Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Today is Blog Action Day for Poverty so I am making the effort to post.. this is very timely as on Monday we launched our Centre for Education for Social Justice with no less a person than Tony Benn as speaker, which was not only very exciting but just plain dead good- as SimplyClare would say, well to the jay bad. He spoke for just around 20 minutes so he could take questions for a good half hour, which he did really well, and we had loads of people from all kinds of backgrounds and political persuasions there who we hope will now engage with us and the Centre. One thing he said which is particularly relevant if we are to actually do anything about poverty was that one definition he had heard of apathy was to vote all your life in every local and national election but to do nothing else to make a difference.. 
The Centre is an attempt to engage theory with practice and thus to improve life and life chances for people in Lincolnshire, where poverty is a key factor - low wages, low skills and terrible road infrastructure making it hard to move for education or better jobs, tensions around community cohesion and the migrant workforce who often are not in good working environments themselves and are not always paid a living wage. You get the picture.. so I'm happy to post as part of this huge worldwide action day..
Driving home tonight from a talk for the local British Federation of Women Graduates, many of whom graduated at least as long ago as I did if not longer, I overheard a quote on the radio - something to the effect that 'chance favours the well prepared'. Those of us who have had the luck to get a decent education have in that sense been well prepared and are maybe more able as a result to spot a life chance and take it.. if our Centre helps even one more person in Lincolnshire feel well prepared for the chances of life that would feel pretty good.
# posted by Mary Plain @ 10:15 pm 
