Communities
Connecting
Despite having worked to get people who live in
hospital out I have stayed pretty clear of public commentary and
the rights and wrongs of the misuse of hospitals in providing
support to people with leaning disabilities and / or mental health
needs experiencing distress. That’s because regardless of what
side of the fence we’re are on the debate is too vitriolic and
swapping one form of hate, vitriol and dogma for another hardly
seems to me the way to get a healthy debate going with those with
the power and influence to change things.
So, as with much else, I do what I can. I try
to notice, understand and respect all opinions, even when it’s
hard to stomach, and to make my own sense of what it all means.
Politics, policy and their implications for real people; it’s all
too hard for me to get my head around.
I fundamentally learned the importance of
“doing what you can, doing something or doing anything” in 2011. I
was visiting a group of women living on the banks of one of the
biggest rivers in Bangladesh. They were working with a Charity and
learning to come together, save together and lead their
communities to change their fortunes. I’m not clear what really
propelled me to Bangladesh that first time, but I do know that one
of the things I was interested in was how people living in extreme
poverty and the worst of circumstances empowered themselves. They
had to have something to teach me, teach us.
Living on the banks of those big rivers in
Bangladesh is for the poorest of the poor. The rivers flash flood.
It happens in minutes. Water from the mountains pours down in
seconds. There’s no warning and the floods wipe out whole
communities. The women I visited there had experienced a recent
flood of huge magnitude. The
people who met me as I arrived were unlike every other group I had
visited. They were quiet, sombre and fearful. I was looking at
collective post-traumatic shock.
The women walked me down to the water’s edge,
taking it in turns to tell me (although I didn’t understand their
words, I got it well enough) about the ferocity of the water and
the people they had lost. I lifted my eye to see the residue of
their human effort. Sandbags were scattered; thrown over the banks
by human hands in a last desperate act to stay the force of a
ferocious flood that would rob them of their children, homes and
livelihoods. They could do so little, in the face of so much.
I braced myself hard trying not to cry. How do
you cry for people who are not crying for themselves? I was
hopeless in the face of the devastation around me. I lost all
sense of why I was there and lost all hope that there was anything
that I could do to impact on pain of this intensity and that’s
when it came to me. You can do what you can.
Cut to 2015 and I find myself gearing up for
another trip. It will be my 4th. Much more clearly
focused now my efforts are honed on raising money for an orphanage
that I have visited before and have confidence in. The orphanage
exists hand to mouth and has been close to closure due to lack of
funds. Over 830 otherwise abandoned girls have made their way
through it’s doors. I can connect to that. I can do something
about that ……. An institution without which the girl’s lives would
be unthinkable – violated by the worst abuses and deprivations.
Setting fundraising targets is an arbitrary
business. When you set a target what can you possibly know of who
will step forward to help and how? Somehow it rolls out. There’s
no grand plan. Kind people just seem to step out of the woodwork
offering imaginative ways to help.
So it was with Beyond Limits. A “chewing the
cud” conversation with Doreen and Max over dinner went something
like “wouldn’t it be great to get some of the people Beyond Limits
supports involved in your fundraising efforts?”. Yep, it would. “Do you think
we could get a Carl’s Small Spark to help us?”.
Carl Poll was a gifted man who worked
tirelessly in his lifetime to ensure people with learning
disabilities and mental health needs were respected and celebrated
for their gifts and talents. He also had a strong connection to
India and what he could learn from the poor there. A fund set up
in his memory offers small grants to support people to connect to
their communities. We made an application and were gifted £200.
The deal was to fund the expenses of people who couldn't afford to
help otherwise to come together with their community to raise
funds for Happy Homes.
And so my story comes full circle.
On Saturday 12th September I found
myself standing amongst the hugest pile of bric a brac I have ever
set eyes on, drowning under the weight of a cake stall that would
have fed an army, sweating at the cooker in the kitchen of a
salvation army hall as we pumped out buckets of lentil curry and
rice for stream of people that looked like they may never stop.
Whatever community is we were in the thick of it and at its heart
and the engine, the architects, the spirit were people who were
discharged from Winterbourne View.
Steve, my husband, had come to help. During the
day I glanced out often from the steam of the kitchen to see him
bent over the bric a brac immersed in conversation with other
stallholders, laughing, enjoying the hubbub. It was really clear
to see. Beyond Limits were doing something incredible. The
organisers were doing something incredible. The day passed in a
blur, the crowds died off. We started to pack away donating all
remaining food to the local homelessness hostel and all remaining
clothes to the Salvation Army. Steve and I sat with Doreen and Max
to count the takings, recounting our favorite moments from the
day.
Somewhere in the counting Steve remarked on the
incredible lengths that the staff and people Beyond Limits had
gone to. I said “the people that helped today Steve, they were
discharged from Winterbourne View you know” and that’s when I saw
it. The magnitude of what they had done. His face was pure
puzzlement, pure disbelief. It was too hard to compute. He could
make no sense of it because today was just ordinary or maybe
extraordinary. The organisers glowed in their kindness and effort.
How on earth could they be people who’d needed to live in a place
like that and how on earth could they be giving back with so much
generosity and vibrancy if they had?
Somewhere amidst the rights and wrongs, the
policy and politics, the polemics, the vitriol and “resettlement”
is a quiet simplicity. Living life as an equal is about giving
back. Giving back ennobles people. Empathy for others shows no
mercy. On Saturday people who have been treated appallingly by the
system showed us the depth of their humility and forgiveness. Two
groups of women who’ve faced the worst horrors imaginable held
their hands out over thousands of miles and touched in recognition
that out of the worst pain grows the deepest learning, greatest
kindness and real meaning. A group of women who came from an
institution claimed their freedom and gave security and life to a
group of girls on the other side of the world. Not bad for a
Saturday morning’s work.
Thank
you so much to the organisers, Beyond Limits, Carl’s Small
Sparks, Actionaid Uk and Actionaid Bangladesh for your support.
Judith North
September 2015
