Roy O’Shaughnessy calls for long-term vision

In our second regular commentary by industry leaders, Roy O’Shaughnessy, Chief Executive of Careers Development Group says we need a visionary and long-term commitment to eradicating poverty and worklessness.

He writes:

Sky News featured a middle aged couple in China, without employment, scouring the rubbish dumps each morning to eke out an existence, at the time of the interview, it was minus 25 degrees centigrade and the hovel they lived in was exposed to the elements and had no heat. The lady said: when my husband dies or we become too weak to search for rubbish there is nothing for me to do but die, there is no help available.

On the documentary “The Real Slumdog Millionaire” a man who had won what was considered a substantial sum in India proudly showed his studio home, with a flat screen TV, a sofa on which his mother in law slept in the evening, and the floor where he, his wife and children, slept each night.

Each culture and country determines what is acceptable for their people

I imagine that all in the sector are grappling with what is appropriate in our culture to encourage those who are unemployed and can work to do so, and second, how to assist each person to find long term sustainable employment and to assist each one to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of success despite shrinking resources.

I propose:

1. Our vision must be for a society in which unemployment does not exist, including the disabled. Focusing on even 55% employed through FND still leaves 45% of those unemployed. This 45% must receive more attention if many of the social ills we face today are to be effectively addressed, even if not funded through government initiatives. Big business exists to make profit, Charities such as CDG and others in the sector, must justify their public benefit, not only for the aspirational 55% but for all unemployed.
2. To achieve this vision our commitment must be longer than the duration of any commercial contract. It is said that the Chinese plan a 1000 years ahead and the Catholic Church a 100 years ahead. Even with the most seamless provision the challenges we face will take three generations to solve. This must mean that no matter who we work for – commercial, Third Sector, Government – there is a need to blend the commercial and the charitable in a way that has not been accomplished in our lifetimes and the professionalism, training, and funding of our ventures must go beyond existing funding streams and partnerships.
3. A massive national volunteer effort will need to be initiated that provides every unemployed person who cannot be readily employed through FND or its equivalent, with a trained mentor and linked with a local charity, company, or government office, to overcome the obstacles being faced over an extended period of time. This means an entirely new paradigm as to how the private sector, government and the Third Sector coordinate activities beyond the commercial contracts tendered

Can the above be accomplished? It can. But we should not look to government to lead these initiatives. This effort must come from the heart, the mind, and from linking resources – human and financial – that are outside the scope of any current tender process.

I know a man called Alex McElree, who had been in Vietnam, was an alcoholic and a drug addict and had been on the streets of San Francisco and Oakland for years. Social services had given up on him as he had on himself. He woke up on the streets of Oakland one morning and the homeless lady sleeping next to him was dead, she had died of exposure to the cold. From that moment on Alex did not touch alcohol or drugs and since then the organisation he created, Operation Dignity, has had amazing success in helping the homeless, particularly veterans, to overcome barriers and enter employment.

He accomplished this by simply deciding “he would not accept the way things were”.

We need to do the same.