What's next...

So, having had some rest I've turned my attentions to next year - I'll be leading a youth debate in January and taking part in the World Vision 24 Hour Famine, as well as beginning to help find my replacement for next year.

The youth debate should be really great, I'm looking forward to meeting up with Eleanor Tomlinson again who will also be attending and she will have returned from her trip to Jaipur by then so we can compare notes of what we saw. It'll be a great opportunity to get people my age and younger together to talk about the issues that really matter...and a chance to prove that despite negative press us teens get, we do care about more than just new trainers and iPods!

In the past, people taking part in the 24 Hour Famine have given up food for 24 hours (hence the name 24 hour famine!). But, this year it has changed slightly and you can give up anything that is important to you, which i think is great because so people cannot give up food because of reasons such as medical conditions.
So I've decided that i will give up food, but also my iPod for 24 hours...that's going to be tough but hopefully will be worth it and I'll raise lots of money through people sponsoring me.

Anyone reading this that wants to take part can go to www.thepinkcity.org to register to take part x

The World Vision celebrity photoshoot

I went to the World Vision celeb photoshoot today, the pictures will be used to promote the World Vision 24 Hour Famine campaign - Eleanor Tomlinson, Fearne Cotton, Liz McClarnon and Georgia Groome all came along.

The World Vision 24 hour Famine campaign encourages young people across the country to be sponsored to go without something that is important to them for a day and all the celebrities had chosen to give up a specific thing which was important to them for 24 hours, Eleanor chose riding because it was one of her favorite hobbies as well as giving up food for 24 Hours, Georgia chose to give up the comfort of living in her own home and sleeping in her own bed and therefore chose to give up her house keys and sleep outside with several of her friends. Liz chose to give up fast food as that is a major weakness of hers, and Fearne sacrificed radio and music.

The photographer, Ray Burmiston, arranged the photo shoot really well by having a clear Perspex box at the centre of each photo, which had an item inside that represented the object each celebrity was giving up for 24 hours. Liz posed with fast food in the box, Fearne a radio, Georgia her house keys and Eleanor her riding hat.

When talking to them all individually it was good to see how passionate they all were about World Vision and the work being done in many countries. Both Fearne and Liz have been on previous World Vision trips and acted as ambassadors – Liz in Zambia, and Fearne for last years campaign in Chennai, India, so they had a really good understanding of the whole campaign. Eleanor is going out to visit the same projects as I did in Jaipur with her dad in a weeks time. When I talked to her, she said she was very nervous, but glad she was able to go with her dad as support for the upsetting things she would no doubt see. I was able to answer lots of questions about the projects that they will visit.

The day has been really fun, and all the celebrities were really nice - and incredibly normal! All four of them amazed me with their passion about what they were doing and their willingness to help to make others aware. They genuinely wanted to help which was so refreshing to witness. Oh - and i got my photo taken with them!

The video from the shoot is on you tube! http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rnXhLr4MKwo

Back in the UK and shooting with Fearne Cotton!

I'm back in the UK, and I’ve been invited into London by Kazoo (World
Vision’s PR agency) to the celebrity photo shoot that is taking place in order to promote the World Vision 24 Hour Famine campaign. The celebrities attending are Eleanor Tomlinson, Georgia Groome, Liz McClarnon and Fearne Cotton!
I’m due to arrive at the studio in Parsons Green at 11am tomorrow and can’t wait. I’m slightly nervous though as I am told that there will be a chance that I will be photographed with them - this is scary as I have no idea what to do and I’m sure they are all amazing and used to posing for photos. Can't wait for tomorrow!!

The end of the trip to Jaipur, India with World Vision

My trip with World Vision has shocked me, I was exposed to great poverty and suffering on an extremely large scale. I expected the people that we met within the villages to be different from me somehow, perhaps less moral or honorable to work in such a profession. But as my trip went on, I realized what genuine, kind and caring people they were. If born into that life, I would have had exactly the same fate as all the other young girls within the village – who were simply born into a life where they have no choice.

What has given me hope is that even the small amount of work that World Vision has done in the communities to date, has made a genuinely huge difference to people’s lives already and given them optimism for the future. The young girls working in commercial sex work that I have met here, have had their childhood stolen and their innocence taken away because they have been given no choice and no way out. The World Vision 24 Hour Famine campaign will allow boys like Abhishak to receive treatment that they deserve, will give girls like Rakhee a carefree childhood without enforced responsibilities and hundreds of mothers hope for the future – that they will never have to force their children to work in commercial sex work in order to ensure their survival.

I'm pleased that i have had the opportunity to visit Jaipur and meet people who are, with the help of World Vision, working to change their lives and the lives of their children. I have been given hope and it has reinforced my belief that the actions of even one person in the UK can help change the life of someone in a developing country.

Day 4 in Jaipur, India with World Vision

Today we visited a village where there were no sex workers working in the community, this is because all of the attractive women within the village had been trafficked to Mumbai to work as bar dancers. This village was unlike all the other villages we had been in, these people lived in gated houses, with a toilet and sometimes even a television. Allen told us that these people were able to afford these houses because they sent their children away in order that they could send money home. The parents of the girls were living in a privileged way while their children were selling themselves to men. This was probably the village which I felt needed the most help, because it felt World Vision had the hardest task in trying to convince these people of the other options to commercial sex work. How was World Vision supposed to go into a village where no one is starving and they all live in relatively nice houses and tell them that they shouldn’t send their girls away, live a poor life and have to give up their house.

We went into the village, where there was room in which nutrition powder was produced by the older women in the village. This powder is made by the women out of materials given to them by World Vision, then made by the women who then sell it back to World
Vision. World Vision then gives it free of charge to those living with HIV and AIDS. The women are also able to give the nutritional powder to their own children as it helps them by boosting their immunity.

In the afternoon we went to watch a cricket match which is arranged by World Vision as a device to get all the children from the different villages together in order to play a game as a team, yet also learn and discuss certain things such as the issues surrounding sex and sexual health. It was such a good idea to incorporate a sport, which is loved within the communities and something as vital as sexual education.

We stayed in the village until late afternoon so that we could attend the youth forum and although I didn’t understand what was going on because none of it was in English I could see that this was another way in which to bring the youth together from all of the surrounding villages. These children were the future and they were being taught that communication and teamwork was key to the rest of their lives. These children were being given hope by World Vision. We were welcomed, and presented with more ‘mala’ (flower necklace), and also a beautiful shawl to put around our heads.

Day 3 in Jaipur, India with World Vision

Today we started by visiting a village which World Vision had only had a presence in for one and a half years. We were told that already incredible things had happened, a self help group, a youth club and a kids club had already been created in this short period of time. I was honored when they asked me to open the kids center by cutting the ribbon, and we were all then presented with ‘mala’ a necklace of orange flowers and a red and yellow bracelet as well as given a red bindi on our foreheads, it was so amazing to see the help that World Vision had given these children and above all the sense of hope for the future that they were being given through their basic education at the kids club. As I cut the ribbon all the children rushed in with excitement to see their new center, it was wonderful to see them so happy. After the opening of the school we did some colouring with the children with colouring sets that we had brought with us from the UK. We were able to talk to some of the locals by trying to improvise in several languages. I thought it was nice that despite the barriers in communication we were sill able to have fun blowing bubbles, bouncing balls and colouring in. We also went to visit the self help group run by about eight women who traveled to Jaipur every month to sell rice and lentils in order to get money as an alternative to working as commercial sex workers. It was so great to see how much they had progressed in such little time and once again the potential that World Vision had allowed them to realize. These women had great hope for the future.

Before we left the village all the children presented me with the colouring and pictures that they had been doing earlier with me, it was really nice that they wanted me to have the pictures that they had drawn.

We left this village and went to a village which we were warned would be one of the worst we would see on our trip with the highest number of sex workers, the most ignorance about contraception, and the most reluctance to give up the trade in favor of another less well paid job. This village, to put it extremely bluntly was effectively a red light district. This made me quite apprehensive about what I would see as I thought what I had seen already in the previous villages was bad enough. When we arrived in this village we were able to see straight away how different it was to the other ones we have seen, there were girls dressed in western more revealing clothing, wearing full make up.

We were able to meet and talk to some of these girls, who were extremely open about exactly what they did and why they did it. Two of the girls who were sisters aged twenty and 18, had traveled from 160 km away from their family to work within the village because they felt ashamed of undertaking sex work in front of their family where they had grown up. They also knew that they would be able to get more work and earn more money doing that work in this particular village, because their clients were not only the truckers but also local men. When we were talking to the girls, there was a constant presence of a hugely fat woman who clearly acted in a ‘pimp’ role, taking charge of the prices paid for the girls by their clients and bartering. Allen also made us aware of the growing tendency within that village for parents to traffic their children to Mumbai as young as at the age of twelve, so they could work as dancers in clubs and partake in commercial sex work. Here, they could charge up to ten times as much as in their villages.

After lunch we went to a third village, where we could immediately feel a tense mood. We learned that there had been a fight there the previous night in which the police had been called. After we were assured that we were still welcome and able to film, we went into the village to meet some of the people and to try and interview a young commercial sex worker. It was here that I met Rakhee, a 19 year old sex worker. As soon as I saw her, it was clear how deeply her work in the sex trade had affected her, her manipulation of not only us as visitors but others within the community was blatant, her flippant temper and mood swings quite disturbing, and her need to to be center of attention at all times was clear and tragic. It was extremely hard for me to spend time with someone who was so negatively affected by what she had been exposed to at such a young age. She was the same age as me. I could not even begin to put myself in her shoes and imagine what she had been experiencing since the age of twelve at the hands of her clients. It was clear to me that her childhood had been stolen from her and maimed the person she would have been if she was not born into a life of commercial sex work.

I made friends with her, communicating with actions – and we got on well. Then we went away from everyone else in order to undertake the interview. I asked her questions which were then translated to her in order for her to answer. She told us her story, about the death of her mother, her lack of choice in profession, and her inability to get any another job apart from commercial sex work. When I asked her what job she would want to do in an ideal world, she replied that she would do anything else apart from sex work if only given the opportunity. It was heartbreaking when she talked about her clients, how they treated her, and how on some days she would only have one client while on other days she would have to have up to ten.

Day 2 in Jaipur, India with World Vision

After we had had breakfast, we set off for our first full day of filming. I was quite nervous because I was unsure of what to expect in the villages and expected to be greeted with a degree of hostility – given that we were literally turning up in their homes with a video camera and attempting to interview them about a controversial topic, which seemed shocking to us, but was in fact deeply embedded within their culture.

We arrived at the village after about an hours drive which included sights on the way such as a freshly run over dog and an overturned truck. When we arrived in the village, we were greeted by all of the villagers in an extremely friendly and exited way. People were incredibly more open that I had expected with us, we were able to meet the women sex workers and their children who were directly affected and sadly influenced by their mothers choice of profession. As we walked around the houses we were able to see girls dressed in their best clothes, wearing make up ready to start the days work and simply waiting for their clients. Perhaps most shocking for me today, was meeting two girls working as commercial sex workers who were the same age as me. They looked dreadfully unhappy, and I came to the realization that apart from age I had nothing in common with these girls, they lead what I can only recognize as a terribly traumatic way of life, where the easiest way to get money is to have to work in the sex trade. I found it hard to grasp that this was in fact encouraged by their parents, because I know for a fact that my parents would never choose a path like that for me. I can only conclude it is because their culture and tradition is so different to the one that i have been subjected to in my sheltered upbringing. We spoke with a retired sex worker who had been inactive for ten years who was thirty and had eight children whom she said would never have to follow in her footsteps. To me this was such a massive contrast to the girls sitting around waiting for their clients. It give me a small amount of hope that if the work of World Vision could affect this woman’s attitude, then others would also be more likely to rethink their decisions. Commercial sex work seemed part of every day life to these people, it was unhidden, very frank, accepted and open. Interestingly, there were two girls within the village who said they didn’t like living there and disliked the people within the community and who went onto say that they want to get out of the village and are not sex workers.

We played with the children in the village who walked around barefoot on the ground which was strewn with used condoms, rubbish and the odd razor blade. They were clearly unaware of the dangers of HIV and AIDS and this was normality to them, yet I couldn't imagine what living like this would be like. We played with the children, blowing bubbles and bouncing a ball we had brought with us, which some of the children had clearly never done in their lives. It was comforting to think that with the sufficient funding, World Vision would be able to ensure that the future generations like the children we were playing with would be saved from a life of sex work, and the worry of sexually transmitted infections and deadly diseases like HIV and AIDS.

After lunch, we visited the second village where World Vision had been working for ten years, it was wonderful to see the profound and positive effect that World Vision had had on the village over the past decade. It really highlighted the sheer potential of what the other villages could become. We were told that 100% of the children within this village attended school, and there were no commercial sex workers working in the village itself and only 12 women who had been trafficked away in order to earn money in the sex trade in major cities such as Mumbai.

We were able to meet Abhishak, a thriteen year old orphaned boy who is HIV positive. His mother had died the previous year, and he is now living with his uncle and a younger sibling who is not HIV positive. Tragically, he told us that he misses his mother very much, and talked about her dying of ‘a disease’. This highlighted to me that he was unable to completely understand the condition that killed his mother and could eventually kill him – probably because of his young age but probably also because HIV and AIDS are not understood or recognized to be illnesses as serious as they are. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain he was feeling while talking about his family and I could tell it was still very raw for him having only lost his mother a year ago. He explained how he has never known or met his father, which made me assume that his father was most probably one of his mother’s clients.

Meeting a young boy who was suffering from such a deadly disease was heartbreaking for me because it could easily have been avoided. People within the villages seemed not to fully understand the danger of the HIV virus, or the potential consequences of unprotected sex. This young boy had been given HIV by his mother who died of AIDS – but this could easily have been avoided with the adequate sexual education, and if she had been given the option to have a different career.

As far as treatment is concerned, we were told that Antiretrolviral medication is available from major cities in India such as Jaipur free of charge. Abhishak was receiving this treatement, but would only be able to carry on with this if World Vision continued their work in that village, because they were able to provide him with a means of transport to get to Jaipur once a month in order to get his medication, which he would otherwise not be able to get because we would have no other means of actually getting to Jaipur. This made me realize how many peoples lives greatly depended on the funding which World Vision receives every year.

Allen explained to us about peoples’ attitudes towards the virus within the village, and how sufferers would be ostracized by the people within the community. People within the village with the virus itself feel unable to admit their disease to other villagers for fear of being told to leave. We were told that there were some cases where parents found out that their children were suffering from the virus and made them leave the family home because they themselves did not want to be associated with the disease. These children would then simply live on the streets of Jaipur because they had no means of getting food or shelter apart from to beg. Ironically it was probably the parents who passed the disease onto their children in the first place. Furthermore if the villagers know that they have the disease, they do not get tested because this will cause them to have to admit their condition, this means they cannot openly go and get the antiviral medication which would prolong their life. So effectively, because of peoples inability to admit they are ill, they are not receiving treatment like abishek.

Day 1 in Jaipur, India with World Vision

Although we actually arrived yesterday night, today was really our first day of seeing Jaipur. After waking up late and making everyone else late also, we went to look around the city in order to acclimatize before the film director Mike got here. It was also an opportunity to learn about some of the history behind what we were actually in India to do. We visited the Amber Fort which was built on a hilltop and had originally in past century's been used as a royal palace. After being given the choice to walk up the hill to it, to drive or to ride on an elephant, we quickly decided that driving was definitely the safest option. After looking around the Amber Fort, we went to the city palace and the Hawa Mahal. I found it really helpful to have a day of acclimatisation, not only so that I could get used to the Indian culture and way of life through learning the historical story behind these beautiful buildings, but also so I was able take in and begin to accept the sheer poverty that we saw all around us and through the day wherever we went. On the way to lunch we took a autorickshaw which is a small three wheeled Indian vehicle (the equivilant of a taxi in England) which allowed us to manoever within heavy traffic and get out of it quickly, as well as being able to see everything that was going on around us because it had no windows or doors. Here i was exposed to people living in poverty all around me, everywhere I looked partially clothed people with bones jutting out were going about their daily lives – begging, washing and desperately trying to find food. What I found hardest to accept was the children and babies in the streets, expectant mothers, and disabled people who make up normality here. There is no help and no hope for them.

We returned to the hotel to have a meeting with Allen, the Programme Manager working for World Vision running the projects that we would be seeing tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Mike the director of the film we are making also arrived from England in time, and we discussed various aspects of the project and the filming we planned on doing. It was also really helpful because we were able to ask questions about the project and get answers from someone who had first hand experience of the situation within the communities we were to be working with. This really has helped me prepare for the day tomorrow where we are actually going to visit two of the villages where we plan to do some filming, along with some interviews. What really struck me is how acceptable the commercial sex work seemed to be as a profession and how Allen and his team were not in the slightest bit phased by talking about it. Allen was informative and explained a number of things to be that I wasn't aware of from the previous information I had read to do with the project, I learnt that girls as young as 11 were known to be involved in commercial sex work within the villages, and they are actually forced into this work by their parents and family who need the money in order to to live. Also that the good looking daughter is forced to work mostly against her will while the less attractive sibling are able to perhaps marry and lead a relatively normal existence (in Indian terms) through having an arranged marriage. This is all making me apprehensive about tomorrow.