to think Camila Batmanghelidjh is fucking awesome?

[bejeezus]

I saw her talk on a news programme last night...

shes so composed and articulate, and clear-sighted and insightful and compassionate and calm and stylish and unique...

and the work she does/ what she acheives is OUTSTANDING..

heres a link to her wiki page...but it doesnt do her any justice

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camila_Batmanghelidjh

GlassofROse Then you know very little about the woman or her work...she as in the past got RIGHT in amongst some of the most ignorant and poor families in the UK and she DOES know about the differences in morals etc!

Of course she does...she is well traveled well eduated and has mixed in ALL kinds of society from the poorest to the richest and most well educated.

SHe's cleaned up dirty homes on council estates, cooked meals for kids whose parents are too out of it to even KNOW where the kids are and she's dined with politicians and royalty...how can you dare to say those things!?

She is brilliant. A fantastic woman and a great role model.

Radio 4 was talking about the work of Kids Company (her organisation) this morning. Kids Company provide (amongst many other things) free meals to children and families in need. A woman was talking about how she had been hospitalised for malnutrition for not being able to afford to feed herself and when she contacted social services for help all they could say was that they would remove the child if she could not afford to feed the family. She said Kids Company has been a life saver to the family - she can now eat, the child has not been removed and the mum is recieving support to go back to education.

They do massive amounts of amazing work with dissafected young people who would othersie just end up in prison.

Hats off to Camilla Batmanghelidjh and Kids Company

I don't know little about Camila at all.

I've worked right in amongst it with some of the poorest and most ignorant families live. I've worked with children who don't so much as have a mattress on the floor to sleep on, children who have been prostituted by their own parents and children who are passes about from "auntie" to "uncle" whilst mummy is off doing as she please.

I "dare" to say what I have because Camila says things I know to be utter bullshit.

Camila thought Knightsbridge was better protected by the police from the youths of Knightsbridge?! LOL She didn't seem to comprehend that actually the youths of Knightsbridge did not riot...

Like I said before, she does some amazing work but she also talks a lot of bollocks to balance out her "awesomeness".

glass there are certainly are more affluent areas of the city where I live, that are better protected by the police.
I live in a deprived area where drug dealing and prostitution are on the street for all to see. Prostitutes outside a primary school at all times of the day....it just wouldn't be allowed to continue in other areas.....some areas I feel are 'sacrificed' becuse then it is contained

who is actually scared to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep?? It's just hysteria

YANBU. She is indeed awesome.

Yes, of course affluent areas may be better protected but that it not the point; Camila was claiming that wealthy youths in Knightsbridge were stopped from rioting, they weren't, they didn't riot!

Actually, the Baa Baa Black Sheep is not hysteria. The woman running a club in the local nursery was reported to her boss for singing it with the children and announced the following week that she was no longer to sing that song and made a laugh and joke of it.

My point wasn't about the song anyway, it was about Camila being part of the brigade that create this overly Political correctness. Y'know the middle/upper class people who declare things are politically incorrect as not to offend ethnic minorities... when those ethnic minorities find the stuffy overly politically correct rules humorous and unnecessary.

Huge sweeping generalisations about the middle classes and ethnic minorities there by Glass. But I guess that makes me pc to say that.

All the ranting about the PC Brigade is such twaddle.

I'm sure that CB is political correctness gawn mad if you are an avid Daily Mail reader and share their outlook

Not all the rioters came from poor and deprived areas so no one can say that the youths of Knightsbridge didn't riot.
Only a few of the better off ones got caught.
She make talk some twaddle but it is twaddle that she belies in and is always on the side of the most maligned.
We need more of that and less of the demonisation on the young and poor.
They may well be little fuckers but they are little fuckers who need and deserve help.

People don't like her because she refuses to be world weary and spread the sort stories that people want to hear.
The greatful poor with a deserving backstory V the grabby grasping ungrateful ones who laugh at us poor saps.

Very well put MrsDeVere.

winky -

Not a sweeping statement about middle classes at all. Obviously I'm being misunderstood. I'm not implying that all middle class people are overly PC. Surely you see that there are a group of middle class people who claim things like "Baa baa black sheep" is offensive when people of the skin colour it is meant to offend laugh at the idea of it being offensive?

The PC brigade do exist, it isn't twaddle. It's only twaddle if you live a life a life unaffected by it :)

Ohdo -

Obviously not all rioters were poor, that was proven by Charlie Gilmour. However, there were not riots in Knightsbridge... and it had nothing to do with shops being protected. There were no mobs ready to even try in Knightsbridge. Simple as.

I don't dislike Camila, I've said in every post that I believe she does some amazing work, but I refuse to pretend that everything she says is amazing and correct. She has made sweeping statements about certain ethnic groups that I disagree with due to my experience with them etc. I think she does amazing things and talks bollocks in equal measures.

I am not really understand the Knightsbridge thing. People travelled to where they could nick things.
That is why we didnt get rioters down our street. No shops. We didnt get much in the shopping Mall because they drove down to Tottenham Hale where the big ticket items were.

But if they HAD tried it on in Knightsbridge there would have been a lot swifter response. No question. Which is probably why the rioters stayed away.

Who gives a toss about Tottenham burning down? The bastards couldnt even be arsed to come back from holiday to sort it.
Smash a window in Knightsbridge however...

I was in Kensington during the riots. There were lines of police stopping rioters coming down from Notting Hill.

It was so obvious it was obscene.

The woman is passionate & outspoken, if she talks twaddle at times and gets things wrong then it proves she's human & not afraid to speak her mind just because someone will criticise.

THAT is why I heart her!

I am in awe of her.

Just watched the BBC link you posted beejezus and was struck by how intelligent, articulate and calm she was.

I imagine she [and her approach] is hugely important to the disaffected and disadvantaged youth she promotes and protects.

She talks a lot of sense and is so wise and compassionate.

I have a little crush on her I think and she is also one of the reasons I wanted to train as a child psychotherapist [until I realised it would take me 6 years to retrain and cost lots and lots of £!]

glass there is a lot to say about how places like knightsbridge are protected in general, and the impact that has anyway, even if it wasn't physically protected on the day (although a poster had said it was)

Leaving that aside, CB is not campaigning and dedicating her life to banning the singing of Baa Baa Black Sheep....I'm not sure how you can include her work and 'PC gawn mad' in the same conversation, considering the plight of the children that she helps

I've never really understood the opposition to the 'PC brigade'...I'm not denying there are people who get their knickers in a knot about nothing, and miss the point entirely. But they are few and far between. What actual impact does all this

....'PC twaddle' have on anyone's life??

Yeah awesome....

Does anyone know what she will do now?

I like a lot of what she says but I'm wary of her tendency towards self promotion.

Does anyone know what she will do now?

Complain. At length. Noisily. To anyone who doesn't have hearing protection will listen.

Write long articles in the press about how everyone who isn't her is doing everything wrong because they're not her and how she was robbed by the metropolitan elite and the BBC (not Yentob).

I have had some contact with someone similar to CM, a kind of social entrepreneur, full of energy, imagination drive and passion. The things they achieve can be quite amazing but sometimes their interest and energy is not directed to managing the projects they set up and so it is open for things to go wrong. I have also seen it happen that, for the person I know, fronting the project and to some extent the acclaim that accrues, can become a distraction.

No idea if this is what has happened to KC but what a shame whatever has happened.

She might be awesome to some but she clearly couldn't manage a charity with that amount of money, she also doesn't appear able to take any responsibility for its undoing.

Awesome to have made £3m disappear in a puff of smoke. She ought to be a banker.