‘Fair Trade’ Language School www.glovico.org lets you learn a language from a ‘local’ online. Using a community enterprise model, Founder and MD of Glovico, Tobias Lorenz explains how Glovico works and what plans she has for the future.

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Today I attended the Mental Health North East (MHNE) conference in Durham, which is in the North East of England. The three interviews below highlight the difficulties the sector is currently experiencing in responding to change and increased demand upon their services.

Lyn Boyd, Chief Executive of MHNE outlines how cuts to funding, services and increased demand are making service provision increasing difficult for third sector organisations. She gives examples of the devastating impact that lack of access to community mental health support services can have on individuals, their carers, their families and the communities around them. www.mhne.co.uk

Vicki Nash, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the national Mental Health charity MIND, takes a national perspective and talks about campaigning on mental health issues through a network of local branches. She goes on to describe how these branches provide services to over a quarter of million people per year and how those with mental health issues are sometimes portrayed as ‘scroungers’ in the media and elsewhere. This causes additional stress to those already struggling to deal with some very difficult personal issues. She tells the government what they should do now to really make things better to those with mental health concerns. www.mind.org.uk

Dr Santinder Sanghera is a GP and Mental Health and Clinical Commissioning Group lead for Durham Dales Clinical Commissioning Group. She describes how the newly established Clinical Commissioning Groups formed around (Doctors) GP’s practices will from April 2013 be commissioning the services that are made available from their surgeries to their local communities based on local community needs. She describes how charities and voluntary groups can best engage with local GP consortia and let them know how they can help local people to improve patient care and experience. Just saying ‘It’s a great service’ will not be good enough. Charities and NGO’s must show what impact they are having, what need they are meeting, what their outcomes are, what costs they reduce and what partnerships that they are involved in and ultimately how they are improving the situation of service users.

http://www.durhamdaleseasingtonsedgefieldccg.nhs.uk

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Are you an local, national or international NGO or charity that wants to be interviewed on goodcausetv? Contact goodcausetv@gmail.com for further information.

Listen to the Speakers at The Hardest Hit Protest Against Cuts to Disabled Peoples Benefits 27th October 2012

Disability Myth Buster

Poverty

• Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people.(ODI – Disability Equality Indicators)
• Nearly half of disabled people have ‘no savings at all’, compared to just 12% of the general population. (Leonard Cheshire UK, 2008)
• Families with a disabled child are estimated to be £50 a week worse-off than those without. (Warwick University Research, 2010)
• The Government plans to reduce DLA eligibility by 500,000. This could mean more than 25,000 disabled people are forced out of work (Disability Rights UK, April 2012)

Employment and education

• Less than half of working age disabled people are in employment compared with more than 75% of non-disabled working age people. (ODI – Disability Equality Indicators)
• Disabled people are more than twice as likely to hold no qualifications than non disabled people. (ODI – Disability Equality Indicators)
• Time limiting contributory ESA to one year will affect 700,000 people who have become disabled or acquired a long-term condition. These people have paid their National Insurance/stamps and yet they are only being given twelve months in which to obtain work following a new diagnosis or developing a long-term condition. (DWP, April 2011)
• If 25,000 disabled people are forced out of work as a result of losing DLA, the loss in National Insurance and Income Tax to the Treasury could be as much as £146.7 million a year. (Disability Rights UK, April 2012)

Crime and Discrimination

• Disability hate crime is at its highest level since records began and the rate of reported incidents increased by nearly 50% between 2009 and 2011 (Guardian FOI Request, April 2012)
• Disabled people are significantly more likely to be victims of crime than non-disabled people. 39 per cent of 16-34 year-old disabled people reported having been a victim of crime in 2010/2011 (ODI – Disability Facts & Figures)
• 56% of disabled people have had someone act in a hostile, aggressive or violent way towards them because of their disability. (Scope Attitudes Survey, 2010)

Find out more about Children North East here www.children-ne.org.uk

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The Homelands Exhibition at The Settle Down Cafe, Newcastle Upon Tyne UK Supported by ISIS Arts.

Artist Zuzana Hruskova talks about how she and fellow artist Marek Šulík have documented the impact of migration among the Slovak and Czech ROMA Community in Newcastle upon Tyne. Is home something we see out of the window or something we have in our hearts? How do we keep in touch with those we leave behind?

For more information visit ISIS Arts web site at http://www.isisarts.org.uk

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Apps For Good -Become a School Partner

Are you are interested in your school becoming an Apps for Good Partner?

Apps for Good is an award-winning course where young people learn to create imaginative mobile apps that change their world.

Students create apps that make a difference and solve real life issues that matter to them and their community, giving them a launchpad in social enterprise and the exciting world of technology, design and innovation.

Applications for a 2012/13 are now open for affiliate partnerships. Fill in their  expression of interest form to apply before 31st May 2012 if your UK school wants become involved. 

If you are looking for Applications for Good, the platform for supporting and promoting mobile applications for social good in U.S., please visit ApplicationsForGood.org.

Does your Charity, NGO or non profit want to be interviewed by web cam for goodcausetv about your work or a successful project you are involved with? 

To be considered email  goodcausetv@gmail.com

Interactive billboards used to highlight domestic abuse  

An interactive billboard has been used at Euston, a UK British Railway Station to highlight where victims of domestic abuse can get help. The billboard established by The National Centre for Domestic Violence, a UK Community Interest Company, allows people present at the station to appear to ‘drag away an abuser’ from a victim using their mobile phone (see the video)

The NCDV was established to help victims of domestic violence obtain free protection against an abuser as well as offering services to the Police, Probation Service, domestic abuse workers, the legal profession and the Judiciary. Given the volume of people who pass through the station they are likely to get their message across to at least some of those who would benefit from their services.

If you are in the UK you can get further information about how the NCDV may be able to  help you here

http://www.ncdv.org.uk/index.html

Can you save someone’s life with Facebook? Find out more here

If you live in the USA or the UK you can now indicate on your Facebook timeline that you would like to donate your organs to others should the situation arise. Your intention can be made public or you can set your privacy settings so for instance, only your close family know of your wishes. If set to show publicly your wishes will be shown in the ‘life events’ section on your timeline.

Some cynics worry that this Facebook initiative could be an attempt to show Facebook in a good light prior to it’s forthcoming IPO. Others that those who indicate they would donate may not follow it through in practice. However charities and non profits in the donation sector both in the UK and the USA are applauding the initiative. Following on from the announcement made by Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week, it has been reported that ‘sign ups’ for donations have risen 800% in California alone.

In the USA 113,953 people were on the waiting list for an organ or tissue transplant, including 21,989 in California. But about one-third of those on waiting lists - about 18 people each day - die because of a shortage of matching organs. While in the UK 3 people die every day waiting for an organ transplant.

If just one person’s life is saved it makes this initiative a worthwhile example of how online social networks can use their networking power to do good.

So let’s try and save a life! Post a link to this story on Facebook or retweet this feature on Twitter

To sign up to show your willingness to donate your organs via Facebook 

If you are in the USA click here http://www.donorssavelives.org

If you are in the UK click here http://www.facebook.com/organdonationuk

If you are not based in the UK or the USA, don’t worry,the ability to sign up for organ donation via Facebook is due to be rolled out to other countries in the near future, but why wait? Just sign up with your local health service anyway and save that life.

Teachers and animators create lessons worth sharing

You may have heard of the TED Talks where thoughtful and experienced speakers share their knowledge with others at the annual TED Conference in the USA. The talks are subsequently posted on the TED web site www.ted.com TED is a non profit organisation based in the USA.  

You may also have attended one of the licensed TEDX events held worldwide, which enable many to experience for themselves TED talks in a local setting. Many thanks to Teesside University here in the UK who hosted the TEDX event that I attended

http://www.idi-uk.org

If you get the chance do go along to one, you will find yourself both challenged and informed.

In March TED launched the first phase of its “TED-Ed” initiative, in practice a series of a dozen short animated YouTube videos “created for high school students and lifelong learners,” in the big picture an invitation to teachers to collaborate with TED to create more effective video lessons that can be used in classrooms.

Now TED is announcing the second phase of its education initiative on TED.com, which is designed to enable teachers to create unique lesson plans around its video content. TED-Ed aims to harness the talent of the best teachers around the globe by giving them tools that spark and facilitate learning.

Since launch, TED-Ed’s YouTube channel and its corresponding call to educators and animators to submit lesson ideas and animations has attracted 2.4 million views, 42K subscribers, and 3K comments, and more importantly, the interest of both educators and brands. The new TED-Ed site  optimises TED content for use in classrooms, boardrooms, and educational settings.

Each video is attached to quizzes relating to the video content and to further sources of information. Teachers can therefore use the videos as they are presented or if they choose to do so, they can change (flip) the video title, quiz questions and additional content to suit the needs of their particular audience. TED-Ed does not just allow this to happen with the talks that they host, but teachers can also now do the same with any suitable video hosted on YouTube.

Finally if you are an educator or an animator yourself or know someone who is who would like to share their experience and knowledge freely on TED-Ed you can nominate them to be considered to create new TED-Ed content.  

So take a look at TED-Ed yourself and don’t forget to tell any teachers or animators who you know who may be interested. Get more information here

http://ed.ted.com