conference, the pressure has definitely been put on. This conference happens biannually and is hosted in a different place every time. This year, Professor Djamgoz and his PCRF team are the hosts. The topic of Ion channels is an exciting new development in cancer which holds promise to enable early, definitive diagnosis and non-toxic therapies of cancer. The conference will bring together scientists at the forefront of this field in order to advance novel solutions to cancer. The meeting will include over 30 invited speakers from all over the world, with around 100 people expected to attend.

Because the charity prides itself on having no administrative costs, logistical organization up till now was largely down to Mustafa alone. With an estimated overall cost of £16K, my colleague and I found the email addresses of multiple research charities, science and technology companies, and scientific societies, and sent them personalized emails asking whether they could help us meet our balance. Whilst we preferred receiving direct monetary support, we also welcomed any supporting materials such as pens, notepads, sweets, or any other souvenirs that the delegates would receive in their conference goody bags. In return, we offered to include any publicity material in the conference pack.

I’ve had a very exciting week speaking with so many different people. I’ve been able to harness my communication and negotiation skills that I gained in my previous job as a telethon fundraiser for Imperial’s President Scholarship Fund and apply it to contacting these individual professionals. We were so excited to have our first contact offer £1000 in the first day of our fundraising. We’ve had many more positive responses and are building up a strong donation base.

Second week completed

Over the course of my first week the plan for my project has changed slightly, I originally was going to make a website from scratch, design, text, and code. The only experience in coding that I have is from R, a language and data handling program that we use a lot in Biology for statistical computing and graphics. In the interest of continuity, my supervisor decided that it would be best to leave the designing and coding of the website to professionals who have had instruction and training in this field. When I was told, I was quite disappointed because I was very excited to learn a new skill and be responsible for something so big. Last week, my original pressure of building the website was already lifting, as I was getting the hang of the procedure from tons of information that is available on the internet, which is also all conveniently free.

Despite not being able to be build it, I did get the ball rolling on setting it up. One of the very first steps in building a website is registering a domain name, which is what you put into the address bar at the top of your webpage. I emailed a few domain registrars around the country for quotes and whether they could give any away for charity. Turns out many people were willing to help us, and we were able to secure a few domain names for free from a company in Mustafa’s large network of connections. This company was also able to host our webpage and set up a platform to start building it.

This left the writing of the website pages. I did a lot of thinking on what would be the most important information to include in this website. It needs to have a comprehensive and informative website that shares novel research, has relevant contact information, and allows donations to be made safely and efficiently. As PCRF is a charity, it was necessary for it to have a “Support Us” page, which will include information for donors and volunteers, as well as perspective partners.

At the end of the week, I had very constructive meetings with my supervisor and other members of the research group, where I presented my vision for the website and was able to discuss and process their feedback.

First week at PCRF

Pro-cancer research fund (PCRF) is a registered UK charity that has three main prongs of activity: research, outreach, and patient care. The research side is an integral part of the charity, and is led by Imperial professor Mustafa Djamgoz. Dr. Djamgoz is developing a non-toxic way of treating many different types of cancers, including Prostate, Breast, Colon, and Pancreas. The internationally acclaimed and peer-reviewed research is integral to PCRF’s mission as it gives them the necessary authority, professionalism and trust-worthiness for a supportive drop-in advice centre. PCRF offers a direct link between cutting-edge research and the patients that the research is ultimately meant to help. PCRF engages in multiple outreach talks and programs each year, such as the annual Orchid walk, aimed at making new information more accessible to the people actually affected by cancer. The patient care is delivered through the Amber Care Centre, a free drop in centre located in north London that offers professional help to cancer patients, as well as a free home nurse care program. PCRF is improving the lives of this community through awareness and prevention campaigns, psychological support, and specialist oncology detection and care, at little to no cost.

I chose this charity because its small size allows me the opportunity to take on multiple jobs that would normally be classified into many different sectors. My background is in Biology, and I am particularly interested in molecular biology. As one of the three prongs of activity is research, over the past six weeks, I have been introduced to the lab members, given a stack of seminal papers to read on the topic of “Ion Channels in Cancer”, and adopted many dishes of breast cancer cells, which I have grown and started testing drugs on. These six weeks have prepared me immensely for the second part of my internship this summer, which is the Charity Insights scheme. Having been involved in the research part has given me a significant hands-on experience, and allowed me to fully grasp PCRF’s unique approach to helping people with cancer.

During my internship at PCRF, my project will be to develop their website and assist in fundraising. The website is currently unavailable, which is a major hindrance to the potential of this organization. I will also aid in organizing a conference for 150 researchers in cancer for the 9th and 10th of September. Through the research that I have done in the past six weeks, I have learned enormous amounts about cancer to a much greater scope than has been offered to me in my course. I will use this as a base to build upon and share through the website and the blogs, and to be able to relate to the invited speakers and participants at the “Ion Channels in Cancer” conference PCRF will be hosting.

Centre for Community Development, Week 1

On Monday September 7th, I arrived at the Thulasi Centre in Kingston-upon-Thames home to the Centre for Community Development charity. Though I have been here before, this place never fails to amaze me. It is a small building nestled behind a take-away on the main road, and completely inconspicuous apart from an entrance set into a small side lane.

Yet when you walk inside, this place transforms. The receptionists, while looking at me a little quizzically (they don’t often see students here apart from for designated events), were very friendly and welcoming. When I mentioned the project coordinator’s name, they immediately directed me to the room in which we were to have our first meeting.

The Centre for Community Development charity shares this venue with the Tamil Information Centre and you can instantly notice their presence here. The small room contained two computers and was lined with bookshelves on all four sides, with stacks of books and folders overflowing onto the floor in a few places too! I was able to pick out the folders labelled Tamil Women Development Forum. This is the individual project within the Centre for Community Development that I will be working on for the next few weeks and part of my project is to collate all their documentation, including audio and visual records.

After reviewing the plan for my project in our first meeting, most of my first week was spent analysing the material in these folders. It was quite a humbling experience as I truly appreciated how vital this project was, how effective its work was and the duration of the project. Many of the reports I consulted were as much as ten years old!

One of the main aims of my project is to evaluate the successes and shortfalls of the organisation and to that end I will be conducting interviews with some of the members of the Tamil Women Development Forum next week. I left the Thulasi Centre on Friday evening with an appreciation of how important my project was and a renewed sense of determination!

Week 1-2

According to the project timetable we set ourselves, the first two weeks were dedicated to research and planning. As I’ve only ever visited sensory gardens my knowledge on them was limited, so before drawing up the plan I wanted to see other supported living facility gardens to see how they utilise their space. There was an issue as there weren’t other homes like ours within reach. Instead I contacted several sources which normally provide sensory gardens with the necessary equipment to gain insight on what’s more popular.

I organised several meetings with different gardening agencies to gather their perspective and used that as the foundation to the planning. Some of the advice they gave was impractical due to budgetary or time limitations, for instance, removing some of the paved area in the garden and replacing it with compost was outside our capabilities. I quickly realised smaller scale ideas could be just as effective as the larger ones. One smaller scale project we started was designing murals for the garden walls using bright vivid colours as this was a common feature in sensory gardens. It’s particularly useful to the residents who are visually impaired as large murals with bright colours, which are basic in design, can still translate to them.

I used several programs I have had experience with at university to help visualise the plans. This was done mainly to help the staff and residents picture what I would be doing and to clear my choices with them first.

Wrapping Up

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My last week at WildHearts was very much a case of pulling together the work of the past month and making sure that I had left no loose ends.

I was successful in contacting the schools that were signed up for the conference and collecting in the attendee names of the schools that confirmed attendance. With the numbers confirmed, school delegates will make roughly a quarter of the event’s expected attendance of around 280. There were a number of schools that were unable to take up their places for various reasons – therefore it is very pleasing that we managed to maintain a healthy proportion of school delegates.

Additionally I completed the task of acquiring videos and slides from the event speakers. The collected media will be compiled into a single presentation in order to maintain the flow of the event by removing the need to launch each individual presentation between speakers.

I also dealt with some more general logistic tasks for the Edinburgh GEL that included notifying delegates of their allocated parking spaces and preparing the name badges after they were printed.

The research that I had been conducting around models of ambassador networks and methods of increasing campus presence was also finalised and submitted. Hopefully this work will prove useful down the line for WildHearts and their operations.

These past four weeks really have been a fantastic experience, I’ve learned a great deal about the power of social enterprise and the terrific work that WildHearts and it’s people do every day. I have also had the invaluable chance to put my skills to use in a meaningful way and am really looking forward to attending the London GEL and hopefully seeing how my work has contributed towards making it a successful event. For anyone in future years considering undergoing an insights placement I would just say go for it, you won’t regret it.

Bedfont Lakes Country Park; Week 4

In my final week I had the chance to assist in Forest Schooling, a session run by the Community Interest Company Nature Links, which operates in Hounslow and Surrey. This is just one of the fantastic sessions offered by Bedfont Lakes for children and families. Forest Schooling is typically run for children up to the age of eight and is all about encouraging creative play in an outdoor environment in order to build confidence and self-esteem.

Following a brief Health and Safety message at the park entrance, the session commenced by searching for ‘Base Camp’. Base Camp turned out to be a sheltered 30/40m2 section of one of the woody areas in the park, with a small clearing in the centre that contained a seating area made from logs. l was particularly impressed to see how Base Camp was laid out in order to accommodate young children and help them to feel safe in unfamiliar surroundings, for example a make-shift potty area was made using tarpaulins that were cleverly tied to some trees to form a cubicle. Items such as paintbrushes and clay were also provided.

The children then explored Base Camp independently to find materials that they could use to turn into art, for example bird feathers, berries, soil, puddle water and crushed leaves. The idea behind this is that all natural resources have value, even if at first the items seem useless- for example clay can be moulded and twigs can be used draw or provide limbs to an animal in the making! During Forest Schooling every decision made by an individual is celebrated, regardless of whether the outcome is positive (ie painting with crushed blackberries) or not so positive (falling face first into a puddle)! In fact, play in this form is so critical to a child’s development that is was made a basic human right by the UN in the 1989 Convention for the Child Act.

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One activity was to make tree people- here is a selection of some!

 

The Zoologist in me also saw how useful this session was in terms of teaching people the value of the natural environment – a source of raw material, a chance to interact with others during shared experiences and also great fun. After all, valuing the natural world as an adult often begins by kindling this appreciation as a child. Importantly, many of the parents who attended were shown new and exciting ways to engage their children and shown how useful being outdoors is for teaching qualities such as courage, thus encouraging the use of outside spaces in the future and again promoting the respect of nature in young people who will grow up to be the next generation of decision makers.

This drew a conclusion to my four weeks with Bedfont Lakes, which was fantastically rewarding and eye opening. I would recommend the Charity Insights programme to all students, regardless of whether the projects they undertake do or do not directly relate to their degree subject. A massive thank you is due not only to the Countryside Team at the park but also to Imperial Careers Centre for making it possible!