Just HOW MANY people are unemployed in Cornwall?

What is the unemployment rate in Camborne?And in Cornwall?The question came up this week at our workshops at Torpoint Comunity College and none of us were quite sure of the answer, though we knew that levels were high. Bev Faull, community police officer in charge of the migrant worker beat, said at least 3,000 migrant workers had come into Cornwall since the start of January for seasonal work, mainly daffodils. 

Every day I drive past a farm where a local grower has to recruit hundreds (600)workers from eastern Europe to pick daffodils. He is just down the road from Camborne, where unemployment is high. But he cannot find local pickers to do the work. 

Some statistics from the Camborne Redruth Packet newspaper last Sunday - and the chilling suggestion of a 'lost generation' of young people: 

"Unemployment figures show that the amount of people out of work in Devon and Cornwall has risen sharply over the past year.The number of people out of work and claiming benefits show levels have reached a 16-year high with a record number of people working part-time. Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, leading to fears of a lost generation of young people." Camborne Redruth Packet, 18 March 2012

Review of the day's workshops at Torpoint

Just home - an hour and a half drive north from Camborne to Torpoint. Though the scenery on the approach is lovely, the town itself doesn't seem overly prosperous. There is nowhere to buy a cup of coffee and breakfast except Londis - never a very good sign.
The school is a tough school: the staff talk about racism and and antagonism to foreigners. It's a monocultural area, even there is a lot of movement due to the naval base nearby (a girl in one class had moved 12 times in her life, and she is now 13. So she really understood the experience of moving to start life anew).
The sessions reveal a lack of understanding of the role played by migrant workers and their importance in the local economy.... We had to work hard to define the term and then explain that they were not 'here taking our jobs' and sponging off the state.
I think Inga Riaukaite, who has helped so much on the project and who accompanied us, was quite shaken by the response. It was brilliant, as usual, to have her there to answer questions: she could really explain what it's like. The work was tough, she said, but nothing compared to the emotional strains and the sheer unpleasantness of being taunted for 'not understanding' English - which has happened to her too often, really.
Steve Edser and Bev Faull, Cornwall Community Support Officers working on the migrant worker beat, came too. They were able to put some facts straight and talk about the situations they encountered. They explained that migrant workers could be exploited and gave examples. They also explained how workers often didn't know where to turn for help.
Inga, as she has done in previous workshops, showed everyone what she brought with her when she came to this country to find work: this is at the heart of I Packed This Myself. We asked everyone what they would take if they had to leave home. So many children suggested items given to them by their grandparents (that was interesting).  We handed out small prizes.
Five one-hour sessions during the day - quite a marathon.
We did, I think, open some minds. If we managed to change the mindset of six children in each session that would be quite an achievement.
But at the crux of the matter is an issue that we haven't truly tackled and have not discussed at length up to now: why won't local people do these jobs? Inga asked at one stage how many children in the class would work 15 hour days for the minimum wage. And only one or two hands went up.
The benefits culture is something that we need to look at closely and research how it links with the migrant worker issue.Which brings us, probably, to our next project area: worklessness.

School lunch cakes....

Lunchbreak after four one-hour sessions

Taking questions from the floor

'Migrant workers are taking our jobs...' Quite a high level of prejudice....

What Inga brought in her suitcase....

Photos of home....her degree certificate and a lucky coin...Inga packed these in her suitcase when she came to this country.

Gathering ideas

The team

Inga is back! And Steve Edser and Bev Faull, Police Community Support officers, have joined us to answer difficult questions...

Workshop at Torpoint Community College

Expectations

LinkedIn and 'weak ties'

Financial Times magazine article today on Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is all about networking and work. He has been influenced by sociologist Mark Granovetter and the idea of 'weak ties'.... In other words people on the edge of your social and professional radar screen....he suggests these connections can really help to open up new opportunities. LinkedIn aims to help you connect with them.

A new pastoral

Very interested in different visions of pastoral England since we've been working on I Packed This Myself.
At the David Hockney show at the Royal Academy last night - was stunned by the whirlwind of colour and the excitement with which he re-engages with British landscape (after the California years). Colour and line transform the Yorkshire hills and dale. This is a new way of looking at the world.  Double East Yorkshire 1998 was painted after six months in Yorkshire with a terminally ill friend.

There is a lot of emotion in these paintings.

A few years later, colours become more subdued and traditional. 

Mid Summer East Yorkshire 2004 reminds me of the tapestry created by my local church in Cornwall to mark the millennium. There's a sense of stitching things together to try and make sense of them.

For the church tapestry, women in the congregation each designed a square and sewed them together into a huge wall hanging. Will have to take some pictures this week. That was a vision of rural life at the time, as was this. 

Very notable that there are no figures in any of these landscape paintings.

Thoughts from a couple of years ago on the 'new pastoral'.

The next steps

A workshop at Torpoint College next Thursday on I Packed This Myself with Inga (who worked with us in January) ... looking forward to it, and also to developing our new project which naturally arises from the work with migrant workers.Will be in Cornwall all week. It will be key, of course, to build partnerships - and first and foremost follow up the leads and foundations built with Migration Impacts Funding via Inclusion Cornwall and Cornwall Council. Really would like to meet Inclusion Cornwall and Cornwall Works manager Andrea Gilbert - but she is an extremely busy person. She does have the morning of 17th April free - and we arrange a conference call. At least this is a start.

Worklessness: a definition

I've mentioned the term 'worklessness' to people a few times recently (as I started to hear the word when we embarked on work with migrant workers in Cornwall). It's been surprising to find that it's not a familiar term to anyone outside the employment sector. The word has been buzzing around my mind ever since I first heard it. Here's a definition I found with Google's trusty assistance:

Worklessness is a less familiar term than unemployment to describe those who are economically inactive. The economically inactive are people of working age who are not working, not in full-time education or training and are not actively seeking work.

Source: http://www.idea.gov.uk/

Understanding the Migrant Experience

It's taken me a while to post this up! But click here for the briefing paper including my presentation on I Packed This Myself for the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Seminar Series, 'Understanding the migrant experience'. This all took place at Swansea University. 

Crossing the Tamar

Very misty crossing the Tamar. For me, going across the railway bridge was always the real wrenching moment when I 'left home' for Uni, work or whatever. Home, of course, defines who you are. And you are on your own when setting off into the world.

Migrant workers and the WI

On the train back to London after speaking last night to the WI (Women's Institute) in Praze, Cornwall about our work with migrant workers. There is a competition at the meeting (there is every month) themed around my talk: 'What would YOU pack if you had to work abroad?'
There are 11 entries for me to judge. Reading through them now - a tough call, but the best lists include things that are reminders of home.

Natural beauty and child poverty

A rhapsodic sunset in west Cornwall. Know it's a commonplace but find it hard to reconcile this natural beauty with the fact that a few miles away are towns with some of the highest levels of child poverty in the country.

Migrant artists at the Tate

Sunday morning, quite early (1030am) and the Tate Britain is already busy. Crowds of people at the Picasso exhibition. But I found another, much less busy, show more appealing. Migrations: journeys into British Art has some interesting paintings, and statistics. The exhibition shows how migration into this country has influenced British art over the past 500 years. There's quite a big gap - the 19th century! - but otherwise some fascinating insights.

In the 16th century, artists from the Netherlands introduced a new style of portraiture. Here Portrait of an Unknown Lady by Hans Eworth. He - and others - created iconic portraits of celebrities of the day - in other words, royals and the nobility. No one now knows who the unknown lady in this portrait is/was. But her clothes and jewellery show that she is clearly of high status.

Two hundred years later Italy and its classical tradition had a strong hold on holiday choices and painting styles. The Grand Tour - wealthy young Englishmen's equivalent of a Gap Year expedition - was popular and sparked an interest in antiquity and classical art. A new, neoclassical style developed and greatly influenced the development of art in the UK. A VERY interesting statistic (source: Tate Britain): a third of the founding artists of the Royal Academy were migrant artists.
Here, one such artist: Canaletto and his painting of Horseguards Parade (central London). Canaletto, famous of course for his Venetian scenes (often painted for British tourists), lived in London for nine years. Have made a mental note to seek out his house in Beak Street, Soho.

Then there were the Americans, in the late 19th century, who injected the energy and fresh vision of the New World into portraiture, raising eyebrows in some cases. John Singer Sargent's Study of Mme Garnier (an American herself) is a good example of that.

The Tate, in its free leaflet accompanying the exhibition, garners comments from Bonnie Greer (playright (sic) and novelist), Michael Rosen (broadcaster, children's novelist and poet) and Shami Chakrabarti (Director of human rights organisation, Liberty).

"This exhibition interests me because it addresses one of my favourite topics  - 'interculturalism'. People have always migrated, whether it has been to escape persecution or poverty or to exchange ideas. We should get away from the notion of host and migrant. Cultures mix and we should celebrate that." Michael Rosen

I visit Migrations with my son's wise words ringing in my ear: "Of course, Mum, only white middle class people go to that kind of exhibition." And sadly, to judge from the visitors on Sunday morning, he was right.