Blog posts

Clock ticking ever closer…

I’m currently sitting in a café in Vauxhall, counting down the minutes until I start my placement at the Big Issue Foundation. The pre-first day nerves setting my mind to run wild, publishing my first post to the blog seemed like a welcome distraction…

 

I imagine most of you will recognize the Big Issue. Having thousands of vendors on streets across the UK each week have turned it into one of the country’s most trusted and recognizable social enterprise brands. What you might not know is that it’s actually split into three arms: the magazine, the foundation and the social investment vehicle. The magazine is the publication itself, the foundation is a charitable organization that actively works with vendors to help them achieve their personal goals and the investment vehicle, known as Big Issue Invest, seeks to support burgeoning social enterprise.

 

Arguably motivated by the Big Issue’s work, I’d always had a desire to help the homeless and vulnerably housed. No one living on the streets intended to find themselves there and, with only a few rolls of misfortune’s dice, any one of us could find ourselves in a similar situation.

 

When I heard about the Charity Insights programme, it struck me as a great opportunity to get actively involved in work with the homeless. Having done a little research, I made contact with a few relevant charities, and the Big Issue gave me the most positive response. Having looked over my CV and cover letter, they felt they had a suitably project for me, looking into the Social Return on Investment (SROI) of the Foundation’s activities. I’ll go into more detail in a future blog post, not least as I need to find out more about it for myself!

 

The clocks ticks ever closer to 10:30 and it’s nearly time for me to dive in. Here’s to hoping that all goes well and that by the time the next post comes around, I can fill you all in on the Big Issue’s SROI!

 

 

2nd Week at DWT

I have been continuing work on the user guide, this week focusing on producing case studies from Living Landscapes and NIAs, where the use of GIS maps would help. Living Landscapes is a nation wide project, created by the Wildlife Trusts, that aims to restore, recreate and reconnect habitats o support  native wildlife. This will give species more space to move between patches, increasing their chances of adapting to threats such as climate change. The point of this part of the document is to allow people who would potentially use the maps (trust staff, housing planners etc.) to see how GIS maps would benefit their project. I have regular meetings with my supervisor who then makes me word documents with pointers and advice.

DWT’s office is in Rainton Meadows, a nature reserve just north of Durham that has been restored from an open cast coal mine. During my lunch breaks I’ve been taking advantage of the fact that I’m working on a nature reserve. So far I’ve seen over 20 species of bird from various bird hides around the site, including some fledgling kestrels learning how to fly. One had fallen out of its nest and became stuck in the long grass, but a friendly passer by rescued it and it flew off on its way.

Week One at Royal Society Publishing

This week I started my Charity Insights internship at the publishing office of Royal Society. I’m sure that most of you will have at least heard of the Royal Society (if not, here’s the wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society for a quick blurb) It’s the oldest scientific academy still in existence and I ended up there because I’m interested in the work they do in communicating science and emphasizing the cultural role that science has to play in society.  Oh and because I wanted to get a taste of academic publishing and their publishing division just happen to bring out some great journals! The editor that I’m working with is in charge of Philosophical Transactions B, which brings out theme issues, so it’s more like a review publication. It’s actually the first scientific journal that was ever published. I think that’s pretty cool…but that might just be me.

Another perk of working at the Royal Society is that they’re based in a beautiful location just behind the Mall and Regents Park:

I know Imperial’s campus has a pretty great location, but that’s the view from the toilets at RS.

 

Don’t judge me for taking photos from the toilets…or for their terrible quality…trust me, the view is GOOD.
I’ve started by taking over some of the junior editorial coordinator tasks for the journal: like checking over author submissions before they’re sent over to production and updating the website with information about the latest issues. I have to say, having access to the proofs of papers by some big names before they’re published (ie still under embargo!) feels pretty special. The editorial team is a small group and everyone’s really friendly, all in all it’s a really welcoming environment to have entered into.
So my feelings about the experience as the first week has drawn to an end are pretty positive! Hopefully it isn’t just the enthusiasm of a rookie…

Visit to Idea

Just some of the data Eleanor has been analysing!
Just some of the data Eleanor has been analysing!

 

Yesterday Eileen and I popped along to Shoreditch, East London to visit Eleanor who is hard at work at Idea (the international debate education association). Eleanor has been researching female participation at debating competitions which has meant analysing a huge amount of data!

Eleanor and Manos
Eleanor and Manos

Eleanor’s supervisor Manos told us a bit more about the charity. We were surprised by its size; the website receives up to 3 million unique visitors in a year and Idea has offices in several countries. Interns at Idea often later go on to be full time members of staff at the organisation so Eleanor is getting some great experience.

Manos told us that taking on Eleanor through Charity Insights has been a “fantastic opportunity”. He went on to say that “for many charities the ability to grow and take on extra staff is limited, therefore Charity Insights has given us the luxury of getting a project done that we normally wouldn’t have been able to do”. He also expressed how it was great to have an intern from a science background as the majority of interns and staff have studied humanities or law.

 

Hard at work!
Hard at work!

Eleanor will still be hard at work for a week or so but feels that so far she has grown in confidence and enjoyed the office dynamics of working for a charity. Food for thought for future career planning!

 

The final ACT! (maybe)

I had my last day at ACT! on Friday (and woke up pretty hungover on Saturday). I finished my project and discussed it with Charles – he seemed pleased with my work which was a relief. My framework for city ‘greening’ will be put together with a number of other parallel projects (focusing on energy, transport or land taxation for example) to build up a complete sustainable city model. With Bristol crowned European Green Capital 2015 the city has a lot to achieve ‘greening-wise’ in the next two years – so who knows, hopefully our sustainable city model will come to some use in Bristol…

I’m sad to leave Bristol, it’s such a lively and striking city, and I was so lucky with the weather – I spent many evenings on the Clifton Downs with some of my colleges from ACT! It was exciting to be a part of something so new and dynamic. At times things were a little muddled but that’s all part of an organisation’s growth and development at the early stages. I’m looking forward to seeing how ACT! progresses and hoping I’ll be back again in the not too distant future. It’s been a privilege – thank you Charity Insights for giving me this opportunity, and now I’m looking forward to my holiday!

 

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The LUCIA Library at Saria

This is a photo of the library that LUCIA built at Saria – I fundraised for it last year (my school raised £5000 in a term) and I’m reviewing the project now as part of a grant proposal for a girls’ toilet block and handwash station on the same site.

Unfortunately there’s been a bit of an issue with the stoves project, so I’ve shifted my research focus into Bees! Ethiopia produces about 40000 tonnes of honey a year, and we’re looking into developing a bee project of sorts to help communities make money. I’ve got no experience with bees – so I’ve been doing a huge amount of product analysis, reading papers and reports and budgets for the different kinds of beehives (who knew you there were so many different types of beehive!?), and I’m currently chatting with my supervisor about us running the project itself, instead of going through an NGO – which would be a first for the charity and really exciting! 🙂

Of meetings and speeches

I’ve just come out of a meeting that I arranged with a local ‘Green Business Advisor’ and an ‘Ethical Business Coach’. We discussed issues around green infrastructure, general ‘green’ practice in businesses and their experiences working in Bristol. It was good to get some first hand, local expertise and heartening to see two old guys still passionate about what they do. They also told me about some interesting examples that I might use as case studies in my project.

I’m now well underway with writing up my project – a framework for the further ‘greening’ of UK cities. Sure enough, my preparatory research was not enough and I’ve been finding out more and more as I’ve been writing (I came across a speech by Iolo Williams which is the best, most moving speech that I’ve ever seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnJQjtvngqA). It’s a lot to get your head around in just a few weeks – just finding and understanding all the relevant legislation and policies (at international, European, national, regional and local scales!) has been a challenge, but a valuable challenge. I’ve not had much experience writing about law/ policy and planning before, after all.

 

A New Farm

So on Wednesday I submitted the memorandum of understanding for my first project.

I didn’t do a lot of work on this one, but I took it over because it was convenient and I’m waiting on a reply from our people in Ethiopia before I can go on with the stoves and wash-station one.

Basically, we wanted to build a farm at the Saria Kebele Primary School in Amhara, Ethiopia. This is all well and good – but how is it going to work? Our contact in Ethiopia had put together a budget and a proposal for us, and I had to go through it and put it into a Memorandum of Understanding (basically, the sort of contract that NGOs use).

 

The scale of the problem is really quite startling: the farm is not just to make money, it’s to make sure that the kids have enough food to eat! Hopefully, we’ll be able to teach them some good farming practices as well, given that poor management is such an issue in Ethiopia. Other than that, I’ve been reading the latest UN report on the Millennium Development Goals in order to target our governmental requests for funding as accurately as possible. You can read it here: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/report-2013/mdg-report-2013-english.pdf  Apparently, after 43 years, the UK is going to meet its target of spending 0.7% of GNI on foreign aid. This should be great for us – hopefully it’ll become easier to get DFID funding for our projects!

1st Week at DWT

Last week I started my internship at Durham Wildlife Trust (DWT). I’ve always had a love for nature but it is only recently that I have thought about working for a conservation charity. At the trust, I am working on a project concerning GIS maps of ecosystem services. GIS maps are a relatively recent development in ecology and aim to map ecosystem service demand and supply. This information can then be used to identify areas that provide valuable services and should therefore be conserved, but also “gaps” or areas where there is demand for a service but supply could be improved. A technical user guide for producing the maps has already been made, but my job is to start a more user friendly guide for interpreting the maps for potential users of the maps such as DWT staff or housing planners who have little experience of GIS mapping. For a break from the office, I did some practical work with the reserves team on Thursday at one of DWT’s reserves, Hawthorn Dene. Work involved removing an invasive plant species, called Himalayan balsam, from the woodland. Himalayan balsam was introduced to Britain in the Victorian era, when it was brought back from the Himalayas for its pink flowers. However, the plant is an excellent propagator and can completely take over habitats, out competing native species. Overall, my first week has been a great experience to see how a conservation charity is run and what kind of careers are available in this sector.

Mingling with Bristol’s greenies

I’ve recently been to the monthly Bristol Green Mingle with Charles and Fi. It was the first time I’d been to a mingle and I didn’t know quite what to expect – but unsurprisingly, it was just people (specifically Bristol’s greenies) drinking, eating and chatting. I met an interesting mix of people including local MPs, an ecologist and the director of the Bristol Green Capital initiative (who’s become a local hero after Bristol won the European Green Capital Award earlier this year). As well as being an enjoyable, relaxed and interesting evening it was also very useful – I gained a few handy contacts who seemed to know something (if not a lot) relevant to my internship project.

I’m coming to the end of my preparatory research before starting the write up the report/ action plan framework for city ‘greening’, although I feel like there’s so much that I’ve still not uncovered – there is just so much out there on it! I just need to bring it together. In outline I’m preparing an evidenced case for the literal ‘greening’ of cities (via planting trees, installing green roofs, creating wetlands etc.) for multi-functional benefits such as increased habitat connectivity, better water management, air purification and climate amelioration. There are some truly innovative and magnificent ways to ‘green’ urban areas – vertical gardens for example (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFZn1DYCz2U), which beg the question: why aren’t our cities already greener?

Bordeaux Quay - venue for the Green Mingle