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

I think black people can have insights into white people's behaviour, just as Germans can have insights into the French, it's dangerous to claim a hegemony of knowledge.

PS For every black mum pushing out a black teen boy, there are in my experience something like ten trying to get them in line and behaving well at home and at school. It can be very hard, though.

read between the lines. Its linked to another prominent news story.

What? Her talking about prominent politicians abusing children?

Please.

If so, it was her duty to go to the police.

There are currently five police authorities investigating allegations that Sir Edward Heath abused boys.

She may be a champion of children but she's also someone who lashes out when her gross financial mismanagement has been called.

I don't think she is amazing at all.
She takes £90,000 a year from funds given to a charity.
She accepts a £3 million grant bail- out from the government and immediately spends it on what she knew she was not allowed to spend it on.
She hands out mney in envelopes - some witnesses are saying up to £500 at a time to teenagers who are seen to be being driven to centres by parents to collect the envelopes every Friday.
There is no account kept of what this funding is spent on.
She tells lies - at the very least about herself and her past - which have been proven eg her time at Warwick University.
She has appalling dress sense, appalling.
She crys on TV in interviews- not a tear to be seen.
She has acted like a law unto herself for years and been supported by the London arty/media/glitterati who have no idea what being a teenager in need is about but are conned by her.
I am totally unconvinced by her in any way. She is a sham in my opinion. It is another example of people in public positions not speaking up about concerns until too late. When some did they were ignored and shut up by people of influence and power. Many did not speak up and should be ashamed. People are taken in by her being articulate, odd and she has got away with a great deal. It is like many scandals involving children in recent years. People knew or suspected it was wrong and a mess is now unravelling years later.

I wonder who was paying for her to be driven round London in a flash car today with a driver from press appointment to press appointment where she spread her mantra and looked badly done to. I do not think we have even touched the tip of the iceberg of this saga.

I watched the parent of a child she had helped speaking up on TV this morning. She said she had been given money to buy the 'right' trainers for her son, the named ones he wanted rather than the ones social services were prepared to buy, the ones his friends would accept and not bully him over. She said she had refused to send him to school until she got the 'right' kind of trainers given. She had been given money to take him out for a Christmas dinner and had been taken out by taxi to collect the money. She saw nothing wrong in any of this.

Of course teenagers who are given things value Camilla Bs work. Why wouldn't they?

Like everyone else on here, I do not know her personally so it is all opinion informed by the press reports and my observations of her in interviews. She waves all kinds of red flags when I listen to her.

Waits to be flamed.

I agree with you Lulu

I feel quite sad about all this, in some small way I "knew" things weren't right more than 15 years ago.

The way she dealt with us at the bank was always not quite right, she was rude and unpleasant but also very aggressive when questioned or asked to provide any evidence or documentation. I always put my feeling that she was a bit dodgy down to just not liking her and her resistance down to being a busy person with big ideas who didn't like dealing with paperwork, but I now strongly suspect my instincts were right.

Lily has got it in one.

Lulu, Damn autocorrect!

I wonder what the local authority could have done with that extra money from central government and the various banks and philanthropists who donated. Perhaps they would have spent it more wisely, helped more children, achieved better outcomes.

Oh, come off it. One of the many positive things the charity did was to organise legal representation for children and families to enforce their statutory right to local authority support. If LAs had to be ordered by courts to carry out the duties for which they received specific funding, what makes you think they would voluntarily have done any better in providing the type of support that KC organised?

Excellent post Lulu. I knew from listening to her on R4 this morning that she reminded of someone who was a liar. And she does. Clearly an arch manipulator - just like that other liar that I used to know.

That's the thing though isn't it Elementary? No-one really knows what sort of support KC has been providing, or how many children they've been reaching, or what damage has been done in the course of that work.

With that many millions being put into saving (apparently) so many children over nearly 20 years, shouldn't there be some high profile people speaking up for her? People who've made good after a difficult start, as a result of all this help?

I think this all goes to show how easily people are taken in by someone who appears charismatic and promotes themselves skillfully.

What sort of person has evidence of child abuse and doesn't take it directly to the police, but goes on a selection of national radio shows threatening to take it to the police - what sort of person uses evidence of abuse as a bargaining chip?

She is the sort of person when faced with evidence of child abuse does not go straight to the police with it. She is therefore not the sort of person who's fit to work with vunerable children.

Where to start?

This government has an avowed aversion to anything, anything, evidence based. We can see this in their health policy, education policy and now this.

They wanted a greater role for charities because that's old school Victorian philanthropy and because the wicked public sector is profligate and wasteful (and chock full of trade unionists and Labour voters). Did they monitor these charities? Did they examine their effectiveness? It appears not.

There are wider issues with charities anyway, when behaviour like this: www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/jul/10/humanitarian-workers-sex-global-development is apparently the norm. I sent that article to Plan International in horror and their response was a mimsy load of crap.

KC is the tip of the iceberg, IMO.

I'm surprised at the amounts of public money KC managed to secure.

Amazed.

Agree, there's more to hear on this, beyond CB's poor arithmetical skills.

Educated under a Tory government, was she?

She's properly posh siiiiigh. Educated privately at Sherbourne, not by any government.

I agree, by the end of this, dodgy finances will be the least of it. I actually think D Cameron will be pretty scared for his future ATM. He's been shown again to be a terrible judge of character but this time, rather than ruining a nasty Newspaper and upsetting (mostly) wealthy celebs, his crony has left loads of children vulnerable, now because their support has been removed but also during the time they were supposed to be being helped by KC. I am sure there are some horror stories to come out.

I think there are lots of shades of grey. I dont think she's a coin artist but I think it all was too successful and grew too big for her to cope with. She made a mistake and stayed at the helm herself rather than appointing someone with experience of a large charity/ experts. She is amazingly charismatic and I believe cares deeply about the young people

Cameron clearly was taken in by it all.

OMG - please send some of the millions to my area - they are closing day centres for the learning disabled, secure houses for the disabled -- please send it here instead!!!!!!!!! These are legitimate audited professionally run centres - and there will be nowhere for people to go, cooped up at home all day instead. A few hours at a day centre isn't much to ask - - no no throw it all at London Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

She's been utterly stitched up and the sad thing is the children are the ones who will suffer.

She's been utterly stitched up

By whom? Oh yes, I remember: dark shadowy forces who want to silence her from telling the truth.

At least David Icke only wore one bright colour at a time.

She hasn't been stitched up, she's been dashing round London talking to any media happy to listen to get her sob story in and blame everyone but herself.

It must have been on the cards that the dodgy accounts were going to be the undoing of KC,she must have known for a while things were going to go tits up.

It's all about her.

Scoot
I asked that on another thread.
There appears to have been 'free money' in parts of South London but not in a he regions.

Did anyone else think last night' s Newsnight interview was a bit odd? The only allegations Kirsty Walk put to her was some unpleasant sexual behaviour between clients over the age of consent, and and assault- of a member of staff by a child where it was decided not to press charges.