Thursday, March 31, 2016

A third of children living in persistent poverty showed a tendency to play alone.



The study found that more than a third of children living in persistent poverty showed a tendency to play alone. 
Children living in poverty are more likely to be solitary and have problems with friendships, research has revealed.
Youngsters who have experienced poverty are three times as likely as those who have never been poor to fall out with their friends “most days”, according to a report published by the National Children’s Bureau.
The study found that more than a third of children in persistent poverty showed a tendency to play alone, compared with a quarter of children who have never experienced poverty.
Poor children are four times more likely to fight with or bully others than their more affluent peers and are also twice as likely to report being bullied frequently, the report showed.
“Having good friends and a happy family life is a cornerstone of positive childhood experiences,” said Enver Solomon, director of evidence and impact at the National Children’s Bureau.
“Our research confirms that living in persistent poverty is linked with factors that can undermine these relationships, with a higher risk of experiencing problems like bullying, falling out with friends or having difficulty confiding in others.”
The National Children’s Bureau carried out the study in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a social research charity.
The report found that children from deprived households are as happy overall with their family and friends as other children, but are less likely to talk to someone at home about their worries. Approximately 58% of poorer children said they talked to their mothers about things they cared about, compared with 67% of children who have never faced poverty.
Poverty could have a “damaging impact” on children’s performance at school and their future prospects, the report warned.
Chris Goulden, head of policy and research at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “Reducing child poverty will help to boost children’s life chances and is a vital part of the ‘all-out assault on poverty’ promised by David Cameron. We need a comprehensive strategy to make sure children, young people and parents do not get stuck in poverty and parents are prevented from falling into poverty in the first place.”
The charity called for a cap on childcare costs for low- and middle-income families, and family hubs to provide support for parents, including antenatal services and financial advice.


Beautiful Humans







Touching finger tips - whenever we can - unique touching a unique finger tip.



I am into
Touching TIPS

I love to get
unique humans
touching
Unique Finger TIPS

It is a beautiful
feely 
experience
and
I train using 
Experiential Methods.

We learn best
not through
ears
mouths
BUT
Experientially

AND then yesterday
I saw this in the newspaper
below
and cut it out.

I felt for these beautiful humans
separated
reaching out
touching tips
that was
all there is for them.
*
Let us reach out
to humans
and touch
when we have the chance
the opportunity
with empathy
awareness
sensitivity ........

UNIQUE
finger tips
touching
another.

I love it
AND
now weep for the humans below.
Offer a tear
Pray if you pray
HOPE if you hope

Never build walls
until we know
what we are walling in
and what we are walling out.


BHP


Growing up in the Inner City

Growing up in inner-city neighborhoods, there’s a particular structure, which I’m sure is true of most social contexts. The type of person you are determines the role you play. The divisions between one part and the next are not always clearly marked, but everyone knows where the boundaries are. When kids are young, they don’t play a role. They just stick to whatever their siblings or closest friends are. But when young adulthood arrives, everyone gets sorted like “Divergent.” You become the part that best suits you and you play that role. As I grew older, I noticed five major roles I could possibly assume.
A gangsta must be an active gang member. Once you prove you’re committed to the family, even willing to kill for it, you’re allowed to join. Gangstas are responsible for holding down the block. They have to “put in work,” which might include tagging up a wall with graffiti and mark it with the gang’s name, robbing someone and bringing in money, or taking out an enemy. Unlike other roles, this one is not extra-curricular or optional. The “gang life” is a way of life.
Our community also boasted a few talented athletes. Everyone was proud of people who filled this role, so the community made sure athletes stayed out of trouble and away from drugs.
As far as my friends and I were concerned, if you didn’t fit any of the other roles I mentioned, you were an OJ or “Ordinary Joker.” These people are almost invisible. They often stay in their house or at least their own yards. No matter what I became, I was determined not to be an OJ. We didn’t want that identity.
As a kid, I spent most of my time with gangstas because of my Uncle Chris. When I hung out with my Uncle Chris, things got real. He was fun, talkative, and loud. He was the life of the party, and a magnet for mischief. Since he saw the world through a gangsta’s lens, he wanted me to become tough and aggressive. He would make me confront kids who stole from me or picked on me. He would make us scrap like pit bulls until one of us was bleeding and didn’t want to keep going. I got beat up a lot until I learned to fight a little.
I was hungry for male attention, and Uncle Chris offered a father-like relationship. I was hungry for acceptance, and Uncle Chris symbolized the promise of a family-like community. And I had idolized gangsta rappers like Tupac and Ice Cube and movies like Boyz In the Hood and Menace to Society. Uncle Chris seemed like the living embodiment of everything my heroes sang about. Hanging with him was like seeing all my heroes up close. Gangs have ranking systems, and I’m not sure where Uncle Chris fell, but it felt to me at the time like he was at the top. The more I idolized Uncle Chris, the more he drew me into his world. He was proud to have someone revere him, and he was raising me to be like him.

I shared this with you because at the end of the day we all look to emulate someone — whether a parent, grandparent, brother, sister, cousin, uncle, aunt, friend, you name it. We want acceptance, and we’re fighting for self-esteem. As children we look up to people, for better or worse, and see them as the standard for how we should act and identify ourselves. As we wrestle with questions of identity, we imitate those actions we think best fill an ambiguity we have within ourselves. And that goes for everyone; no one is free from this condition.
Knowing that this is true of everyone, we have a great opportunity to listen (not a well-championed virtue in our culture) and ask good, purposeful questions — always full of grace — to the people we meet daily. We can get to know their hopes, dreams, and fears. We get to know their story and find out whom they’re trying to be like. Maybe they’re trying to be just like you.
This is an excerpt from Unashamed, out May 3rd (copyright B&H Publishing Group). Pre-order it here: unashamedbook.com



*

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Teens Young People Children How easy it is for them and us to get into the mode of DISRESPECTING

Teens
Young People
Children
How easy it is for them
and us
to get into the mode of
DISRESPECTING
not valuing
honouring
seeing beautiful

If we see the beauty in ourselves
we will see beautiful
in others
who are
IMPERFECT
just like we know ourselves
to be

Right?
eh?


See the video and spread it


Lahore BOMBING and how we ignored it - #Brussels #Paris


The difficulty of getting people to read about Lahore

You’ll see people complaining that the media doesn’t give as much prominence to terrorism atrocities outside of Western Europe as it does to those that take place in cities like Paris or Brussels. The data shows it is much, much harder to get people to read those stories.

My heart goes out to the families affected by the bombings in the last couple of days in Pakistan and Iraq. As a father of young children myself, I struggle to comprehend the callous viciousness of deliberately targeting children playing football in Al-Asriya, or out for a day with their families in Lahore.

And social media is littered today with people complaining that the media has not been giving these stories the attention they deserve.
It’s undoubtedly true that there is less coverage, but it is also regretfully true that there seems to be less of an audience.
It’s a Bank Holiday today in the UK, and I’m not working, but I’m also a complete news geek so obviously started the day with listening to the Radio 4 Today programme and with a quick look at the Guardian’s real-time web stats tool, Ophan.
I was struck by the fact that despite leading the site with several stories about the Lahore attacks, it was not our most read story.
In fact, Lahore didn’t even make the top five most read. I can’t give exact figures of course, but this is the relative real-time popularity of the top ten most read stories on theguardian.com at the time I checked the figures — 8:45am this morning.
It’s just a snapshot, and I’m sure that the Pakistan attack story will continue to be in the top ten throughout the day as other things pop in and out, but at that point in time it was being out-performed by stories about a logic puzzlethe ruins of Palmyraa woman having lots and lots of sex but being dissatisfied about it and John Kerry’s comments on the US Presidential race.
And to add a little bit of extra context, lurking at #10 in that list was a year old piece about Cee-Lo Green’s attitude to rape victims, which seems to have suddenly gained a new lease of life on Reddit somewhere. It’s an indicator that it isn’t always your homepage choice, and sometimes not even your own social media channels, that can be huge drivers of traffic.
By contrast, on the day of the Brussels attacks, five of the top ten most read stories on the site that day were about Brussels, with the live blog having millions and millions of views.
Now I’d never use stats like this to determine editorial priority. The Lahore attack was despicable, and is clearly the world’s biggest story today. I’d always run it in the #1 slot.
But what you will probably see over the next few days is that there will be a lot less follow up coverage from the media as a whole than there was follow up coverage of Brussels.
In part, for us in Western Europe, that will be about logistics. It is a lot easier – and cheaper – to send a couple of reporters over to Brussels than it would be to get a team into Lahore.
I find it a bit depressing really, but unsurprising.
It’s harder to get mainstream reader empathy and interest in terrorism attacks that occur further from our shores. Many, many of our readers will have visited Brussels or Paris. Far fewer will have ever ventured to Pakistan.
For most of the UK’s population, Europe’s capitals are much closer culturally and logistically.
You only have to see how sites like the Mirror squeezed a whole story out of Belgian international captain Vincent Kompany making two tweets about the Brussels attack. He plays for Manchester City. We know him. To date the article has been shared over 2,000 times.
If Zeshan Rehman put out a statement about Lahore today, you’d probably have to Google him.*
I don’t think the overwhelming whiteness of our newsrooms helps us here. It means that these stories have less impact on us personally as a team. It means it is harder to have a wide range of contacts in the region affected. It means that language and culture are a barrier to the journalist understanding the situation, let alone conveying that to the reader.
It’s a seemingly intractable problem though. Social media is littered with people accusing the media of not covering Lahore with the same kind of depth that was afforded to Brussels. But as an industry we just can’t seem to get people to want to read the coverage in the same amount of depth.
Martin Belam is Social & New Formats Editor for the Guardian in London. He helped set up UsVsTh3m and Ampp3d for the Daily Mirror, and has worked at Sony and the BBC. He is on Twitter as @MartinBelam

Monday, March 28, 2016

You are somebody



I Am Somebody 

I am Somebody
I may be poor
But I am Somebody

I may be young
But I am Somebody

I may be on the street
But I am Somebody

I must be respected,
Protected, never rejected,
I am Somebody

I am a child,
I am Somebody

Generous God, 
you created us all in your image 
and you see the worth in each 
and every one of your children.

Grant us the wisdom to see 
the Somebody in everybody 
and help us to be somebodies 
who make a difference.




*

When all the Easter Festival is over we are left with our internal journey.


Sunday, March 27, 2016

Keep on trying - a poem - a song - music about a human I loved

THIS MUSIC TRACK
IS THE SONG
WHICH REMINDS ME OF 
THE POEM BELOW
THE PERSON BELOW
THE STRIVING BELOW
THE PAIN BELOW
THE TRYING BELOW
TRY

Please read the poem below after you have heard this song
Hear it without distractions
Feel it

#YouAreBeautiful 




Pip's POEM on Easter Day




   PIPSPOEM
  =========
  alcoholic at birth
  mothers addiction
  father loss disaster later
  fateful crack overdose
  and years of homes
  sometimes called 'care'

  mother herself
  all too young
  very young
  without parental models
  inadequate
  sometimes called 'it's the parents fault'

  raped and abused
  abused and robbed
  fragmented like hell
  sometimes called 'tormented'

  drugs and crime
  crime and drugs
  suck the life
  drain the soul
  shred the person
  sometimes called 'deprivation'

  ymca hostel
  mission to care
  mission to support
  mission to develop
  sometimes called 'hope'

  as thin as a rake
  loud and screaming
  tearful and down
  always a name call
  always my name
  sometimes called 'erratic'

  drugs on
  off drugs
  relationships on
  chemical relationship on
  struggle to sustain
  loved and hated
  sometimes called 'dependent'

  alone on her own
  found on her own
  died on her own
  lay still on her own
  only chemical friends
  sometimes called 'overdose'

  tears of the crowd
  loss in community
  death lurks us all
  quiet at last
  tears run silent
  sobs rack deep
  world loses a character
  sometimes called 'bereavement'

  how do I feel
  the feelings are deep
  she was driving blind
  foot on disaster
  hard as nails
  fragile and bruised
  beautifully broken
  sometimes called 'love'

  creator loved
  creator loves
  precious child
  valuable life
  loss loss loss
  sometimes called 'a waste'

  never lived
  only survived
  we need to care
  in life
  before death
  we need to love
  more-so the broken
  more-so the damaged
  more-so when it's impossible
  more-so before it is too late
  sometimes called 'reflective learning'

  let these little ones
  come to me
  of such
  is
  the kingdom of heaven
  the master said
  the master repeats
  now
  when it matters
  he retains the loving
  continues the loving
  the creator of love
  keeps showing us
  teaching us
  demonstrating to us
  sometimes called
  'eternal love
  everlasting love
  to a person
  for a person
  we will remember eternally and everlasting'

  pip wilson 14.04.04

She was found dead on Easter Day.





*

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Some special MUSIC for you and how I discovered it.







I bought an album in 1993 when it was first released.
It is unique
powerful.

Gavin Bryars, a classical composer
had produced this album
and tells the powerful story of how it came about .....

Please consider reading this word for word
Please don't scan and skip.

On my piPhone, above, there is a song called 
'Tramp .......'
it starts so quiet
it is the longest track I have ever posted
consider
drinking at the well
listen
maybe
eyes closed
lights out
experiences can be much bigger than words
take a slice of 'big' ............

..... here is the story from Gavin Bryers, 
all about how he discovered the track ............




"In 1971, when I lived in London, I was working with a friend, Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station.
In the course of being filmed, some people broke into drunken song - sometimes bits of opera, sometimes sentimental ballads - and one,
who in fact did not drink,
sang a religious song
"Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet".
This was not ultimately used in the film
and I was given all the unused sections of tape,
including this one.

When I played it at home,
I found that his singing was in tune with my piano,
and I improvised a simple accompaniment.
I noticed, too, that the first section of the song
- 13 bars in length - formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way.
I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department,
and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this.
The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying,
with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee.
When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued.
People were moving about much more slowly than usual
and a few were sitting alone,
quietly weeping.

I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing
and that they had been overcome by the old man's singing.

This convinced me of the emotional power of the music
and of the possibilities offered by adding a simple,
though gradually evolving, orchestral accompaniment that respected the tramp's nobility and simple faith.

Although he died before he could hear what I had done with his singing,
the piece remains as an eloquent,
but understated testimony to his spirit and optimism."




The Album was called::
Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet ........... PLAY IT HERE .....