Torch - part 2 (Generating Energy)

I met Shirley when she came to help me out about a year ago. I was hosting a visit from a homelessness charity from the Midlands. I hadn't had a chance to talk to her beforehand, so I was taking a bit of a gamble but what she said blew me away:

"I turned up at the Clean Slate office after 13 weeks on a job centre programme. I didn't even have a CV. And I had no idea what I wanted to do. I explained to the worker there that I've got no skills and no experience, I've been raising a family for 20 years.

"They said 'Are you kidding? 20 years raising a family? You have loads to offer.' And within two sessions I realised I had so many transferable skills and I set my sights on working in the care sector. Not working with kids, mind," Shirley had a proper Bristolian brogue. "I'm going to work with older people. And my CV proves it."

That's one light re-lit.

Clean Slate's job is to reactivate. To find the 'on' switch for all those systematically de-activated not only by unemployment itself but the systems and mechanisms supposedly designed to support them. We help them find their worth. You don't have to dig very deep. It's not rocket science. It's all there. As readily available as the weather.

So, I'm stood in front of a group of people already excited about Bristol becoming a net exporter of energy by harnessing the elements. I'm stood on the stage brandishing an imaginary torch. And the room is wondering where this is going.

The battery may be flat but it's not dead. Clean Slate helps the light flicker on. Then we need to charge it up.

We do this by providing people with paid work. Just a few hours a week, placed with employers through our temp agency or working directly for us delivering leaflets or packing condoms into sexual health kits, for example. It starts the motors stirring. Even rough sleepers and current drug users come away thinking: 'So I CAN work'. Our temps who we've placed soon want more hours, even if they lose out on their benefits. The guys (gender non-specific) using our walk-in centres get focussed, motivated and active in job search.

Lights go on.

And on.

And stay on.

"Can we directly link how we reactivate and re-energise job seekers to the vision of you environmentalists?" I ask.

What if our temps are delivering easy to read publications to people on low incomes (and everyone else for that matter) on ways to reduce utility bills? What if they spread the word in their own communities? What if we train up 50 job seekers in the skills required to help households install low energy products? What if they're available to do the lugging and hauling to get the solar panels to the rooves? What if some have the technical skills to fit the kit?

Lights go on across Bristol.

In communities. Within families. Within people.

Torch - Part 1 (Wasting Energy)

So I'm stood in front of the audience at the launch of the Bristol Power Coop. "Imagine I have in my hand a whacking great torch. It's a million candles bright. And I'm switching it on.

"And off.

"And on.

"And off."

Now imagine this torch is one unemployed person. All this latent energy. This potential. This untapped opportunity to light up the path ahead and illliminate the world around. Switched off.

Although the bulb's not shining, the longer the light is off the more the battery drains until there's barely the energy to create any light at all. Feeling unwanted. Then unable. Then unmotivated. Unemployment corrodes. It starts with the individual. Then families. Then communities. And that's where Clean Slate comes in.

I've been to a few events involving benefit claimants over the past year. Their stories are basically the same. They ask the same questions: Why is it Job Centres need doorstaff and why do they always ask what you're doing there? Why do I have to repeat the same personal details to a perfect stranger every time I come in, they're not something I'm proud of? Why am I invariably treated with suspicion as if the likelihood is that I'm cheating the system?

At one event in East London, claimants asked why Job Centres don't just strip claimants naked and be done with it.

At most of the events, the civil servants present said they were disappointed that individual had had a bad experience. At the launch of the European Year of Combating Poverty last year, DWP staff and a minister refuted these were universal experiences. Yet attendees were there from Wales, London, Norfolk and the South West with all the same stories. It would be a lie to call it a listening event.

So, the light goes off again.

Whenever I read another headline about benefit cheats and scroungers, I imagine another light going out. (I remember when I was at The Big Issue, one radio presenter described a colleague of mine as 'representative of the feckless and workshy' - showing just how much journalists know.) Then I see politicians doing the same.

Lodge this in your brain: Next time you hear someone berate the unemployed, imagine another light going out.

Don't get me wrong, the unemployed are not a unified group. There's no solidarity. They're no less likely to judge others on benefits than anyone else.They're switching the lights off too.

Nor is it true to say that all jobless people would readily work if they had the chance to. Some don't believe they could. Some can't. Some won't. Some just don't.

And even if they did, many would find themselves so much worse off that they'd be forced to quit. (Bear in mind that, for many, we're talking about £56 on top of the direct cost of rent and council tax each week. The cost to the State may be high but the value to the claimant is low. And the net value of work depends on how high those fixed costs are.) I know. It's tricky to follow. We can't expect journalists to follow that. Or politicians, it seems.

And off.