Structure makes me happy

On Friday I found out lots of information.
I got both my host family allocation and my placement details. WOW I imagine you are thinking in response to this, my head started to spin a little as I began to process this news.

First my host family allocation -
I will be living with Brenda Moses and her granddaughter in the suburbs of Cape Town with up to 5 other volunteers. There are 3 volunteer rooms with bunk beds, a shared bathroom for all of us, kitchen and lounge. It is amazing to see photos of all these spaces that will become so familiar to me a couple of months from now.
At the moment I can see that when I arrive there will be one other volunteer who has been there since the 2nd January, they will be there the whole time I am, additionally there is a volunteer who will arrive a week before me and stay till March.
There is a Facebook group for all of the volunteers in Cape Town, which I have just introduced myself on. It is amazing how many projects are taking place there!

I also got my weekly timetable for my placement -
Monday - Wednesday I will be doing workshops on life skills, human rights awareness and drugs and alcohol rehabilitation in the community.
Wednesday morning - I will be visiting shelters for abused and destitute woman.
Thursday - This is debriefing day, I will be working in the office (image below), researching and planning the next weeks workshops, as well as reflecting on the week.
Friday - The law firm is closed to clients due to weekly meetings.

Monday - Thursday: 8:30-4:30pm
Friday: 8:30-1pm
Weekends - free

Now my visa is sorted (being collected on the 8th Feb) and I have structure to my trip I can begin to get very excited!

It was so lovely to have so many brilliant people come over on Saturday afternoon for cake and be able to share all this information with them. I am very grateful for everyone who has supported me over the last few months through financial support, prayer and encouragement. Look forward to writing weekly blogs when I am in South Africa to update you all on what I am doing!
It is now 33 days to go!

Prayer requests:

- I have a few weeks left in the UK so am meeting up with lots of people for the last time in a while, please be praying for those times full of excitement.
- I have mentioned energy before, but reading through my weekly timetable I am reminded just how much of a challenge this is going to be.
- Hopefully I will be able to get in touch with some of the people I will be living and working with before I go, please be praying for good relationships.
- I will not have any internet where I am living, I hope this will be more of a blessing than a annoyance, but it will defiantly be an adjustment! Please pray that I get the balance right between keeping in touch with people at home and embracing a new culture fully.

Thank you for making it to the end of my fourth blog post! Have a great week.

Between the pages of a book is a lovely place to be!

One of the aims of my gap year, especially in part one - the time before I travel, is to do things I haven't previously had time for. Having spent the last 15 years of my life in education from Monday to Friday it has been a huge shift to have so much say on how I spend my time.

One of my favourite things to do is get lost in a book, during peak exam time the only book I read was 1984 and even that was in the name of Cold War revision. So as exams ended and the long summer holiday presented itself I went on my usual reading spree - these were a few of my favourites:

- Room by Emma Donoghue, this was one of my read in 2 days books, very captivating story about a mother and son who are being held captive in a room.

- The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez, this was a Christmas present a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed the insight into life in Kabul, it was a slightly less intense Khaled Hosseini book.

- 1000 lashes by Raif Badawi, this is a collection of Raif Badawi's blog posts that got him imprisoned for 10 year and sentenced to 1000 lashes in Saudi Arabia. I recognised Raif Badawi's story from Amnesty International Campaigns for political prisoners and felt compelled to know more about his story.

- Enemy Combatant by Mozzam Begg, this is a harrowing read and infuriated me to no end. It is the life of Mozzam Begg an ordinary British citizen that was captured, tortured and detained in Guantanmo Bay for 3 years. To this day it isn't clear why he was taken from his family home in the middle of the night, I would highly recommend reading this! It has increased my desire to campaign for the shut down of Guantanmo Bay in my life time.

- Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, this is a great book that switches between two interconnecting stories centuries apart. Is a long book but defiantly a page turner.

-  On Liberty by Shami Chakrabati, this is another re- read and a book that I wish I could get every person in the UK to read. It is about one of my favourite topics, you guessed it HUMAN RIGHTS. It is the reflections of Shami Chakrabati in her role as director of Liberty and how she has seen human rights legislation change since 9/11.

- Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult, I read this whilst lounging on the sailing boat we spent a week on in Turkey whilst the rest of my family did all the hard work (at least I admit it)! Jodi Picoult is one of my trusty authors, I know that when I pick up a book with her name on I will enjoy seeing all the jigsaw pieces fall into place as the plot comes together.

Between January and August I read 13 books.

Between September and December I read 12 books!
Whilst I was eagerly waiting for my structure to emerge during September and October I went a bit crazy on the reading front and read a couple of books a week and several I would start and finish in one day cover to cover. These are my favourites:

- Election Notebook: The Inside Story of the Battle Over Britain's Future and My Personal Battle To Report It by Nick Robinson, WOW, what a fantastic eye opener to the behind the scenes of 2015 politics! I loved the informal writing style and comments of Nick Robinson, Political Editor for the BBC as he travelled the country following the political campaigns for both the Scottish Referendum and the General Election. Especially as someone who joined the Liberal Democrats on the 10th May 2015 it was fascinating to see some of the back ground in our electoral defeat.

- The Truth about the Henry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker, this was essentially a murder mystery with many twists and turns and intricate characters, stayed up most of the night reading this! Was possibly my favourite fiction of the year.

- Very Good Lives by JK Rowling, this is one of my favourite speeches of all time, I almost know it word for word.Last Christmas mum got me an illustrated copy of the speech and I love reading it. Encourage everyone in the world to listen to JK Rowling Harvard Commencement Speech to hear her talk about the importance of failure and imagination! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHGqp8lz36c

- Justice by Michael Sandel, I finished this book having had lots of breaks in reading it, it takes some brain work! But is worth the effort! It talks through lots of different philosophical theories relating to justice with real life examples to help you get your head round them.

- The Girl who was shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai, this was absolutely amazing! I wrote about it in more detail in my last blog post see here http://myonlinenotebookacf.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/reflections-on-importance-of-empathy.html

So that is it! And after all of that if you are interested in what I am currently reading it is Between the Extremes by Nick Clegg! LOVING IT!

Very impressed if you made it to the end, wanted to document something that has taken such a prominent place in my gap year.
Thank you for making it to the end of my third blog post.

Reflections on the importance of empathy

Over the last few weeks I have been reflecting on the power of empathy and had amazing conversations with lots of people. I wanted to document some thoughts as empathy is a big part of my gap year.

I don't think I'm going to shock anyone when I say that politics is a big part of my life.
For me politics is about people and therefore empathy should be at the core of political life, however when I wrote about this in my personal statement one of the teachers reviewing it was taken aback. Believing that a personal statement should be academic and not about emotions, They said that when they looked at politics, empathy wasn't what sprang to mind.
This contrasted with the conversations I had with people at the Christians in Politics Youth Engagement Day. Lots of young people spoke about how they felt drawn to politics because they weren't content to sit by when others needed help. Whilst I disagree with many politicians from an ideological stance, I trust that the vast majority of them signed up to do good in the way they personally thought was most effective.
Our training day ended with a Prayers for the Nation event run by the Conservative Christian Fellowship, I had to practise what I preach about the importance of cross party work by going to a Conservative event! (Kingdom before tribe!) We met in the St Mary Undercroft Chapel underneath Parliament. It was magnificent to be in such a beautiful place! We sang carols with the most amazing Gospel choir and I was blown away. There was such a sense of common humanity in our prayers.

The concept of empathy has come up again in my Amnesty Enrichment Project, I am loving the independence of planning workshops for Sixth Form students on human rights, starting with the Refugee Crisis. At the moment I am planning not knowing anything about the people who are coming in January, so thought I would begin by introducing the back ground of the crisis and facilitate discussion/ debates on whether the UK government have a responsibility to do more. Additionally one of the aims of the group is to reflect on empathy...If this challenges them to truly step into the shoes of others then the workshops have the potential to influence how to they look at news stories, elections and charity in the years to come. This is my dream.

But whilst these things have been thought provoking, it was the book 'I am Malala' that prompted me to write this blog post. Wow, did I underestimate her story! I was completely unaware of the staggering amount of work she did to raise awareness for 'a girls right to education' before her shooting. Her confidence and determination to call her government and army to account is an inspiration. When accepting awards she presented them with her demands, when receiving death threats her family continued, when friends around them were being shot they gave interviews elevating their cause at huge risk. Several times I was bought to tears, overwhelmed with sadness, desperation and frustration at the steady rise of the Taliban in Pakistan and the horrific regime they put in place.

It takes so little for us all to fall into the trap of scapegoating, and referring to fellow human beings as 'the other'. We are able to justify human rights abuses only when we chose to dehumanisation over empathy. 

Basically I think empathy is everything. 

I hope that just as I have had my mindset shifted through interesting conversations, I may be able to get others to question how seriously they take empathy as a conscious action.

Finally PLEASE watch this clip, it says all of the above better.

Is Justice Worth it?

Prayer Requests:

- I find out about my host family in January, please be praying that I am comforted by whatever information I get sent. 

- I start the Amnesty Enrichment workshops on the 18th January at Alderbrook Sixth Form so please be praying that people turn up and are keen to get stuck in. 

- Also for my sleep, am still struggling with exhaustion and not enjoying it!

Thank you for making it to the end of my second blog post. 

Hi

After much deliberation over what to call my gap year blog I have decided on ‘my online notebook’ I hope you approve! The short list included: Musings of a political activist (which I thought might give too high an expectation for my posts), Perks of a gap year and Amy Fortnam and the African Adventure (note my love of Harry Potter inspired this).

Anyway HI!

Context: On February 18th I fly to Cape Town, South Africa to spend 16 weeks volunteering at Projects Abroad Human Rights Law Firm. I will be spending Monday – Friday in their Social Justice department, helping run workshops to support 9 independent charities. During my stay I will be living with a host family and hope to find out more about them come January. Then at the end of the 16 weeks my family will reunite for a holiday travelling around South Africa. CAN’T WAIT!

Update: My gap year technically started in September, when for the first time instead of splurging on new stationary and buying new shoes for the start of a new school year, I had independence to decide how I spend my days. This was an uncomfortable adjustment for me, as many of you know I am a self-confessed control freak and depend on structure. So I have slowly but surely imposed my own structure and now spend my time doing the following: working for a family who live around the corner as a carer for their 3 children. This is a brilliantly challenging way to earn money, I really enjoy it. I also do half a day a week at Knowle Parish Church doing admin and social media communications for the Youth Team, which is quite a contrast I appreciate. Additionally I am continuing to work for SoLO the disability charity I have been involved with for the last three years.

Also I am doing some research with Christians in Politics, helping them with their Youth Engagement Project. I am part of a team of young Christians who are already active in politics and are keen to encourage others to show up and get stuck in. Also I am planning and running a 10 week enrichment programme for Alderbrook Sixth Form with my local Amnesty Group. There are 10 sessions that will take place on a Wednesday afternoon starting in January.

So I am keeping busy.

Fundraising: Thank you SO much to everyone who came to my quiz night in September, really appreciate your donations as well as your patience with a challenging set of questions! Am planning another event for early January, a drop in cake and hot chocolate afternoon, details to follow.

What’s next? (West Wing fans appreciate) Well this month I am attending 3 conferences (Christians in Politics, SHOW UP NORTH, Regional and Local Liberal Democrat AGM’s) and continuing with all the projects I mentioned earlier and counting down the days till I am walking in the sunshine rather than wrapping up against the cold.

Prayer requests: (For those of you who pray would love you to be asking for these things)

• Energy levels!
• ‘In the moment mind-set’ although it is exciting to count days I also want to appreciate all the fantastic things I am part of now, seeing this as a whole year of opportunities not just 4 months in South Africa.

Thank you for making it to the end of my very first blog post.