Wow! What a fabulous programme! Very humbling indeed. Tonight’s episode featured 62-year-old self-made millionaire and lifelong supporter of the Conservative Party, John Elliott who went under cover in Kensington, Liverpool, one of the poorest areas in Britain, to live on the equivalent of state benefit. At the end of his 10 day visit, he decided to give £10,000 to a debt-ridden young family, so that they could have a deposit towards their 1st home; employed charming Kenyan refugee Philip, who was struggling to find work in the UK, as an acountant in his own company; and gave at least 7 grand to an organisation supporting asylum seekers.
The most interesting aspect was how through the experience, John’s preconceived ‘scrounging’ stereotypes were challenged as he talked to real-life people struggling through such adversity. For example, imagine fleeing with your children from a country where there is an abundance of war, poverty, injustice etc to a foreign land, where you must endeavour to survive on the outskirts of society. His donation to this charitable organisation enabled them to add a laundry room to the facility, continue finding suitable housing and buying the essentials, toothbrushes, underwear, soap. Must remember to catch it next week….
“Did you see it last week as well? A young guy on there who at 16 signed a deal that would give him some financial backers with £25 million to play with. This is far more interesting than the usual lip service philanthropic type of activity most rich people engage in. Much more personal this. What they don’t say on the programme is that they can give away upto £50,000.
Must be very humbling and remind a lot of people were they have come from and easily go back to.”
Mike Hulse
http://www.michaelcomputers.co.uk/
“I’m hooked too.
A fantastic illustration of how prejudiced we ALL are. Yes, even you, dear reader. One of the reasons for the success of homo sapiens is our ability to assess and analyse. But even tens of thousands of years of evolution have left us pretty unable to look past the first few moments of an encounter with someone, in judging who they are. Hence this pressing need amongst networkers to create a good first impression and to follow the Mantra “you don’t have a second chance to make a first impression”.
The same weakness accounts for our easy tendency to accept what we are told without thinking. Hence John Elliott’s pre-conceived ideas about asylum-seekers. I admit, I too found I had simply taken at face value what is reported by the media as fact.
I’m not sure who to ascribe the quote to, but it true that “peoples strongest opinions are based on their weakest knowledge”.
We should all take a long cold look at how ready we are to judge others. And be honest about it.
Until a couple of years ago I did some work with a client every Autumn. He runs a successful exhibition services company, specialising in the graduate recruitment market. His client list is impressive, taking in the biggest players in banking, finance, retail, engineering, oil and government agencies. My job was to don work trousers and a polo shirt, load a 7.5T lorry with equipment and brochures and trog round the universities setting up stands for these clients.
It was eye-opening to see how people treated me, based on the assumption I was a manual worker and therefore had no equality with them. The fact of what I did when I wasn’t shifting boxes wasn’t known to them, of course, and I kept it that way with most people just to see how our relationships developed.
Now, maybe there’s an idea for a book here!”
Gordon Robb
http://www.ecademy.com/account.php?id=86727