Great people about to do great things!
As a charity CEO my job is to lead on our strategic direction, set the tone and cultural framework, and be the external voice of the organisation, speaking on behalf of people who might otherwise be invisible or unheard. Sound complicated? Not really, when you boil it all down, my job is about people; building relationships, helping people to meet their full potential. The aim? To create a fair society for all, with lives well lived.
Today, in my role as CEO, it was my privilege to welcome a great bunch of new recruits to Citizen Advice Gateshead, a group overflowing with talent, who I know are going to change the world. Their talents include everything from journalism, to gaming, to HR, to teaching, a musician, a personal trainer (and secret gardener); a group overflowing with a broad range of charity, telesales and customer service experience.
They are a week into their time with us, and they've already learnt a lot. They listened intently as I described the stigma of poverty - what it feels like to fall in to a demographic that is often vilified by the media and the less tolerant in our society, described as the "undeserving poor" or labelled as an "asylum seeker living the high life on our benefits system". Do these people really exist? If they do, they certainly don’t show up at Citizens Advice Gateshead. The people we help are very deserving, often distressed, disempowered and vulnerable, powerless to take on a system that overlooks them and fails to meet their basic needs.
For a start, let me be clear about asylum seekers. They have little recourse to public funds, often living on less than £5 per day, experiencing poor mental health and hunger, not able to pay for the basics such as food, clothing, powdered milk and nappies. Further, when the media talk about that ‘undeserving poor’, about generational unemployment, the feckless youth, I don’t recognise any of that. 60 per cent of the people helped by Citizens Advice Gateshead come from a household where at least one adult is in full time employment, 46 per cent of everyone we help describes themselves as having a long term health condition or disability, and many more people come with caring responsibilities that keep them from work, selfless people who save the State, and the rest of us a big pile of cash.
Do you see anyone undeserving in this list? I don’t think so, and neither did our new recruits. They were surprised by these facts but I know they’ll take this information home with them, to their friends, their neighbours, their communities and they’ll use it to make a difference; they’ll have the difficult conversation, they’ll make the challenge when harmful and uninformed myths are thrown around as if they were facts, and in doing so they will help to reduce the stigma faced by the most disadvantaged in our communities.
Was I wowed by these great people about to do great things? You betcha. Do I feel lucky? Absolutely. I can’t wait to see what we achieve together. Our goal is for a fair society for all, with lives well lived. The scale of the problem does not shrink us from this ambition. These new recruits will blaze the trail, I’m sure of it.