Soooo

I have an idea and I want to implement it.  My idea is this:  I like painting and making stuff and am now making too much for just my house...  but I don't want to stop so I am going to see if I can sell it on.  And out of that money I will support my charities in Guatemala and India.

I would really, really like to do this.  It is creative and fun, which I love, love, love doing and am addicted to.  I think I have an eye for quirky bits of furniture, for colour and texture and I love tarting things up.  Is also part of my ethical thing of reusing and recycling.  I use old clothes to make cushions from, love to crochet, make vases out of jam jars, all sorts really :)  I have started looking for furniture in the paper etc that I can get for cheap and then paint up all nice in my garage :)  Then hopefully I sell the stuff on a website or facebook or etsy, then I am in business!

Only issues are:  I have no idea what I am doing.  I am new to painting up furniture and only know how to do it because I am doing some up for myself.  but my standards are not that high so we shall have to see if anyone will actually buy anything.  I have no idea how to run a business but am confident that it will only be marginally profitable and so tax etc won't be an issue.  I will look into this further, as I say, I am learning on the job.  Eek.

It means I can be home for my kids as a stay at home mum but also have my own hobby that might make me a little bit of money and independence :)  It gives me something to strive for and be proud of outside of cleaning floors and mucky mitts.  It also keeps my hand in with my PhD knowledge, shows initiative and maybe by blogging and through my own involvement in the international charity scene, over time as I go out to my chosen charities and volunteer etc, I could do more research/raise awareness of aid work and behaviour.  I dunno, am generally just going to see what happens.  Exciting!

x N

Hallloooooo!

Oh, my friends, I have been away too long :)

My big child is at school at the moment and my small child (who is two next week) is asleep upstairs, having a lovely nap ALL BY HIMSELF.  I am, wonderfully, surplus to requirements and thought I would write about what a busy bunny I have been of late.

Question one is obviously:  Have you been using your PhD?  The answer is, directly, no.  I still don't have a job though I do look relatively frequently to see what is out there for me to do.  I find some spanking careers but they are full-time positions in London.  Not for me, a mum with two small full-time children who live in the countryside.  Indirectly, of course I have, I use my knowledge every day and share it with my sons.  I am critical and vocal about international aid and the political components of said aid and development.  The current DEC drive to send aid out to Nepal has got my panties all up in a bunch and I think 'what am I DOING here?!  I should be out there, helping and shaping internaional aid, not here being all comfy cosy in my house with my children and the beach down the road!'  But what, friends, can I offer?  I have no aid experience to speak of.  I can pass in two other languages but have never set foot in Nepal, or even northern India.  I am not a teacher, nurse, or medical doctor.  I am not a builder.  I have no stripes to speak of so cannot be a programme manager or director.  Nor would I want to be, knowing what I do about the aid mess after the 2004 tsunami, katrina and haiti.  I am just good for having a fine grumble about how ill thought out it all is.

But then I thought 'Hey! (Because I am American in my thoughts, clearly) Why don't you do international aid in the way you know is ethical?'  And then I thought of what that is, in my mind and experience.  And it is aid that is targeted, not all-encompassing.  It is aid that is initiated, led and distributed thoughtfully and effectively by local people.  I don't expect reports back accounting for the money, I know and trust the recipients.  It is aid that helps in the here and now,  but that is a slow-burner, not a dramatic 'WOOT!  lookit how I spent your money and the results are here already!'  (they weren't though, the results were only in the reports, not so much in actual real life.  And breathe).

I have come across two fabulous local organisations in my time on the PhD, one in Guatemala and one in Tamil Nadu in India.  I trust both implicitly to spend any money they receive wisely and for the benefit of the local people around them - mostly on children and their education.  I would like to send the money somewhere that I would like to go back to and take my children too.  So I shall choose one or both of these organisations to back.

But where shall I get any money to send?!  Well, they don't need much.  Indeed, during my research it was clear that the more money that was floating about the more room there was for laziness and mistakes to abound.  A lady I interviewed said that money ruins humanitarianism.  I am inclined to agree, but that could be a romantic opinion.  So, not much needs to be sent, I am not trying to change the world, just to address the suffering and inequality that is so much a part of it.

And how, pray, shall you gather together this money?  More on that later, my toddler is awake and wants to play!

x N