Sunday, November 6

Two wins and a great feeling

It was a good week indeed. Firstly, we received information that the funding for the HSH charity is now confirmed for another year at least and that is excellent news, we were on the verge of starting our close down process which would have been tragic for all the families in severe distress we support and our employees. But very happy about it and now we are going to really fix this place.

In particular, what I want to do is to launch an initiative where we train our families in proper financial management and literacy. This will improve their lives and be able to handle financials. Lack of financial management in families is one of the biggest causes and symptoms of family distress. Plus I should be able to get some funding for this. So I have engaged the LSE SIFE team to see if they would be able to find out what is out there in terms of financial education for families and explore ways that we can deliver thi provision. Should start hearing back from them soon.

I am having a chat with a chap from India who has done some amazing work with technology for social purposes, that is promising indeed, hopefully we will get some traction on that end and can get the IT4CH charity to fund it.

Found out some people in India who are working in the area of West Bengal and education, hopefully will be able to speak to them next week to determine some more local details on what can and cannot be done locally. Also speaking to somebody who is in the government to see what are the requirements that charities have to fulfil to operate in Didi’s state.

Tomorrow we have the launch of the Transformation Trust’s pilot with LSE SIFE with the trading futures game, that promises to be an excellent large impact initiative which, if it works out, will hit almost 800 schools and we will be able to improve financial literacy and hopefully get the students interested in trading.

Might also be helping to run a strategy session for STIR sometime this side of the year. I just hope my imminent knee operation doesnt muck up all these plans..

Good stuff, but I am personally very happy, extremely happy with the fact that HSH got funding, now we can make it sustainable and real high impact. Very very chuffed. It took a heck of a lot of huge effort, pain and work to get there. I was quite depressed and disheartened for several weeks, we lost people, we lost trustees and we lost hope (almost) but we succeeded. Pushed very hard, spoke to the MP’s, spoke to the council, spoke to funding agencies, spoke with the employees, constantly emailed and spoke with the trustees, big big job done by the Chairman. Big Society, here we come. Very happy.

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