Islam: I have a lot of thinking to do...

I recently encountered someone who reverted to Islam purely because of marriage and being in love etc...

When they told me they reverted I should have been thinking, Alhamdulillah!!!! But I wasn't, I was thinking, that's messed up.

Couple of weeks and it was still bothering me, like a tiny stone in your shoe that you leave there because you're busy and finally it gets so annoying that you have to deal with it, I thought about why it was bothering me so much and it's because I am afraid I might have done the same thing and dislike myself for it.

If I did, my decision is worse because I did it preemptively. Marriage and family life is a huge part of Islam, sure some people remain unmarried but not many because we are taught it is half our deen (religion). In other words, it means more good deeds counted in your favour on that final day, if you get married.

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Anas ibn Maalik (R) narrated that the Messenger of Allah (S) said:

whoever Allaah blesses with a righteous wife, then He has assisted him in half of his deen. So therefore, let him fear Allah in the other half. (Al-Mustadrak: 10/2681) Al-Albaanee declared the hadeeth hasan in Saheeh At-Targheeb (1916)

Explanation...

'That is because the greatest trial that takes a significant toll on a person's deen are the desires of the stomach and the desires of the private parts, and a righteous woman safeguards a man from zinaa, which accounts for the first half. Hence, the second half remains and that is the desires of the stomach. Thus he (S) advised him with taqwaa so he can perfect his deen and obtain istiqaamah (be upright and obedient).' He also said, “He (S) specifically mentioned a righteous wife because a woman who is otherwise may safeguard her husband from zinaa, however she would make him bend his back over trying to obtain worthless things from that which is haraam.” (Al-Faydul-Qadeer: hadeeth nos. 8704)

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I knew this as I chose Islam. I knew I would 'have' to get married....maybe I wanted marriage and family more than the nonchalance I showed at the time. I knew marriage was arranged....maybe I wanted it that way because I didn't believe in the concept of  'in-love' . Secular relationships just looked a whole lot of mess to me and I had stayed away from them for that reason.

The more I think about it, the more I am scared that's what I might have done.

So where does that leave me regarding the truth of Islam? How can I trust even my own principles?? How can a person know they are in self-deceit?

I refuse to believe we are all just led by our fears and needs. That really is pathetic especially if you're making huge decisions unaware of the real desire that is behind them.

How can anyone avoid that weakness in themself?

I hate this discovery - I friken hate it!

If I wasn't Muslim and suddenly fell in love with someone who wasn't Muslim also, and I was as happy as I could be....would I choose Islam? Would I even choose any religion? idk

Health Care Assistants: Do They Really Care?

This isn't a comprehensive guide to what dementia is and how it manifests in people, it's not meant to be. If you want that, go read somewhere else. What I want to write about is why I love working with people changed by Dementia and to also show the skill set you need to be able to do the job of a Health Care Assistant.

You have to start with the person before you explore dementia because as a carer, that's who you are dealing with at work, the person not the dementia first. That's really important and many people forget that and don't put the individual first.

The person can be affected mildly, completely and anywhere inbetween, by dementia, depending on the progression of their condition and what type of dementia with which they have been diagnosed. Even within the diagnosis, there will be a whole variety of changes depending on the personality and character of that individual.

So, to know the person and their life, character, values and idiosyncracies is key in understanding how their dementia is affecting them.

So after initially getting to know the person and listening to their family about who they have been all their life up until now, you then look at what type of dementia this person has been diagnosed with.
Vascular Dementia, Alzheimers, Dementia with Lewy Bodies, Creutzfeldt Jakobs Disease, Parkinsons Dementia, Korsakoff Syndrom...etc and many other more rare forms too. Within each one of these catagories are subcatagories of what type of Vascular, Alzheimers, Lewys Bodies...etc, does the person have, depending on what part of the brain has been damaged and from what underlying cause. All of these variations have an impact on the challenges faced by the person themselves and those caring for them.

So it's like the hardest puzzle to solve or like someone is lost in the middle of a really complex maze and you have to go find them. I love that challenge and that smile of recognition from the individual, when you finally begin to understand their behaviour enough to communicate with them successfully and can then pass on that information to other care staff in the hope of improving that individual's general care. It feels amazing! The change in that individual when they realise they're understood is one of the most satisfying outcomes because you know you made a real difference to that person and the relaxation of their family.

'George' used to ask me if anyone was coming to visit him today because he was feeling lonely. What came out of his mouth though was a jumble of words that didn't make any sense in a regular way, even though it might have done to him. He used to say...

"It could be up on the speak the....you know......the visit or down because it's down."

So, to begin to understand George, I had to rely on other clues like body language. I knew it was a question from his tone of voice and inflection, the way his head moved and expression around his eyes. There were some words that did make sense such as "visit" "up" "speak" "on the" and "it's down" which sounded like a definite statement. Piecing things together it seemed like he wanted to speak on the phone about a visit because someone was coming up to see him. I eventually settled on a question and asked him if he was feeling lonely and he replied "YES" and sighed as he said it but also smiled. Then we went to the admin office to phone his family so he could connect with a familiar voice and sort out a visit. He was satisfied and I knew a little bit more about how he communicated.

You might be thinking, 'Well done Sherlock that was a bit obvious'...but not so fast because the one thing you can't do is ask an individual challenged by dementia, too many questions. Sometimes two is even too many! They may often (as was the case with George) become frustrated and then aggressive or become depressed and have a fall because they might be aware that they're not making sense or might be annoyed that they are not being understood. So sometimes, you only get one shot at a simple question and you have to be accurate and clear.

And that was just one question! In any given day George had several. There are 24 other residents too, who all have several questions or statements.

Then you have simple instructions that you have to communicate to someone suffering from dementia. It's lunchtime. Do you need the toilet? Let's go and have a shower. Can I help you change your shirt as you've spilled something on it? Often they either don't understand or they might not want to go, especially for a shower or bath, which as you can appreciate, is quite a crucial hurdle. All of this during the course of one day has to be smoothly communicated in a very relaxed and calm way often in very tricky circumstances what with other residents around doing their thing too.

It's a challenge and often simple things like misunderstanding a question can have devastating consequences if you're not skilled at your job. A frustrated depressed person with dementia will not eat properly, drink enough and they will often fall. All of which can increase deterioration of their condition in the worst way possible and cause a most horrible demise. Fortunately, care workers are trained well and very skillful so are used to balancing all the relevant information about the person and their condition.

Throw on top of all that the usual things we can all communicate easily such as headaches they can't tell us they have, tooth pain which we have to watch out for signs of, bad night sleep woke up with neck pain, belly ache, upset stomach, too hot or cold and can't express that, urinary tract infections which are unfortunately common in those who find it hard to drink enough fluids and last but not least, foods they usually like but don't fancy today and find it hard to tell you that. All of these regular enough variables can impact on a person and their usual way of being.

People are complex enough, then you have dementia!

Some day this job will be professionalised and the whole entire industry will be much better for it.

Sure there are some carers who don't care, not interested in the people, sleep through training, don't remember anything they're told, just want to do their shift with the least amount of effort and collect their salary but they don't last long in the job. The challenge of the job makes it hard for them to be slack and there are more good staff than bad who will hate on them until they leave.

It's a wonderful job. Hard work but a total privelidge to spend time with someone and get to know them during this confusing time, for the months and weeks up until their finally day on this earth.

Child Protection Responsibility: Who Has More Ability To Respond?

There's a petition going round, to educate children about body safety from age 5 in the hope that the knowledge will help kids protect themselves from people intent on doing them harm.

Initially, it sounds like a great plan and anything that helps protect kids is good right? But every time I read petitions like this or hear of government plans to action a new education initiative for kids under the banner of Child Protection. I don't like it and have really mixed thoughts.

I protected myself really well during my nearly 11 years in care because I had to, there was no one else who did. I became expert in evaluating people fast and knew I needed to be fierce and aloof in order to keep myself isolated and safe. But the result of all that early knowledge was that it made me a fearful, aggressive kid and an anxious, aggressive adult and it's from that perspective I feel we are putting ever more responsibility on our children to protect themselves instead of the agencies/parents/guardians who should be stepping up.

I know we teach kids about road safety, hot kettles and cookers, fireworks etc... from the earliest age and Body Safety seems to be no different but it feels completely different. You're teaching kids about bad people and giving them an awareness that they didn't have before, which doesn't have a positive effect on kids. Suddenly they are asking questions about who is a bad person when they should just be asking how caterpillars change into butterflies and how thunder and lightening is so amazing.

I'm not talking about over-protecting kids from the realities of life appropriate to their age like general farm life/death/babies....friendship issues, bullying etc... I don't dash over to the crib every time my baby farts and I don't believe everyone's a winner on Sports Day! I believe in giving children the tools and resources to sort their own issues out for themselves as they go along. For instance I am an advocate for some form of compulsory martial art taught in schools. I think it helps with protection, self-discipline, general fitness and confidence. I learned kick boxing from an early teenager and it helped me immensely.

On Child Protection issues? An adult has more ability to respond.

Imagine how guilty a kid would feel even after having been educated about Body Safety, to a standard us adults would feel confident in, if they were then to be hurt knowing they should have told someone and didn't, knowing that what was happening to them was wrong but they didn't do what they'd been taught? That's why I have mega reservations about where the onus lies because even armed with that knowledge, they do not have the ability to make those kinds of decisions or live with the consequences of them. We do.

As adults, it is far better for the kids if we accept responsibility (as a society) for their protection. Then any rage and pain can be put externally on us rather than internally on themselves. 

Iain Dale's Interview on LBC

Really interesting interview - Iain Dale with Camila Batmanghelidjh of former Kids Company. Transcribed from here for my own personal observations.

Initial thoughts, she's verbose and every time I have come across someone who employs that as a communication style, it's never been for a good reason. Read her words carefully and ask yourself what did she actually say? Towards the end, she attempts to link herself in with the CSA investigations but steers well clear of actually saying that. This mess would then become about something bigger and not about Kids Company or her any more. Her body language is totally interesting if you're watching the interview. What she nearly says but changes at the last minute is also worth noting. I'm not a fan of hers and that's putting it mildly but still, proper fascinating.

(My words are in brackets and italics)

ID: Before we get on to some of the more difficult questions...I mean...you've been the centre of a malestrom over the past few days. How have you come through this personally, it must have been a terrible experience for you?

CB: I've actually personally been very calm and ...er.. serene (that's not what your breathing tells me) because I never went up with the media to come down with it but when I've got upset, it's been because of the children and young people and that's the only time I get tearful (shakes her head no a couple of times)... the rest of the time, I'm very level because what I think we're being exposed to, is a sort of massive...erm...public hatred, kind of driven by the media in many ways...er...

(It's the media's fault)

ID: Why, why d'you think that is because the media has been extremely supportive of you in particular and indeed Kids Company over the years. So why d'you think the media, if it has turned against you, why d'you think it has?

(Now it's Miles Goslett's fault)

CB: I think they've been fed misinformation actually... It all started with Miles Goslett...er... a reporter, who has never visited Kids Company, never met me, I actually offered for him to come and visit and speak to me. He claimed...err...that there was a lady, who hadn't been thanked for her donation to Kids Company and that we hadn't reported properly back on her donation. Both of which were lies. Not only I have copies of that lady's thank you letters, she was given a whole page in our news letter. (He said a lot more than that actually)

ID: She gave you two hundred thousand pounds...

CB: Yes...and the Charities Commission approved her report. So this is how this whole situation started because Miles made it out that we were ungrateful and that we didn't report properly..er.. which, both of which were entirely untrue.

ID: Now, he's written a little bit of a history of all this on the Spectator website which I know you haven't seen. I'm going to read you out a paragraph from the this because he says he's...er..met people who've worked for you and he's quoting two of them and..uh..umm...you're not going to like what I'm going to read out but ...I...er...because it's so...it's  symptomatic of the accusations that are against you, I'm reading it out because I want you to respond to it and say why it's wrong.

CB: You can be completely open and transparent with me and ask me any questions you want to.

(Giving him permission is similar to resorting to telling people who you are - could be considered disingenous)

ID: Right, well, this is from...apparently, well course there's no name so someone who apparently worked at Kids Company and they say "Camila is basically pretty impossible to work with and she's given the charity sector a bad name. People need to realise that Kids Company is her personal empire. I'm not aware of her having anything else in her life. I'm not aware of her having any friends with whom she can just go and have a cup of copy...coffee. That is not healthy. The charity is her and she is the charity." Is there any aspect of that that's true?

CB: I...no..it isn't, because the organisation has 600...had...650 staff about 10'000 volunteers...er... some 500 clinical students did their work experience with us. It had a board of trustees so it's a massive organisation and it can't possibly run, just on my personal personality.
(she didn't address what Iain asked her)

ID: You were the figure head, I mean, we all knew you partly because of your character, the way that you dress everyone's fascinated (CB is smiling)...err...by you and what you've done and do you think that part of the problem has been that Kids Company is a bit like a company that grows too quickly? The chief executive is brilliant at manufacturing widgets but once it gets into sort of reading the balance sheets and all of that...then they start to struggle. Is that's what's happened to you?

CB: No. It's interesting you say that because I think that's one of the prejudices because I don't...err...wear a suit and I don't carry a brief case, I haven't sort of bought into the corporate packaging. People assume (Which people? What did they actually say?) and especially because I'm a woman and I work with children..people assume (Which people?) that then,  I don't understand figures and I can't ...err..organise systems but actually, if you really think about it, I organise with my team and we raised a hundred and sixty three million point four ...so that requires quite a lot of work...er...and last year it came from seventy-seven thousand different sources including one pound coins, so administatively we must be pretty good to be able to get that amount of money in.

(Iain isn't impressed so CB is self-congratulatory)

ID: Well...you, you say that but you will have seen the front page of the Guardian this morning I presume...

CB: No, I haven't seen any of the papers...

ID: Well...er...Kids Company chiefs ignored cash warnings, Finance bosses told charity's trustees to build up funds or risk catastrophe...umm...it says here that you were warned by your auditors for five successive years that you should build up reserves because you didn't have enough money to continue for more that three months, and yet you ignored all of those warnings.

(Is she going to say no again?)

CB: ...n..n..it is true, it's absolutely true, (phew!) that we had those discussions with the auditors and we too wanted reserves...er...and in fact that's why we continously spoke to Government. The problem with Kids Company and the reason we've had these difficulties is that children and young people are self-refering off the street. So they hear about our provision on the street and they make their way to Kids Company. So, in the last 19 years, because children have asked for help directly, no local authority was prepared to pay for them so we haven't had one pence from a local authority...

ID: No but you've had a lot from central government haven't you?

CB: ...let me finish....or a mental health trust. So what ended up happening is that we ended up with really large numbers (How many exactly because no one seems to know?) of very disturbed children and young people ...it was.. we were overwhelmed by it and since the Blair government, we'd been talking to the government about the fact that we can't cope with this sort of case load and repeated central governments gave us a grant of about 20% and they kept saying, next year we'll sort you out completely, we'll find a funding stream for you, so that you don't have to be so hand-to-mouth.  Most recently, just before the summer...er...during the summer...er... I spoke to Oliver Letwin who then said that he was going to find us a..a..about 20 million because I had warned everyone that we would not be able to fund raise any more because we'd been Charity of the Year for practically every bank....we'd basically run out of....people that we could go to... we've been going for 19 years...

(she seems to express that fact not as an achievement but as if she's trying to elicit a particular response from Iain and BAM he's all over it)

ID: That's a really odd thing to say because people who are successful in fundraising...umm... continue in that way normally. To say you'd run out of new people...um... success breeds success and you were successful in raising a huge amount of money so I'm slightly at a loss to understand why you think it would suddenly have come to an end.

CB: Because the scale...er...had become impossible, driven by children and young people pouring in through the doors. ( pouring in?) You know most charities...er..large charities, survive by having contracts. So for example the local authority may give them work to do and then they pay the charity. We couldn't do that because the kids were coming...o...from the street and using the service so no one was paying and it's exactly the problem Childline had and it couldn't survive on its own so the NSPCC had to absorb it.

(Aligning with Childline - good move)

ID: Of this 163 million pounds that you've raised, what proportion of that came from the tax payer?

CB: Umm...g...err...in any given year....we had...umm...err...g...sort of...about 4 million...err...a year, so the proportions.......were....most recently, 4 million from central government...about 19 to 20 million...err....raised...err....by us.

(This is her most nervous answer, on figures, that she says she is good at, even though she doesn't wear a suit or carry a briefcase)

ID: Cus...I mean you have grown very very quickly in the last few years haven't you, well, you've more or less doubled in size in the last four or five years? That must have put pressures on your administration and I'm slightly at a loss to understand why you, you don't...in any interview I've seen you do...you don't acknowledge those pressures, you don't say well yeah we may have got a few things wrong. You're, you're sort of straight down the line saying no, no, no we..our administration is fine. Alan Yentob I saw last night on chanel 4 news, a quite extraordinary interview i thought...erm.. said no, no, there is absolutely no problem. Well I'm sorry an organisation does not close its doors, does not effectively go bust, when there aren't any problems and...

CB: ...No there was a problem...

ID: ...it's up to the chief executive or the board of trustees to sort those problems out or identify them.

CB: There was a problem and I've said, there was a problem. Where I acknowledge that there was a problem is that we didn't raise enough funds. Where I disagree with the narrative out there, is the suggestion, that we had financial mismanagement....because, actually, in 19 years, we passed every audit clear, we had two additional audits by central government which we passed clear as well but all the audits, said we didn't have enough cash flow because we were so....constantly...we started the year not knowing where our money was coming from and we had to raise it month by month as we went along and that's why we went to central government to say please we can't manage...

ID: But you had five years to sort this out. The problems were identified in 2010 about the lack of reserves and you ignored those warnings for five years, that's...

CB: No we didn't ignore them...

ID: Well...

CB: We went...no, we didn't ignore them...

ID: Why didn't you build up any reserves then?

CB: No but we couldn't, this is the point. Everyone is having the conversation just about the...m...the financials. What they're not having the conversation about is the clinical, which is, we had too many...d...very disturbed children.....d'you know I ended up, having to hire my own Psychiatrists...err...Psychiatric Nurses, Occupational Therapists, Child Protection Officers because we couldn't get the cases that we had, into Social Services, or Child Mental Health because locally those agencies were not coping. Our...one of our biggest provisions is in a borough where the local social work department has just failed OFsted, so we were holding, too many serious cases and we kept going back to central government and saying we shouldn't be having kids who are jumping off bridges, who are cutting themselves, who are being sexually and physically abused we shouldn't as a charity be holding cases like that.

ID: Well, Camila we'll both catch our breath because we've got to go to the news and travel...err...we'll hear more from Camlla Batmanghelidjh in just a second. I'm Iain Dale at breakfast LBC news time at 9:31.

9:36 here on LBC, we're in the company of Camila Batmanghelidjh from Kids Company ...erm...Amanda in Brixton has emailed to say "I donated to Kids Company last year and I did get a receipt" So...it's very interesting looking at the tweets and texts that are coming in, there are no shades of grey here. There are either people who think that it's entirely your fault or there...or other people think you're a complete saint, there's no...sort of...middle ground on this...umm...Can I ask you Camila where did the 3 million pounds go that the government sent to you last week?

CB: Ok, so the government claim, that they didn't know, that we were going to use part of it, as a salary. That is not true. I have in my possession, an email exchange between us and the government, where they were fully aware, that we were waiting for their money to come, for the salary to be paid. In fact this three million, was part of a repackaging...err....sort of...err...grant....so that we would have to shrink Kids Company in order to make it sustainable as an organisation, so it's very disingenous to claim that they didn't know.

ID: Why haven't you released those emails?

CB: err...I now have actually...

ID: No you haven't...

CB: Yeah, I released...err...one of them last night because I think this is the sort of culture of this debate at the moment is one where the government....doesn't ar.... the cabinate office cus it's not all of government by the way...even within...in...the machinery of government....they're fighting...err...over this issue with different people having different agendas. One set want to support Kids Company and make sure that it survives and another set want to make sure (small laugh it sounds like) that it disappears.

ID: You see I...this is again...I think people find...struggle with this because going... if you go back to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown...ime...Gordon Brown was a massive supporter of yours, David Cameron has been a massive supporter, Ian Duncan Smith. I think people struggle with the fact that there are...so you say...people within government who want to see Kids Company disappear. Why would they do that? Why would they think that?

CB: I don't really know...err... why, but I think that what I do know is that I really had some major challenges...er...with...erm... over the fact that I kept telling them that the child protection situation in this country was really problematic. I had..err...err...quite a few arguments with Michael Gove..err..with...umm....Tim Loughton...over...

ID: He's the former children's minister...yeah

CB: ...err...yeah....before...the...the...it became evident that there was very serious problems of child sexual abuse...

ID: Neither of them are...well...Tim Loughton isn't a government minister any more, Michael Gove is now at the Justice Department so they can't be having any influence on what's happening now...

CB: Well they are actually...umm....Tim Loughton keeps coming out publically and saying that he didn't want us to get a grant when he was in the Department of Education and this is so disingenous again because he was having cups of tea with me...err....in my office. Never did he suggest, that there was any problem whatsoever with the way we were functioning ...err...I don't have in our possession a single letter from government that says, we misreported, we didn't do things properly...err..we should change anything so to hear from them...er....and to hear from civil servants that have never come to Kids Company, never met us, that they recommended that we didn't get the money, it's like you suddenly think what are you dealing with...these people have never been there.

ID: Erm...let me put something to you that you said to Victoria Derbyshire yesterday. You said ..."I am being supressed because I know about sexual abuse claims against senior people"

CB: No I didn't say...

ID: No that...that's a direct quote...

CB: No...what I'm...what I said is...generally, I believe that there is a supression of people who are speaking up about child protection. The government's closed, the college of social work. It was....

ID: No no this was something specific that you said...you said..."I am being supressed because I know about sexual abuse claims against senior people." IE, to do with the child sex inquiry.

CB: No what I'm trying....yes I do know about....err...umm..sss...I have been communicated with by child protection police officers who are investigating....and who have been investigating....er...very well known people...

ID: No but your alegation was that the government are trying to supress you...

CB: No...no...I ...that's the....q.....I'm just about to explain it to you....I...I said that in the wider context that there is a suppression of people who are speaking up about child protection..err....and I personally have spoken up about child protection issues....err...related to now...and I've been approached by police officers...err... in relation to historic child sexual abuse cases.

ID: ....but, but the implication here is that you believe that people within government whether it's one or two politicians or senior civil servants are trying to keep you quiet because of what you know about historic child sexual abuse cases.

CB: No, I think they're trying generally to get rid of people who are challenging them about child sexual abuse issues...

ID: Why is that?

CB:...because I think there is a big problem in this country in relation to massive scale child sexual abuse, childhood maltreatment across the country, current and there is very serious concerns in relation to well known people in the past and and that is not my business to discuss, the inquiry will do that.

ID: No...no but but your direct allegation therefore is that there are people in...in current government whether politicians or senior civil servants who have an interest in keeping this quiet and by keeping you quiet they can keep that quiet.

(aaand she uses the word stuff - I used to use that word a lot when I knew jack shit)

CB: I think they..they...do have an interest in keeping historic sexual abuse allegations quiet, you don't need my personal evidence, it's all unfolding isn't it...err... senior ministers were abusing children. Civil servants....some civil servants were involved in surpressing the evidence and what I'm saying is even now I'm aware of police officers who have evidence in relation to this stuff having their investigations not addressed appropriately and I've been in discussion with that group of people as well.

ID: Now what about the allegations that have been made in the last 24 hours against your organisation for...i think...surpressing is probably over doing it but not acting on allegations of sexual abuse that went on within Kids Company.

CB: First of all I need to really correct this...err... the challenge, that has been brought to us...is not...is not...about sexual abuse within Kids Company. It's really, really important to differentiate that. The police...

ID: Well the Newsnight allegation last night you were sitting in the studio watching the film as I was watching it on TV

CB: ....I'm trying to explain to you what it was. What has been brought to our attention is that allegedly, there had been some sexual activity between two young adults...err..and we had that information. The sexual activity allegedly, did not take place at Kids Company...but we had that information and we didn't report it. As it transpires, we didn't have that information so actually this allegation and the way it's been constructed is so untrue.

ID: But..but the allegation was th...th...that the girl involved....who I think was aged 16 or 17 she, she apparently says she did report it to Kids Company staff and it wasn't acted upon. You're saying that she didn't.

CB: The...I can't go into detail but what I can tell you is that...err...from the information we were given this individual wasn't even a Kids Company per....err...student or individual.

ID: Where do we go from here? I mean I heard you say recently that you wanted to have an opportunity to restart Kids Company which I can understand just from the point of view of the children that now are left in limbo. If a philanthropist came up and said Camila I completely believe in you I think that you've been traduced I think this is completely unfair, here's 5 million pounds to restart. Would you?

CB: Yea....My concern is not Kids Company, or myself, my concern is that we shut the door, to a lot of children and young people and destitute families who saw Kids Company as their home and their family environment. What people don't realise is that unfortunately, a very destructive...err..media game and a series of unfair and inaccurate briefings lead to the destruction of what in effect was a home for a lot of kids and what I'm trying to do is to try and see whether we can recreate that community which was very very important to those children and young people.

(Sounds to me like it was Camila's family, Camila's home and now Camila hasn't got anything else)

ID: I said to someone last night that I was going to interview you today and they said to me...err...well can you put this question to her...they said she doesn't...she seems to blame everyone else here for whats gone wrong here and doesn't seem to think that she's done anything wrong at all. Do you think you've done anything wrong at all?

(Her answer sounds like when you're at an interview and they ask you what you're bad at and you pick something positive to say as a negative like 'Oh sometimes I can be too conscientious and can stay too late at the office')

CB: I think I've....genuinely...i think I absolutely fell short of being able to raise the right amount of money. I also didn't manage to get the machinery of government to come to the table appropriately and it's very telling that it took us to close for all these local authorities and the cabinate office, to eventually come together to decide what to do about these destitute and devastated children. It would have been good if they'd come before, which is what I really needed. I found it very difficult to see for example the leader of one local authority criticise us in the media, when I know that just one of the families, we've been referring over 20 times for child protection to this particular borough and they wouldn't take..err... the case and this is the sort of experience that we have had which has made it so difficult for us. We were completely overwhelmed by the scale of the problem arriving at our door and I failed to fundraise for it this last year and I failed to be able to get...err...government and local authorities to absorb the seriousness of the concerns that we were carrying.

ID: And just finally, if you can't...er...restart Kids Company, what does your future hold, have you thought about it?

(If I was her, I'd say it's all about the kids again.....oh wait...)

CB: Er..no...because...m...my entire concern has actually been...err...the children. Literally what I am worried about is that there are groups of them, who won't have enough to eat next week. (Can they come to your house? You seem to be eating ok) So I'm just right now, trying to concentrate on finding the money for that and that's why it's so important to clear up these allegations of financial mismanagment which are so untrue because that has implications about whether I will be able to raise the money to then be able to meet these childrens needs.

ID: Well if there are any philanthropists listening we'll put them in touch with you...

CB: Thank you very much.

ID: Camila Batmanghelidjh thank you so much for taking so much time with us here on LBC

LBC: JO'B, Women and What Influences Their Choices.

I have just got off air with Mr James OB discussing the story of the 20 yr old woman who drowned in Dubai 19 years ago, because her dad told some life guards not to rescue her as he didn't want them to touch her, fearing she would be dishonoured.

In Islam, when a person's life is in danger it is permissible to do everything possible to save that person, male, female, gay, transgender, who cares, their life is in danger. This is what the father in this situation (if he was in fact, Muslim), did not fully understand.

The discussion quickly moved from the dad and his daughter, to women not being touched in Islam and the reasons for that, which several people, including me, tried to explain to James, is because 100% of a woman is awrah, which means forbidden. Unless of course you are her husband or in the case of being with her in a casual way, her family. 

I realise James has to make a show and 90% of that means he can't always stick with his own views and has to mix it up to cause more people to call in...and he's good at it. However, on this issue, regarding Islam, I really think he actually believes the stupidity that he was spouting. Get the podcast, it was truly alarming to me.

Does he believe that his own wife is allowed to choose who puts their hands on her and I am not allowed the same freedom of choice? That's what it sounded like to me. He kept saying "because God..." No, because I choose this religion! My choice and he has a problem with my choice.

Hypocritical.

On what basis does his woman choose? Atheism, Secularism, Christianity? It doesn't matter what influences her views and opinions on her decisions that she makes because James agrees with them.....so it's ok.

Mine...because he doesn't like what influences my choices, then somehow I am barking mad for choosing them and he "fears" for me. Patronising? A bit yeh.

So wherever James draws the boundary lines on his own personal space and his own reasons for those boundaries, and he will have some, he's married. He will have physical contact boundaries and verbal communication boundaries with the opposite gender....it's somehow ok because God isn't behind them?

What if I have the same boundaries as I have got now, but God wasn't behind them? Would that be ok? Would my choice then be acceptable as a woman? Nothing would have changed, just that Islam wouldn't be behind my choice.

He seems to have a problem with Islam, Hijab, women exercising their freedom in Islam, like a lot of people, because it doesn't fit with his stereotypical view of how he wants to catagorise Muslim women.

I am a confident woman, a Muslim, equal with my husband and in full control of my own life thanks.
Seriously, this is what I heard. I'm open to what anyone else heard.

Not one of his fav callers any more uh?

The Disempowerment of Fathers

Isn't it weird that I live in a society that criticises Islam for being stuck in the dark ages, sexist and male dominated and yet our law, which was founded on Christian principles, favours mothers over fathers in terms of full custody. Fathers often have to prove the mother unfit, to have their children live with them. While she often stays in the family home and the father is renting somewhere and has to face endless checks by agencies to deem whether his place is fit for his own kids to come visit and stay over. If society is proper equal, that's what feminism has been crying out for a long time now, why not the mother move out and the father stay in the family home?

I find it hard to take seriously the well worn criticisms of Islam, when the balance of those western judicial scales is enormously weighted against fathers. Expecting them to pay for their children (and rightly so) but are treated like dogs in the court system only thrown scraps of time in comparison to the mothers who often don't even stick to their court agreements, making it so difficult for the father to attend his visits or even saying the child is sick several times in a row when they're clearly not. This should be an offence when mothers do this! They should be chased by the authorities in the same way the dads are chased financially.

What do you think that does to the image of their father in the child's eyes?

In Islam the father is treated with utmost respect. No one is taking his kids away from him and Islamic law doesn't uphold the mother's rights against the father unless the father is abusive.

It is a common thing in our modern, empowered society, for me to hear women who use their children like a weapon against the father of those children because of some issues she has with her ex. How is any of that mess the childrens fault? Yet they suffer because of a out of control woman who needs someone to put her in her place! Where is the empowerment for the man uh?

And people say the Islamic way is messed up. Looking at the way the 'christian' system of family law works, I don't think so.

Israel Bought Some Bitter Butter But It Made Her Batter Bitter, So She Bomber The Fuck Out Of The Butter Seller...

I got kicked out of a pub once (a while ago - pre Islam) for having a legitimate go at a woman who had a disability. It was a bit of a shocker because as far as I was concerned, I was chatting to her like I would anyone else.

Whenever I heard a person with a disability speak on the radio or TV they always said they just wanted to be treated like everyone else, seriously, I must have heard that a ton of times.

So I asked this lady about how she came to be disabled and she was proper rude about it...Why is my face and arse mixed up....she snapped back at me. So I pointed out to her that she had started chatting to me first, I didn't elicit a conversation from her and she said, she wished she hadn't started one up. So I asked her if she was so stupid to think that she wouldn't get questions about her disability and I told her I wasn't being insulting just a proper interested question about a very huge and obvious part of her life. I did apologise and attempted to leave it at that.

However, she continued, likening it to someone asking a black man why he was black and I seriously had to stop myself from laughing and remarked that her logic was even more disabled than her body. Suddenly, the affable landlady went all Gollum on me "LEAVE NOW AND NEVER COME BACK!" because I "....shouldn't argue with a disabled person." Yeah really!

I asked the lady being condescended to, if she was happy being 'defended' in this way and she seemed smug that someone had, on the surface of it, stood up for her, so I left, under the scowling eyes of the raging landlady.

This story is what springs to mind when I think of the national identity of Israel. Something unimaginably awful, horrific and unjust happened to a vast number of Jewish people in history (not to mention a whole bunch of other nationalities too), and now the world is too afraid to treat Israel as normal. Even if you just look at the figures of those who have died on both sides of the conflict involving Israel and Palestine, you have to wonder how it gets away with such disproportionate responses when many other countries would not. Israel literally gets away with murder, over the top, needless killing, trading in on its own tragic historic losses.

Instead of being angry, vengeful and ungenerous, Israel could so easily be a nation that is known for its generosity and peacefulness given that itself has known so much pain and unjust persecution.

Stay prideful Israel, hateful and disproportionately murderous and one day it will be one too many murders and your major supporters will not be able to excuse your actions any more and they will all turn against you.

Child Abuse: The Big Paper Cover Up

I read Exaro News about the #VIPaedophiles investigation they are reporting and I listen to LBC when they do interviews with Politicians about the climate way back when kids from children's homes were "residuals" is the word I think I remember hearing.

I wonder about these important politicians and Lords doing their important jobs from some of the best schools in the country, educated to the highest standard, that someone didn't teach them the basics. The value of human life, dignity, honour, duty, integrity....etc. All that money went into educating them and they didn't even learn the important stuff.

I'm being sarcastic as they clearly knew right from wrong and even if you can see that it was somehow 'acceptable' to treat the lives of these children as your own personal objects to do with as you please without consequence, you would expect that today 2015, the climate would be much improved what with our enlightenment.

I have been out from the care system for four and a half years and I can't see so much difference from what I'm reading in the news and what I knew of some of the kids I lived with over a ten + year period.

The only thing that seems like it has changed are the new and improved policies that keep coming from the suits to safeguard vulnerable children. The reality of these policies issued to over-stretched, under-resourced agencies, is that targets are introduced to keep records of actions taken. Ten minute chat in some corridor TICK....supervision completed. Five minute chat on the phone "Everything alright love?" TICK....counselling session complete. If the paperwork says it happened, it happened.
It doesn't prevent sick people from having access to kids in care.

It's like staff don't really want to hear anything about their colleagues because then they would actually have to make a report and it seemed to me, a lot of staff try to avoid that because it makes their own life more difficult and their own job insecure.

Do the agencies involved have concerns about some of these people looking after kids? Sure, I can't see how they couldn't have. Some workers and agency staff are friends and so turn their eye blind, some overseers recognise it's not a popular job, no one really wants to look after a bunch of kids who thieve their belongings, abscond, fight with staff and verbally abuse them most days, so the few workers they have, they want to keep.

The kids seem no safer in care today than they were way back when. But as long as we have policies and ticked off paperwork that says they are, the suits are covered.
 
The big paper cover up.

House, House, House, Home

House:
hungry, wet, silence, cold, empty, dark, alone, ignored
hit, pain, broken, crying, drugs, mum, boyfriend, lying
raw, meat, rank, sick, doctor, xray, plaster, trip


House:
many, scary, anxious, fights, noisy, chaos, paedos, nights
knife, hidden, pillow, sleep, stabbed, hand, man, creep
truent, loner, safe, clever, aggression, trust, NO, never


House:
rent, empty, new, MINE, cooking, shopping, working, fine
pubs, clubs, fun, youth, religion, study, Islam, TRUTH
ummah, Rina, shahada, friend, wali, marriage, single, end


Home:
man, weird, wife, weirder, funny, new, mum, nearer
aunties, uncles, mum, clean, du'a, mending, healing, dream
trust, man, love, release, home, children, life, peace