Category: blahblahblah

The smell of an oily rag – lived experience advocacy in Australia

If I never have to smell wheel bearing grease again I would be very happy. Vile stuff, with a distinct smell. But with the dramas of repairing the Corolla, I’ve gotta whiff of it, or worse had to touch it, every couple of weeks while my partner solves the problem of whatever that noise is now in the car.

I’ve managed to get around to the things I’ve prioritised – paid HSC supervision, a couple of groups, but it’s been great to have it back – though there’s always just one more thing, and CV joints may be next.

After the Brereton crap this week, my post about the burden placed on the vulnerable to repeatedly share their trauma for no outcome was shared again, and I’m out of ideas on how to make it better for people, but money always helps. Making sure your talent‘s costs are covered and then their time and expertise is also compensated for. Would you pay another expert for their time? or is someone else covering their time – say if they’re already employed to do that work and be that voice of experience? That doesn’t usually happen for lived experience advocates. If they’re currently living the experience, then they’re likely to  be casually employed and/or on welfare.  They’ll have caring responsibilities – to themselves and to others – so the time you need them there will involve having to shuffle those responsibilities if that’s at all possible. How helpful is a carer’s week lunch for a full-time carer without support to make that time off happen? They may also appear unreliable having to cancel or running in late, or having to attend to family during a zoom meeting. They may have a panic attack and have to leave early, or seem unfocussed for whatever reason. But that’s the reality of lived and living experience. It’s messy. But it’s still valuable and raw and while it won’t give you a neat answer to your question, it’s worth figuring out how to incorporate into your work. Nothing about us without us is not just a slogan it’s essential for delivering services and support and changing policy and creating legislation and anything that involves real people and not just theoretical economics.

Pingers is running for parliament. He has the best of intentions and is using it to amplify his current work – calling out dodgy real estate agents and land lords. It’s a hard decision to make to participate in the system that is so messed up. He’s been critised from all angles – selling out and going for parliament, fundraising to cover his personal and promotional costs, having legal qualifications and his own property. But the tshirts are cool, subversive and a great way to support him if you can afford to.

The two organisations I work with – the Australian Unemployed Workers Union and the Antipoverty Centre – both use donations and grants to support unemployed and otherwise marginalised activists in their work. This can look like providing money to cover food, petrol  or transport or parking costs to be able to be involved in activism and actions. They pay the people with lived experience for their time and expertise as speaker or to contribute to the never ending parliamentary enquiries. They both also pay people in poverty to write articles reasonably regularly for the Power to Persuade blog.

For me, money above my DSP goes to things like buying EveryPlate meal boxes so that I don’t have to use my brain power too much to plan and make meals that are still pretty healthy and yum. If I head out to an event, I’m usually written off for the rest of the day, so money for takeaway and to keep my stash of instant cup noodles and so forth helps because “fed is best” also applies to your local antipoverty campaigners.

I’ve also get to buy things like better monitors for my PC so I can have more windows and tabs open and my new monitors allow split screens very easily with is great for having documents open while working on the social media side of things – either crafting a tweet for Nobody Deserves Poverty (I’m employed 3 hours a week to do that thanks to grants and donations to AUWU) or my personal twitter and blog.

My current phone is a hand-me-down off an amazing tweep so I cold give my last phone to my step-son-in-law or wherever he fits in so he could be contactable for his bub and for the thrill of engaging with Centrelink. Though it may not work after the 3g shutdown, I’m yet to hear.

So yeah, if you read a post that resonates with you, share the hell out of it. If you can afford to, track down the author’s tip jar or paypal and chuck them money for a drink or a meal. It’ll always be appreciated. My support page is here.

Everyplate. Buy me dinner

 

Born to receive a teeny tiny silver spoon from Ozharvest

Oh how lovely, the King and Queen are here. Yeah, much excitement. They made it all the way out rural Parramatta today to meet the RFS and CWA… Yes, they may have still been rural when Victoria was queen, but certainly not now.

OzHarvest awards Camilla with ‘most prestigious’ order of the teaspoon Earlier on Tuesday, a delighted Queen Camilla accepted “the most prestigious order” ever bestowed by Australian food rescue charity OzHarvest – the order of the teaspoon – at its restaurant in Surry Hills this morning. Pool reporters following the royals have described how the silver gift – a small brooch with a crown at the end of a tiny teaspoon – was presented to the Queen when she sat down for lunch at OzHarvest’s Refettorio restaurant with regular patrons who come for a free vegetarian lunch made from rescued foods. When OzHarvest’s founder Ronni Kahn opened the box to show the brooch to the table, and travelling media, and present the “most prestigious order” – everyone in the small dining room oohed and aahed, loudly. “I shall wear it with pride,” the queen said, smiling.

Camilla made her way to have a vegetarian lunch with OzHarvest, since they say it was made from the usual daily cookup of rescued food does that mean someone missed out? Where in the budget does the tiny silver spoon go? is it paid for by the labour of the Sydney Street Choir performing for $150/ticket which they will not see? I did ask on Twitter whether they were paying the choir members or whether they were just using them. Pay your fucking talent, especially if you’re exploiting their story and goodwill for your charity. Or will they get a tshirt and have to go back to the foodbank queue in the morning?

A photo of Lidia Thorpe in a Keffiyeh
Queen

 

Who are the people on your Internet?

They’re the people that you meet when you’re sending that snarky tweet, when you’re thinking of pushing delete, each day.

I’m a little off this week. I’m mostly blaming the rental inspection and the extra work and stress that came with that. Spilled my hot porridge getting it out of the microwave this morning. Dropped a couple of other things too. Unjokingly stated that my goal for today was to not drop me. And if I did let it be a gentle and controlled fall to the ground. Onto cushions.

So if I’m a little off it’s because I’m feeling off. I was apparently burning up last night and I had some wild dreams, vivid ones, ones I don’t want to relive. Things are getting to me, I’m seeing myself being stubborn on things that don’t really serve me. And I should just ask for what I need from others more, but sometimes I just wish they’d realise and do it.

It isn’t helping that fixing the Corolla has been a long process and without it I can’t do many of the things in my regular routine – going to the foodbank for bread or treats, doing the recycling, taking the dog to the dog park etc. I should have caught the train into group today but I’m not feeling up to the hassle of the trains and the buses and they were having issues yesterday with all the rain too. So I’m home.

So when someone on twitter goes off at me for something that I know is more their issue than mine I’m up to one or two replies then I’m off to ignore them, do something to look after myself (like watch The Batman and get disappointed that they didn’t all die) and remember that I’m a real person, that while phonakins IS me she’s also only what I share with you, and more people need to be aware that noone can be everything to everyone, particularly on Twitter, where as much as it might feel like a friendship sometimes you need to step back and not take it all so personally. I think the one-and-a-half-sided friendships like on Twitch with creators often applies to Twitter interactions too. I also need to remember that I’m just a fangirl of some of these bigger accounts and not really a friend. It’s fun while it lasts but sometimes it’s real and sometimes it’s time for a reality check.

I’m off to strike a balance of food, electrolytes (it’s what plants crave) and caffeine and hope that helps get me through today.

Aftercare in Activism

At the Anglicare panel, we were asked advice about supporting people with lived experience to participate in awareness, activism, PR and so forth. I referred to a couple of concepts borrowed from other spheres – looking after your “talent” and “Aftercare”.

As the tellers of our stories, we own them, we are the ones that went through the childhood, the illness, the trauma, racism, that a not-for-profit, or a politician, or other person or group promising to do good with this is looking to use to push forward their agenda. Of course it’s often not nefarious – some people are genuinely doing good or at least believing they are. And so, like you would if you were using a famous child star, puppy or washed up celeb to promote your brand of toilet paper, you need to treat the talent right.

The talent also needs to know they are the talent. They can’t be being talked into doing promotion for your cause out of guilt or sense of obligation because they have received some help in their time of need. It needs to be mutually beneficial, that might be a simple as paying your talent – giving them payment for the photo shoot, paying them for the article written about how awesome being supported by your organisation was. Because they are giving over more of themselves in this instance. They are selling their image, their story, their trauma, for you to promote your cause or service or product or scheme.

Us talent understand that different places have different budgets, but there are too many out there making way more from us than we’ll ever feel or be helped by them. Be the bigger party and start offering it. Start offerings stipends upfront for your clients to speak at your events about how awesome your are. This isn’t just for their time, it’s for their skill, and for them giving their story over to the audience and any trauma that comes from reliving that for your morning tea fundraiser.

The other concept I brought up, with a giggle, was Aftercare. A concept from kink communities, but very relevant when someone with lived experience is engaged for that lived experience. Not to say all kink is traumatic, but the kink side at least brings up discussing boundaries, setting limits, hell even safe words. On the panel I was on, I knew the other panelist and the facilitator and could tap out of the conversation if it got too tricky at the moment. But it’s discussing that before hand. Running through boundaries and questions and topics beforehand. What if you freeze in the kink play scene or speaking onstage. Who knows the signs to look out for. Is your talent someone with known mental health difficulties, diagnosed anxiety, or not diagnosed, and may know when they are getting past what they’re comfortable with. Ask if they need a support person with them, or who to call on.

After the event, what does your talent need? Are they able to stay on and chat with others or will they need time to regroup, duck to the loo, have a cold drink and then get back to it. Or is that it for the day, call them tomorrow to check in?

I’m still new to all this, but just know that your person with their lived experience, the talent, is vulnerable. You often have a lot of power in their relationship, particularly if you are or have been a service provider for them. People may not feel safe to back out if the situation goes beyond their comfort, but you need to make sure it doesn’t. You need to look after your talent, and make sure they are safe before, during and after. You want them having a great experience, and wanting to come back to do more, to let their peers know you’re safe to work with. That you’re one of the good ones.

Support my work: phonakins.com/support

Hitting Spring Running

Well, I mourned winter, but feel like I’m emerging into Spring with a new lease on life (cough be damned). It’s still with me when I transition between scenes, like moving to the kitchen, or getting up in the morning. But it passes, and it’s not infectious at least, so it just sucks for ME and that’s fine, hey?

I do feel a sense of mental clarity though, which is great timing, having just become the first employee of the unemployed workers union and having to be able to switch on in a professional sense for at least three hours a week. Nothing too out of my comfort zone, not that anyway, it’s all social media and PR, things I’ve been doing since I started online journaling on diaryland in 2000, or livejournal and blogs from 2001.

I’m putting together my intro on what my work is, personally, and with the Antipoverty Centre ahead of the panel Monday, which I’m not freaking out about but I haven’t done one before in any capacity. But she’ll be right, so long as my cough holds off and doesn’t want to kick in because I’ve talked too much as it did this morning in group.

Thankyou all for coming along for this ride, and happy wear it purple day!