A Good End to the Working Day

The day after the local press described how one of our local hospitals had lost a mass of patient data Norman Lamb MP revealed the full extent of the problems in the NHS with data as a result of investigations he's been doing. "We already know from the Information Commissioner that the NHS is among the worst offenders for data loss, reporting as many incidents as the entire private sector."
What an indictment! The NHS sees us at our most vulnerable and then loses chunks of our data. And they always reassure us that it doesn't matter - well if it doesn't matter why did they keep it in the first place? And why do they put it on memory sticks and CDs that can drop out of pockets and off desks into bins or worse.
This afternoon was planning committee day. There was nothing in Eaglescliffe ward today but still plenty of tricky and frustrating decision making to do. Why should a developer who's got permission for a good quality design be able to come back and reduce the quality to something that's just about acceptable? Why do developers think that student flats are the new route to riches? The block which was refused permission today not only contravened our new council guidelines by not demonstrating a need for more accommodation but also was a pretty awful design for the area. It looked like boxes - several boxes rather than one monolithic box but boxes nevertheless. Standing nearly opposite Thornaby Town Hall it really did look incongruous. I'd have loved to have seen an interesting building, reflecting the stature and elegance of the Town Hall but what we were offered was chunky and out of place.
At tonight's council meeting there were two really good items which brought out the best side of people.
First we had an item in all the vast array of minutes and reports which come to Council about the return of the Mayoral Chains to Thornaby. Cllr Mick Eddy who is also this year's Town Mayor of Thornaby took the opportunity to thank John Fletcher for his help in arranging that return. Although many others had to be part of the decision it was John who found the way forward when there'd been little or no progress for years. Mick thanked him beautifully and very eloquently on behalf of the people of Thornaby and the Town Council and for once other members of the council were quiet and let him speak.
Almost the last item on the agenda was a motion, proposed by the Mayor, that the council sign up to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights on its 60th anniversary. Alan Lewis spoke of the human rights of the Gurkha soldiers who lived and fought alongside British soldiers but then are denied citizenship if they retired before 1997. Sign the petition or write to your MP - let's get this sorted out once and for all.
After that Suzanne spoke very movingly about the plight of refugees on our doorstep in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees who have fled from abuses of basic rights like the right to live without being persecuted but then are seized in dawn raids and sent to detention centres to await deportation sometimes to countries which are not at all safe for them. Why it's deemed acceptable for children to be woken and bundled away from the only safe home they've known in raids that look just like the raids on suspected crack houses I'll never understand. But it happens and it happens here, under our noses.
So Stockton Council approved the Declaration and maybe, who knows, just one or two people might think twice about walking by on the other side next time.

Escape To Safety

This morning I was invited to visit The Norton School for the opening of the exhibition “Escape to Safety”. This is a multi-media exhibition demonstrating the experience of people seeking asylum in the UK. It takes students on a journey from a war-torn part of the world to Heathrow and eventually to a detention centre. Using an MP3 player and headphones each person moves through the exhibition which is set up in a large trailer. Hearing the stories and seeing the pictures and other items in such confined spaces really brings home some of the desperation which drives people to put up with such terrible deprivation in order to seek freedom and basic human rights.
A story from Afghanistan reminded me of the students I taught who’d fled that same regime for those same reasons. Nowrooz, whose house was flattened in a bombing raid while he was at work and who had to leave, assuming that his wife was buried under the ruins. And then I started to think of others and wonder where they are now. The Kosovan whose name I won’t print here who just wanted to be able to go back and help rebuild his country but couldn’t because his village wasn’t there any more and his friends and family had scattered to the four winds. The young man from Sierra Leone who couldn’t go to school because of the fighting but whose friend risked his life to teach him what he had learned before the school closed. The very first refugee I met from Afghanistan who’d paid a fortune to be transported to London with his family only to be deposited in Kiev and told that he was in London. The Turkish Kurd whose wife was killed in a bombing raid on their village and who was shot as he tried to locate her body.
I could go on and on, each story an individual tale of pain and suffering, but each person sustained by a belief that England is the land of the free, the land of safety where people are kind and tolerant. And then there’s the fresh pain when it becomes obvious that the truth isn’t quite as rosy as that. When immigration officers don’t or won’t make allowances for the trauma someone has suffered. When newspapers print untrue “facts” and people read and believe them.
Today’s exhibition reminded me of why I enjoyed teaching those refugees and asylum seekers English language and culture. It reminded me that there are times when I don’t do enough to support now that I’m not teaching and meeting them every day. And it made me determined to do more to support those who do have the time and the skills to give practical help.
Thank you Hilaire and RAPT for inviting me. Well done Norton School for spending the time to help students to understand the issues. Egglescliffe school did the same in the spring. Two different schools serving very different communities but both trying to help their young people to be better global citizens.

Declaration of Human Rights

This year is the 60th anniversary of the declaration of human rights and a group of eminent people including Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu have launched a campaign to celebrate and strengthen the declaration by getting a billion people to sign a personal commitment to uphold the Declaration. When I signed there were over 21,000 signatories so there's a long way to go to get the billion. Please think about signing and spreading the word.
The personal declaration reads as follows:

I choose to sign this declaration because:

I wish to take responsibility for upholding the goals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in my daily life and in my community. I will do my best to speak out to protect the freedom and rights of others in my community.

I affirm the following principle: “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

I believe Every Human Has Rights.