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Careers of Philosophy Majors
You majored in philosophy as an undergraduate, but decided not to pursue any further degrees in philosophy. What are you doing now?
Tell us about it.
This post is by request of a philosophy professor who wrote:
I wonder if you might think about creating a place for folks with undergraduate degrees in philosophy to post what careers they have found themselves in. I am sure lots of folks read Daily Nous because of an interest in philosophy sparked as undergrads (my students do). It would really help with recruiting philosophy majors if we could show them (and their parents) what sorts of jobs folks get with a degree in it. I frequently use the lists of famous people who studied philosophy, but something more realistic would be good.
So if you have a bachelor’s in philosophy (but not an MA or PhD in it), please tell us about your career. Thanks!
By the way, here’s one of those lists of famous people who studied philosophy, and here’s another, and one more. Several years ago, David Boersema (Pacific) put together a book of brief essays by philosophy majors at his school about their varied careers. Oh, and there’s this guy. Perhaps the answers here will serve to counterbalance things like this.
The post Careers of Philosophy Majors first appeared on Daily Nous.
How Schools in Germany Are Preparing Students for Flexible Futures
This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.
Neriman Raim, a 16-year-old student in Cologne, Germany, thought that after finishing school she’d want to work in an office.
But two years ago, she did a two-week internship in an architect’s bureau, and it was tedious. Later, a placement working with kindergarteners led her to consider a career as a teacher — but not of kids this young. The next school year, she spent three weeks supervising older children as they did their homework.
Neriman now plans to become an educator working with grade-school children. After finishing school this summer, she’ll participate in a year-long placement to confirm that teaching is the right career for her before going to a technical college. Her internships offered a glimpse of what working life could look like, she said: “I could see what a day is like with kids.”
Neriman Raim, 16, thought she wanted to work in an office but changed her mind when a work placement at an architect’s bureau proved tedious. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
Neriman is taking part in Kein Abschluss ohne Anschluss (KAoA) — or “no graduation without connection” — a program that has been rolled out across the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia to help students better plan for their futures. Young people get support with resumes and job applications; in ninth grade, they participate in short internships with local businesses and have the option of doing a year-long, one-day-a week work placements in grade 10.
“You don’t learn about a job in school,” said Sonja Gryzik, who teaches English, math and career orientation at the school Neriman attends, Ursula Kuhr Schule. “You have to experience it.”
Germany and other Western European countries have long directed students into career paths at earlier ages than in the US, often placing kids onto university tracks or vocational education starting at age 10. Students in Germany can embark on apprenticeships directly after finishing general education at age 16 in grade 10, attending vocational schools that offer theoretical study, alongside practical training at a company. College-bound kids stay in school for three more years, ending with an entry exam for university.
Small class sizes at Ursula Kuhr Schule allow teachers to offer guidance and support. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
The apprenticeship system, which is credited with keeping youth unemployment low, has drawn strong interest in the US amid growing disenchantment with university education. Youth apprenticeships have begun to pop up in several US states, and career exposure programs are expanding. “Many of the best jobs our country has to offer don’t require a college education,” wrote workforce training advocate Ryan Craig in his recent book “Apprentice Nation: How the ‘Earn and Learn’ Alternative to Higher Education Will Create a Stronger and Fairer America.”
But in Germany, the hundreds-year-old vocational system has faced headwinds. There is longstanding criticism that low-income students and those from immigrant backgrounds are channeled into vocational fields and away from more academic ones. More recently, despite the high demand for workers in the trades, students and their parents are increasingly hesitant about vocational education. Germany’s labor market has become digitized, and young people are keeping their options open before settling on a career path. Meanwhile, the pandemic had an outsized impact on vocational training, forcing many programs to close for long periods. And recent immigrants may be unaware of voc-ed’s high standing.
All this has led more students to choose to attend university. Yet many drop out: According to recent data, up to 28 percent of students fail to complete a degree. The figure for students in humanities and natural sciences is even higher, up to 50 percent.
Students can test their horticultural skills in the school’s garden. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
This high failure rate, coupled with labor market needs, has led policymakers to tweak traditional vocational models to make them more flexible. Students in the academic track increasingly have access to both apprenticeships and university, and some students who complete vocational qualifications can still go on to attend a university, where options for combining practical experience with academic studies are growing.
The program Neriman participates in, KAoA, is part of a wave of efforts to engage all students, not just those bound for vocational programs, in workforce preparation. All ninth and 10th grade students in North Rhine-Westphalia must do a three-week-long practical internship. Those on a vocational track begin apprenticeships after completing 10th grade, while students hoping to go to university attend academic high school for three additional years. The program encourages students from all backgrounds to think about their futures in concrete terms, said Bernhard Meyer, a teacher at Ursula Kuhr who coordinates KAoA in 11 towns across the Northwestern region.
“We have every type of possibility,” Meyer said. “And there’s not only apprenticeship or university, there are some studies in between.”
At Ursula Kuhr Schule, students in the school’s woodworking lab build birdhouses and toy cars. A state-of-the-art kitchen lets students develop their culinary skills. An extensive garden, full of herbs, and boasting a hen house, offers an opportunity to test out horticultural skills.
Students take field trips to learn about different jobs. For example, on a trip to the airport they learn about positions such as flight attendant, fire service, security or aircraft mechanic. Employees from Ford, which has a plant in Cologne, visit the school to talk about their work with students and parents.
While university is free in Germany, students who study vocational fields can achieve financial security earlier on.
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Businesses in Germany seem keen to participate in vocational training. Chambers of commerce and industry support company-school partnerships and help smaller businesses train their interns. Students are even represented in unions, said Julian Uehlecke, a representative of the youth wing of Germany’s largest trade union alliance.
The goal of apprenticeships is to offer training in the classroom and in the workplace. The system gives students “a pretty good chance of finding a well-paid stable job,” said Leonard Geyer, a researcher at the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research.
Lukas Graf, head of the Swiss Observatory for Vocational Education and Training described the “basic principle” of Germany’s program as providing all-around training: “in the classroom, in the seminar room, and training in the workplace.”
Woodwork supplies at Ursula Kuhr Schule, a school in Cologne, Germany. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
Mile Glisic, a 15-year-old student at Ursula Kuhr Schule, is doing a long-term work placement at a hardware store and considering an apprenticeship in sales. Earning money while training for a career will help him understand financial planning, and prepare him for a future in which he has a house and family, he said. “I think it’s better because you start to learn what to do with your money when you’re younger,” said Mile.
While the KAoA program has rolled out across all 2,000 schools in this region of Germany, including those that focus on university preparation, Ursula Kuhr Schule prioritizes practical education. Students, more than half of whom come from minority backgrounds, begin career orientation when they are just 12 or 13.
Backers of vocational training say it supports social inclusion by giving young people training that allows them to secure well-paid, stable jobs. But, as in the United States, many argue it limits the prospects of students from marginalized backgrounds and reproduces generational inequalities. This is “a huge debate,” said Graf, of the Swiss Observatory.
To Graf, the value of either a university degree or practical study depends on the particular courses chosen. A university graduate in a field like philosophy, for example, might end up with fewer well-paid opportunities than someone with vocational education training, he said.
The pandemic deepened many parents’ ambivalence about vocational training. While university teaching continued through online platforms, on-the-job training came to a stop when companies had to shut down, said Hubert Ertl, vice president and director of research at Germany’s Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training and professor of vocational education research at the University of Paderborn.
Parents have a big influence: Research by Ertl’s institute shows that when students express interest in a vocational program, their parents often talk them out of it and push them toward higher ed instead. “That’s often not doing the young people any favors,” he said.
His organization works with schools and parents to tackle preconceived ideas about vocational education. “We’ve started to engage with parents quite directly because parents often don’t know about the vocational programs at all, and they don’t know what opportunities they afford.”
Frank Rasche teaches woodwork and technical education at Ursula Kuhr Schule. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
Tim Becker, 20, is doing an IT apprenticeship after completing the university entry exam at his academically oriented high school in Cologne. At first, his parents, who worked for CocaCola, were uneasy. German parents usually want their children to go to university, “especially if they go to a gymnasium,” Becker wrote in an email, referring to academic high schools.
But in school, his career classes urged students to compare the benefits of university to a practical qualification. For Becker, who’d always loved computers, hands-on training beat out academic theory. “I am just not that guy that likes to sit all day in any lectures at some university,” he said. Some of his old classmates have already dropped out of college and are pursuing internships, he added.
Parents at Ursula Kuhr attend meetings, called “future conferences,” with their kids several times a year. Mile’s parents, who moved to Germany from Serbia when he was nine, have met his teachers frequently. “I know that they were very happy with it,” he said, referring to his career path. “They had some questions about it. But I think they’re thinking good about it because, I mean, it’s only doing good for us.”
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Neriman’s mother, who is a nanny, “loved the idea” that her daughter would teach in grade-school, Neriman said. The teachers and staff at Ursula Kuhr help students gain confidence about their futures, she said. “The teachers do everything for us — they don’t want anyone to finish school and have nothing.”
Other European countries are seeing similar labor market needs. Denmark, whose minister for education trained as a bricklayer, is facing a significant skills shortage in vocational fields, said Camilla Hutters, head of the National Center for Vocational Education, a Danish research organization.
Students are encouraged to think about their futures. “We always talk about different jobs that might be suitable for them,” said Sonja Gryzik, who teaches English, math and career orientation at Ursula Kuhr Schule. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
In the 1960s, practical and project-based learning was common in Danish schools, Hutters said. That changed in the 1990s, when Denmark scored poorly on international rankings like the Program for International Student Assessment. Now, economic needs are causing a swing back to vocational and career education.
Today, Danish students as young as six might visit a workplace or spend a week learning about a particular career, she said, and discussions are under way to further integrate practical learning in primary school. Danish leaders also want to improve collaboration with business across the education system, including at the university level, Hutters said, where an increasing number of courses are likely to involve working with a company. Political leaders are discussing reforms that would “improve practical learning in the whole system,” she said.
But a tension between on-the-job training and academia persists in Danish thinking, she added. Although policymakers want to expand the practical element across all levels of education, university still remains the goal for many students and their parents. “This is a little bit of a mixed tendency at the same time, right now in Denmark,” she said.
Back in Germany, Becker will finish his internship in September 2024 with expertise in IT services and network security. Throughout his training, he has earned money — and will get up to €1,260 (roughly $1,360) per month in his final year — which has meant he could avoid taking on part-time work as some of his college friends have done. “You don’t need to sit all day in university and go to work in the evening to pay your bills,” he said.
And it suits him. He grew up surrounded by computers, tinkering alongside his dad, and that love of technology persisted through his teens. He likes working with his hands and doing, “something where I can learn practical things,” he said.
This story about German vocational training was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
The post How Schools in Germany Are Preparing Students for Flexible Futures appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
Graham cuts Community section out of top Unite representation
Rule change pushed by general secretary means members of Unite’s groundbreaking section for unemployed people and voluntary section can no longer sit on ‘highest committees’
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has been heavily criticised for her bizarre letter to all the union’s staff last month, attempting to undermine a number of criticisms that have been levelled at her and her management of the union. The letter was described by union insiders as ‘unhinged’ and a ‘rant’ – and it backfired heavily.
As Skwawkbox has already covered, Graham told recipients that the union under her will always prioritise jobs in the weapons industry above the fight to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Her letter also claimed that an unfavourable interim financial report had been faked wholesale and that the forger had gone to the extent of copying the font and layout of actual reports to fool members. The union did not respond to an enquiry whether it stood by the claim despite the screenshots of the report appearing to show that it was found on the union’s official ‘Sharepoint’ network. The letter also claimed the union’s financial value was ‘pushing up towards half a billion pounds’ – but insiders say that the value was already around half a billion when she took over two and a half years ago.
Graham also used the letter to attack the membership figures published by the union’s previous management – compared to which she has been accused of losing members – as ‘phony’. Yet insiders also say that the person responsible for compiling and reporting those figures to the management in those days was… Sharon Graham, then Unite’s head of organising.
And the letter also flags a major attack by the union’s management on Unite’s unique ‘Community’ section, the first attempt to bring in unemployed people, disabled people, voluntary and other unwaged workers into the union movement.
Unite Community, around 20,000 strong, has played a vital role in the union’s industrial actions, as members have often had the flexibility to be able to support striking workers by participating in pickets that many others could not get to. Unite Community members have also tended to be among the most politicised and radical – a tendency that puts them at odds with a general secretary who insists that Unite should not be ‘political’ and who has been accused of ever-increasing cosiness with ‘red Tory’ Keir Starmer.
And members have long feared that Ms Graham does not want the section as part of the ‘workplace only’ union she said she was going to create. She reportedly denied this during her election campaign and shortly after – but a section of her letter to organisers, staff and officers contained news of a major attack on the status of Unite Community within the union and the opportunity for its members to have a meaningful voice in Unite’s decisions.
Graham wrote:
Following the Rules Conference, only people who are elected representatives of workers from within a workplace(s) will be eligible to sit on our highest committees. This will ensure that decisions being taken are decisions that workplace representatives want the Union to take. This will be communicated in the coming weeks.
At a stroke, Unite Community members have been ruled out of standing for senior positions in Unite, depriving them – and the millions they represent – of a real say in Unite’s decisions and policies.
Sharon Graham seemed to be trying to put out fires through her bizarre and self-justifying letter. But she seems instead to have stoked them higher and lit new ones.
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Exclusive: Graham claims financials ‘fake’ – but they were ‘on Unite Sharepoint’
‘Unhinged’ claim challenged by screenshots – no response from Unite to request to confirm whether union management stands by bizarre comment from general secretary in letter to all staff, officers and organisers
As Skwawkbox covered earlier today, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham sent a bizarre email to all the union’s organisers, staff and officers that was described as ‘unhinged’, ‘flailing’ and ‘a rant’ by union insiders – and called ‘disgusting’ for its prioritisation of weapons-making jobs over opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Britain’s complicity in it.
As well as its section on Palestine, Graham’s letter also attempted to defuse criticism of the union’s financial management – by claiming that the ‘preliminary’ financial report circulating among astonished officers, members and activists is a forgery in which ‘those with much to lose’ even copied the font and layout of a real Unite finance report:
Fake Finance Document
Those with much to lose from the new way forward, including curtailing money given to outside organisations and the new industrial focus, have escalated actions by producing a fake Unite Finance Document for release on Social Media. Most recently appearing on social media. The document was headed “Unite Finance Report” and mirrored (down to the same font and layout) Unite’s usual finance report style. This had the sole aim of discrediting the leadership but most importantly it undermined the Union. It stated that the Union’s financial position was in difficulty since the General Secretary election. This is untrue and is now being dealt with legally.
Ms Graham did not name ‘those with much to lose’ – but those challenging her claim have pointed out that the screenshots of the ‘fake finance document’ appear to show that it was screengrabbed directly from Unite’s ‘Sharepoint’ system:
Sharepoint, a Microsoft platform, is a “web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft 365 … primarily sold as a document management and storage system, although it is also used for sharing information through an intranet, implementing internal applications, and for implementing business processes.” The Unite address shown on the screengrabs appears to indicate that the document was at least stored, and potentially created, on the union’s own dedicated server. It is unclear against whom the issue “is now being dealt with legally”, since no supposed culprits are identified.
The claim was perceived as so outlandish that union activists have been contacting Skwawkbox all day about it. One said:
This is unhinged, she just looks like she’s flailing all over the place.
Another commented:
This is a rant and she’s sent it to everyone, what is she thinking?
Skwawkbox wrote to Unite’s press office:
Ms Graham’s letter referred to in my previous email today also claims Unite financials were a forgery and even that someone has copied the layout and font of genuine reports to fool people. The claim has been described by Unite recipients as ‘unhinged’. Screenshots of the report show that it came from the Unite Sharepoint – is the union really claiming this was faked and stored on the official network??
No response, apart from a confirmation of receipt, was received by the reply deadline of 5pm or since. It would be extraordinarily thorough for someone to go to the lengths of adding Sharepoint details to a fake, but Unite was given the opportunity to say that it believes this was done and has not done so.
Graham also told recipients that Unite’s finances were “pushing up towards half a billion pounds”. Skwawkbox understands that they were around half a billion pounds when she took over as general secretary.
As Skwawkbox showed earlier, Graham’s letter had disgusted many who read it because it said that the union will always prioritise weapons-making jobs over the need to fight Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and appeared to imply that those working in that sector didn’t care about them being used in the slaughter of Palestinian women and children.
Sharon Graham has been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month.
Apart from the issue of Gaza, her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.
According to human rights group Euro Med Monitor, since 7 October last year Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries, while Gaza’s health and school systems have been bombed into collapse, often using US- and UK-made weapons and systems. More than a million people have been forcibly displaced and Gaza is in famine because of Israel’s blockade of food and vital supplies. Israel is formally on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice and ordered to stop its slaughter – and has been found by UN human rights investigators to be committing genocide.
The finance and Gaza comments are not the end of the issues with Graham’s email. Skwawkbox will cover further aspects shortly.
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Graham tells staff/organisers Unite will always put arms jobs before fighting Gaza genocide
‘Unhinged’ letter to all staff, organisers and officers includes ‘disgusting’ section about Palestine
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has sent a letter to all the union’s staff, organisers and officers that has been described as an ‘unhinged’ attempt to counter criticisms. Skwawkbox will publish analysis of the various sections separately – and will first cover what Unite figures have described as Graham’s ‘disgusting’ comments on Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The letter claims that Graham and Unite have led on opposition to the mass murder in Gaza – despite Graham being widely criticised for her silence on the issue and insiders saying that she had to be pressured into a proper statement on Gaza at all.
And the section, which is titled ‘Palestine’, goes on to make clear that while Unite has given a one-off donation (one that Skwawkbox understands was given suddenly and without approval by Unite’s elected executive) to Doctors without Borders, Ms Graham and the union under her will always prioritise defence industry jobs above any outside issues, despite the union’s official, democratic position in support of sanctions and a boycott against Israel.
The full section reads:
Palestine
Of all the issues that have been used in these attacks, probably the most abhorrent is the attempted weaponisation of the conflict and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.
Unite, through the General Secretary and the Chair of the Union and the Executive Council, was the first major union to publicly and unambiguously call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We were very clear. We have watched on with horror the bombardment and destruction of Gaza, and the unbearable terror, suffering and death of its innocent civilians. We have been unequivocal that the deliberate killing of civilians, hostage-taking and collective punishment are war crimes and should be identified as such.
Unite has also donated £50,000 to Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders specifically to help the many victims of this horrific conflict. Most recently the General Secretary has written to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) offering our solidarity after the horrific bombing of their Gaza headquarters which, alongside providing services to workers, was also functioning as a kindergarten and bakery.
However, we cannot and will not endorse any organisation which decides unilaterally and without any discussion (let alone agreement) with the workers themselves, to support the targeting of our members’ workplaces or their jobs. To be clear, this will not happen. No outside body, no matter what their political position, will be allowed to dictate terms to our Union and our members.
It is important to highlight here that it is a core principle of Unite that as a trade union the ‘first claim’ on our priorities is always the protection and advancement of our members’ interests at work. It is very simple. Unite cannot and never will advocate or support any course of action which is counter to that principle. We are a trade union, not a political party or single-issue campaign group.
Therefore, there is no contradiction for a trade union to hold a position of solidarity with Palestinian workers, while at the same time refusing to support campaigns that target our members’ workplaces without their support. Similarly, we cannot be expected to affiliate to organisations that actively work against our members and their jobs.
Examples include groups that look to build networks inside trade unions to undermine the defence industry or demand the disbandment of NATO and AUKUS. Whatever anyone may think personally about those objectives is irrelevant. We are a trade union with thousands of members employed in the defence industry. It is the views of affected members that take precedence in a trade union. That will not change and nor should it. Unite members have recently been attacked directly, been spat at and called “child killers”. We cannot and will not endorse this.
Emphases added
One furious senior insider told Skwawkbox:
She’s effectively saying members working in defence don’t care if what they make ends up killing women and children in Gaza – only jobs matter. Has she bothered asking any of them?
Another said:
Unite’s official position, democratically reached repeatedly at conference and confirmed again just last summer, is that it supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. We didn’t add ‘except where it might affect defence jobs’. We’ve also voted for the end of trade agreements with Israel. This is disgusting by Sharon.
Sharon Graham has been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month.
According to human rights group Euro Med Monitor, since 7 October last year Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries, while Gaza’s health and school systems have been bombed into collapse, often using US- and UK-made weapons and systems. More than a million people have been forcibly displaced and Gaza is in famine because of Israel’s blockade of food and vital supplies. Israel is formally on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice and ordered to stop its slaughter – and has been found by UN human rights investigators to be committing genocide.
Unite was contacted for comment but did not respond by the press deadline.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
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On ‘Alternative Walking Tours,’ Formerly Homeless People Share Their Perspectives
After struggling with alcohol addiction for over 10 years — during which his 20-year banking career and 30-year marriage both collapsed — it was a presentation in a rehab center in 2019 that became the catalyst for Miles to turn his life around.
The presentation was by Invisible Cities, an organization which, since its inception in 2016, has trained 118 formerly homeless people to become tour guides. It’s a creative way of giving them not only a new income stream, but also a new sense of purpose — and skillset, too.
“This helped fill a void after I finished rehab,” says Miles, who has withheld his name for privacy reasons. “This was the opportunity that first helped me back on to a path of a ‘normal’ life again, and having a purpose.”
It took Miles six months to put together his tour of York. Courtesy of Invisible Cities
“I probably wouldn’t be where I am today without the opportunity Invisible Cities gave me. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
Invisible Cities’ guides specialize in unique topics that reflect their own personal story — such as a city’s LGBTQI history, notable women, protest culture, ties to witchcraft or how crime and punishment has evolved — in the UK cities of Edinburgh, York, Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester.
Invisible Cities provides training for guides to create these “alternative walking tours,” as well as in public speaking and customer service skills. The organization is then responsible for marketing the tours and taking bookings. Participants pay up to £15 (around $19 US), which is split between the guide and Invisible Cities to support their efforts in recruiting more guides who have experienced homelessness.
An Invisible Cities guide regales visitors on a tour in Manchester. Courtesy of Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities has also set up a grant program for guides to access funding to do other external courses or start their own business, and offers training in IT and presentation skills to help them gain further employment.
With the help of sponsors, Invisible Cities also offers free community tours for specific groups. In 2023, 569 people from the Ukrainian community and from underprivileged areas attended free tours.
Miles’ tour of the English city of York, in which he has lived for the past 30 years, took him six months to put together. During that time, he transitioned out of the rehab center and into resettlement housing, where he stayed until he moved into his own apartment in 2021.
On his tours, Miles focuses on health and wealth in York, in parallel with his own experience in which his health was compromised due to addiction, and both having and losing wealth. He highlights buildings that have brought either health or wealth to the area, such as St. Leonard’s Hospital, which was one of the first hospitals in the UK, built in medieval times.
Courtesy of Invisible Cities
“This helped fill a void after I finished rehab. This was the opportunity that first helped me back on to a path of a ‘normal’ life again, and having a purpose.”
–Miles, Invisible Cities guide
He also spotlights the city’s chocolate making locations, from the Terry’s Chocolate factory, which manufactured the iconic “chocolate orange” that is a tradition to give and eat at Christmas in the UK, to the Rowntree’s site that created the popular Kit Kat chocolate bar.
“What Terry’s did is they brought employment into the city. But they recognised very early that in order to build their company, they had to provide housing for their staff, and they reinvested their original profits back into their workforce, and into building up the factory,” Miles explains.
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“And the same with Rowntree’s, who provided health benefits and housing to their workforce. But Rowntree’s was then taken over by Nestle, a multinational conglomerate, whose profits and investment go out of the city.”
Miles’ tours have evolved over the past five years based on social developments in the city and the questions participants ask. For example, his tours have addressed issues such as gang-related drug dealing, and a lack of accessible parking in the city, and he also weaves in his own experience living with addiction.
An Invisible Cities tour in York. Courtesy of Invisible Cities
“I love being able to share the underbelly of our city, because York is very much seen as a vibrant city that’s rich with history and architecture. But I bring in aspects of rough sleeping, addiction and recovery, and I share what’s actually going on when [it’s] relevant, which keeps it alive for me, because it’s ever-changing,” he says.
Through other volunteering Miles has also built relationships with universities in the area, which have made his tour part of the curriculum for social policy students. He’s even had doctors come along who say they’ve gotten more out of it, in terms of understanding the city’s social support structure for homelessness and addiction, than a formal training day, so he is in talks with a number of local clinics to encourage more medical professionals to attend.
Founder Zakia Moulaoui Guery initially came up with the idea to help formerly homeless people gain the confidence to embrace the next chapter of their lives. To spread the concept of Invisible Cities further across the country, Moulaoui Guery has since developed a social franchise model, partnering with existing homeless organizations, which then take on the recruiting and training of guides.
This is crucial, says Moulaoui Guery, so the operation can continue to expand in a way that stays true to its mission of leveraging tourism to shine a light on issues of social justice and inequality, and help do good with the money visitors bring to iconic UK cities. Invisible Cities Cardiff, for example, is in partnership with The Wallach, the largest homelessness charity in Wales.
Courtesy of Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities guides are trained to give unique tours that weave together the city's history and their own personal story.
“Finding the right partner on the ground is always more important than whether or not that city will work in a touristic way,” says Moulaoui Guery. “I would rather work with a trusted partner, and for it to be a bit harder in terms of visitors, than to go somewhere like London, for example, which would be a lot harder to make work.”
In this way, expansion to Liverpool and the Scottish Borders is currently in the works. Moulaoui Guery is also eyeing cities like Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen and Dundee.
Not all who take on Invisible Cities’ training become guides — just 16 are currently actively running tours. About a quarter of a training cohort of around eight people become guides, shares Moulaoui Guery, while another quarter stay involved with Invisible Cities in a different capacity, for example, helping at tourism trade shows. Another quarter take up a different opportunity, through a job or setting up their own venture. And another quarter move on without staying in touch.
Zakia Moulaoui Guery, founder of Invisible Cities. Courtesy of Invisible Cities
As much as she’s passionate about spreading the Invisible Cities movement, Moulaoui Guery is just as happy when guides move on.
“I think sometimes it’s great when we don’t hear anything from people, because it means they are moving on, and are too busy living out their dreams. What we don’t want to do is hold onto people forever,” she says.
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Miles, meanwhile, is not only sober and in his own apartment, but has also helped set up another nonprofit organization to tackle homelessness and poverty. In light of his new commitments, he has gone from doing several Invisible Cities tours a week to a handful a month — but is keen to stay active as a guide even in this capacity.
“I don’t want to stop doing the tours,” he says. “They are really enjoyable. I will still keep this as a precious thing, because we are a close-knit team and really support each other. There’s quite a family feel.”
The post On ‘Alternative Walking Tours,’ Formerly Homeless People Share Their Perspectives appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
The Grandmas and Grandpas Brewing Beer in Vienna
In the maze of neon-lit corridors beneath a senior home on the southwestern outskirts of Vienna, the warm scent of malt leads to a small room that’s become the headquarters of an unlikely microbrewing success story. A colorful mural on the wall depicts five residents of the home enjoying a pint, and beneath, three of them are pitching in on today’s brewing efforts.
Gustav Paier labeling bottles. Credit: Andreas Jakwerth / Häuser zum Leben
Helmut Riegerbauer always comes in early, and by the time the others have joined he’s already pulled on purple latex gloves and moved to the manual bottle capper. “He’s the only one who gets to wear an official apron,” quips Gustav Paier, himself neatly dressed in a colorful cable-knit sweater. “You have to earn it,” winks Helmut, smoothing the dark green apron emblazoned with the word Brauwerkstatt.
And earn it he does — in the course of the morning he caps around six cases of freshly filled beer bottles, careful to add a tab of priming sugar to each. Occasionally he comes to check on his friends, who are busy with labeling. “I’m the controller,” he explains, swiftly scanning a case and pulling out a bottle missing the back label. Rupert Jaksch, who has taken up his usual position at the end of the table, quickly puts on the missing label for their Viennese lager, called Opa and Oma — Grandpa and Grandma.
The lager was the first beer the Brauwerkstatt in Haus Atzgersdorf started brewing in the summer of 2020, when the Covid lockdowns made life in the senior home especially lonely. The home’s previous director came up with this unusual plan to bring the residents together and give them a meaningful way to spend their time. Helmut, Gustav and Rupert have been part of the project from the start and have become fast friends. They’re all firmly in their 80s, with Rupert the oldest at 88, but the laughter and easy banter make the atmosphere in the room feel unusually festive for a Thursday morning.
A bottle of Oma (“grandma”) Viennese lager. Credit: Andreas Jakwerth / Häuser zum Leben
What started as an off-the-cuff idea has since become a successful microbrewery that can barely keep up with demand. In 2023 the Brauwerkstatt doubled its brewing capacity to 12,000 bottles annually and is planning to double it again this year. The senior home staff takes care of the more physically demanding aspects of the work, but Bernhard Wittholm, a trained beer sommelier who joined the team last year, recognizes that the heart of the project lies elsewhere: “It’s not really about brewing beer but about companionship. The residents have a lot of stories to tell, and it’s good for them to get out of their bubble. You notice that they blossom when they’re here.”
Including the senior residents in the project was crucial from the start, says the home’s director, Christian Ehm: “They’re involved in the whole production process, from brewing to bottling, packaging, a bit of advertising … and drinking.” He laughs. “Doing something you enjoy also keeps you fit and alive.”
Haus Atzgersdorf is one of the 30 Häuser zum Leben (Houses for Living) in Vienna run by KPW, a nonprofit that also includes 150 senior clubs in the city, making it the largest provider of senior care in Austria. While the Brauwerkstatt is one of its most visible projects, a full event calendar ranging from yoga to clown workshops ensures that the seniors in these homes remain active and connected. “We want to change the idea that being old has to be something tragic and passive. We’re convinced that older people have a lot to offer if you give them the right framework,” says KPW spokesperson Hans Grasser.
Credit: Andreas Jakwerth / Häuser zum Leben
The Brauwerkstatt is a place where seniors find companionship and a sense of purpose. It's also a successful brewery.
With the world population aging at an accelerated pace, finding ways to help people thrive in old age is becoming an increasingly pressing concern. In 2020, the World Health Organization launched the Decade of Healthy Aging to spearhead a sustained global effort to improve the lives of seniors. That same year, people over 60 years old outnumbered children under five years old for the first time in history, and by 2050 their number is expected to double to 2.1 billion. Healthy aging is about more than mobility and blood pressure — we are social animals, and social isolation and loneliness have been shown to significantly increase the risk of mental and cognitive decline, physical health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and stroke, and early death.
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Increasingly, cities are recognizing the need for a systemic and comprehensive approach to tackling the challenges of an aging population. The German city of Arnsberg launched its Department of Future Aging in 2004, Barcelona announced a plan to become a “senior-friendly city” in 2022 and Vienna, where a quarter of the residents will be over 60 by 2030, has a dedicated “Vienna for seniors” team working on a broad range of topics, from living with dementia to an event-filled Seniors’ Month every October.
Credit: Sarah Bruckner / Häuser zum Leben
Activities at Vienna's Häuser zum Leben (Houses for Living), including yoga, help residents stay active and connected.
While the seniors at Brauwerkstatt found their calling in beer, others have a second career in baking. Vollpension, a popular café and social business in central Vienna, employs “grandmas” (and the occasional “grandpa”) to bake cakes according to their own time-tested recipes. More than half of the 80-strong team is over 60 years old, many of them living alone. Beyond bringing them into regular contact with colleagues and customers of all ages, their work at Vollpension on average increases their monthly income by 40 percent — no small feat in a country where the average woman’s pension is 37 percent lower than a man’s.
Other “grandmas” prefer to devote their time to childcare. For over 50 years the Omadienst (“Grandma service”) has been matching older women in Vienna with families in need of a grandma-like figure to help with childcare. There are some 400 Leihomas (“grandmas-for-hire”) currently active in Vienna, estimates Andrea Beer, who leads the project: “Often they take care of the kids from when they’re babies until they’re in high school, and remain in contact long after they no longer need babysitting.”
Seniors and children gardening together at the Hofferplatz intergenerational meeting point. Credit: Sarah Bruckner / Häuser zum Leben
A number of Viennese senior homes also house kindergartens, a practice that is proving popular worldwide, from Seattle to Singapore. Taking it a step further, some senior homes are also becoming a hub for intergenerational living, solving two problems at once: the struggle of finding affordable housing facing many young people, and the social isolation experienced by seniors. As part of a Young Living program, 50 apartments in the various Häuser zum Leben senior homes are earmarked for students, who contribute 25 hours of volunteer work per month in exchange for affordable rent. At the Humanitas retirement village in the Netherlands six students are living rent-free, offering company and support to their senior neighbors. In the US, a number of colleges partner with senior care facilities to create intergenerational housing solutions, while so-called University-based Retirement Communities (UBRCs) combine senior living with access to university courses and campus facilities for seniors.
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Back in the brewery, the seniors are joined by Lukas and Andy, high school students who are doing a two-week internship at the senior home as part of Compassion Project, a social learning initiative. Rupert is showing them how to label the beer bottles. Keeping the labels straight and smooth is not as easy as it seems, but after almost four years of weekly practice, he’s a pro. From the handle of his wheelchair hangs a black felt bag emblazoned with the motto “the Beauty and the Beer,” a present from his daughter. “This here is our second life chapter,” he says. “And we’re happy to still be needed.”
The post The Grandmas and Grandpas Brewing Beer in Vienna appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
The Cheap, Clever Promise of ‘Water ATMs’
In Telangana, an arid south Indian state notorious for drought, a man swipes a card at an ATM. Instead of cash, the machine doles out 20 liters of clean drinking water. The ATM is housed in an iJal (My Water) station, run by 31-year-old Somarathi Sindhuja, a petite mother of two. When she set it up seven years ago, she had not imagined that her seed money of Rs 2,00000 (just under $2400 US) would help her create what she today calls her “public service business,” which supplies clean drinking water within a two-mile radius of her home in Warangal, Telangana’s second largest city.
Sindhuja is one of the 350 rural water entrepreneurs trained and supported since 2017 by Safe Water Network (SWN), an American nonprofit founded in 2006 by the late actor and philanthropist Paul Newman and other civic leaders. The entrepreneurs buy or provide the space for the water filtration equipment and ATM, as well as the raw water. SWN provides them with the necessary training, technical support and water treatment expertise. Using all this, they are able to filter water to international safe drinking water standards and sell it for the nominal sum of Rs 5 ($0.07 US) for 20 liters.
That’s an extremely good deal for the community: Typically the price for a similar quantity of water, from a competing supplier like commercial tanker owners, is at least double this amount; bottled water can go for as much as 10 times more. It’s a good deal for the entrepreneur, too. “I earn about Rs 15,000 to 20,000 (roughly $180 to $240 US) per month from this, which is amazing as there are hardly any jobs available to women like me here,” Sindhuja says. “And I’m also improving the lives of people in my neighborhood.”
Sindhuja says her iJal station gets about 200 customers per day. Credit: Raj Kumar / Safe Water Network
Warangal is undeniably parched, and the water that most residents there can easily access is not safe to drink. And it’s not alone in these challenges: Due to depleting groundwater reserves, erratic rainfall and poor civic infrastructure, an estimated 2.2 billion people across the globe were unable to get safe drinking water in 2022. In India, thanks to the government’s ambitious piped water scheme Har Ghar Nal ka Jal (Water on Tap in Every Home), things are looking up — but a lot more needs to be done.
“The piped water still needs to be filtered and treated before it can be drunk,” says Poonam Sewak, SWN’s vice president for programs and partnerships, pointing out that an estimated 63 million Indians lack access to safe drinking water, and half of the country’s groundwater is contaminated with fluoride, nitrate and heavy metals. The network’s iJal stations with attached water ATMs offer high-tech and decentralized safe water access solutions in India and Ghana.
Building a corps of rural water entrepreneurs
The network’s water ATMs operate in several districts in Telangana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Some are co-owned and run by self-help collectives of five to six women, while others are run by single entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs provide the fixed assets and water source, usually a borewell on the premises. SWN contributes technical expertise to set up a reverse osmosis water filtration unit, provides marketing support and maintenance help and trains the entrepreneur to operate and maintain the water station and ATM. All in all, an iJal station costs under Rs 20 lakh (about $2,400 US) to set up and can service around 350 households. Sindhuja reckons she gets about 200 customers every day.
Creating clusters of iJal stations is crucial to this model, as this enables SWN’s technical staff to monitor and maintain the stations efficiently and cost-effectively. On average, each cluster with 30-plus stations creates about 60 to 100 jobs. This leads to what Kurt Soderlund, CEO, and Venkatesh Raghavendra, vice president, of the network described in an article in the Wharton School’s business journal as a “virtuous cycle, in which “[f]amilies participate, using more, safe water, leading to a healthier population and improved livelihoods.”
The network’s water ATMs operate in several districts in Telangana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Credit: Safe Water Network
This is one of the many ways in which water entrepreneurship has been facilitated in underserved regions across Africa and Asia. While this model trains new business owners as well as provides technical and maintenance assistance, other models are more hands-off. For example, the for-profit African company Jibu has a network of franchises, which purify existing water sources in high-density communities and distribute water to the neighborhood within walking distance of their storefronts.
Jibu’s one-time paid transfer of water filtration technology to rural entrepreneurs probably costs less in terms of time, energy and money, compared to the SWN model, which continues to maintain the ATMS and handhold its iJal station owners through their working lives. Consequently, the stations’ water revenue does not cover all the costs — of water advocacy; monitoring, evaluation and maintenance; water quality testing; and field supervision costs — which are mostly subsidized by the network’s donors.
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This makes the SWN model highly dependent on philanthropic funding. In 2020, SWN’s biggest donor, Honeywell, decided to shift its funds to Covid relief and environmental sustainability. “We have other donors like PepsiCo, Oracle, Macquarie and Pentair Foundation, so there was no pause in our programs,” Sewak says. “But it was tough.”
However, this stream of funding is also why, as Sewak points out, Sindhuja’s and other ATMs have been working smoothly since 2017. “None of our stations have closed down,” she says. In some cases, she notes, stations have been “lifted and shifted” because the community wasn’t buying the water or because there were issues with the machine or the entrepreneur.
“Why should I spend on drinking water?”
Sindhuja set up her iJal station seven years ago. Credit: Raj Kumar / Safe Water Network
Sindhuja says one of the initial challenges she faced was in convincing people that drinking clean water was imperative for their continued good health — even if it meant paying for it. Many other similar projects across the world have observed a similar hesitation to buy drinking water. “Some even said that the iJal water tasted different from the water from their wells and borewells,” she recalls.
To this end, SWN conducted large-scale outreach programs to educate people about the necessity of safe drinking water and improved the branding and signage at all their iJal stations. “We have also trained all our station operators to become safe water advocates,” says Sewak. Sindhuja uses her TDS meter (which measures the total dissolved solids in water) to show skeptical customers that the water from her ATM is cleaner than untreated water. Also, the palpable impact of drinking clean water has told its own story. An impact assessment report in 2020 found that the reported incidence of waterborne diseases among water ATM users in Telangana declined from 34 percent to 23 percent over a period of three years. Sixty-three percent of users reported a reduction in medical expenses and 73 percent, a reduction in school absenteeism.
Vanitha Baloth, 30, comes to Sindhuja’s water ATM every day to buy drinking water for her household. “My parents and I have been drinking this water ever since we moved to this neighborhood six months ago, and none of us have had diarrhea, dysentery or any other waterborne disease during this time,” she says. Baloth lives across the road, but in general, last-mile connectivity poses a challenge as customers still have to ferry heavy containers from the iJal stations to their homes. Sindhuja says she often helps elderly customers carry their water cans home.
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Integrating water purification with doorstep delivery could help. For example, the Indian company Janajal (Hindi for “community water”) operates water ATMs in and around Delhi, as well as at several railway stations. In 2019, the company introduced clean fuel-powered three-wheeled vehicles that deliver clean water directly to communities, reaching both prime urban and deep, previously inaccessible rural areas. SWN “tried several water distribution models in India as well,” Sewak says, “but this increased the cost of the water.” It is worth noting that the network does operate a piped drinking water program in Ghana. In India, however, since the Indian government’s Jal Jeevan Mission already aims to provide tap water supply to every rural household by 2024, it is focusing on safe drinking water as the government water supply cannot be drunk without being filtered.
“I earn about Rs 15,000 to 20,000 per month from this, which is amazing as there are hardly any jobs available to women like me here,” Sindhuja says. Credit: Raj Kumar / Safe Water Network
Another issue lies in the fact that the clusters of iJal stations are by and large dependent on groundwater extraction, which depletes a limited supply, and makes them vulnerable to any drops in groundwater levels brought about by climate change or overuse. “Today, as the government is moving towards water safety in its sustainable development goals, we have developed an automatic chlorination and online monitoring system, which digitally monitors and chlorinates water in the overhead water tanks installed by the government,” Sewak says. “This last-mile chlorination removes microbes that have contaminated the water as it is transmitted through pipelines, making it safe to drink.”
Meanwhile, Sindhuja is upbeat about the future of her “social business.” “Reverse osmosis filters are expensive to run at home. My water ATM offers a cheaper and equally good alternative,” she says. “Today, the iJal station supports me and my family, and together we support our entire neighborhood.”
The post The Cheap, Clever Promise of ‘Water ATMs’ appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
Webbe says Hunt’s measures fatten the rich at poor’s expense – and Labour little better
Independent MP slams latest damaging Tory budget measures and assault on poor, sick and disabled
Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe has accused the Tory government of using Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement to fatten business at the expense of the poor, of ‘snatching the assessment of illness out of the hands of doctors’ to punish the long-term sick and of doing the exact opposite of what the UK economy needs – and says that Keir Starmer’s Labour is little better in enthusiastically promoting the discredited austerity narrative.
In a statement issued today, Ms Webbe said:
Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement boasted of giving corporations the biggest tax handout in modern British political history, doling out billions to companies – many of whom are already making obscene profits in a cost of greed emergency of soaring bills and food costs.
And he is doing this on the backs of the poor, sick and disabled, with horrendous measures to whip those who are unfit to work into taking jobs their medical experts have said they cannot do – and to do it they will snatch the assessment of illness out of the hands of doctors and have it decided by the government’s agents instead.
The past decade has seen a steep rise in poverty, with fourteen million people below the poverty line, including well over four million children. In Leicester East, four in every ten children were already living in absolute poverty – now the Chancellor says if people do not submit to his new regime to get them back into work, he will cut them off completely from support after six months. The effect of this on my constituents and the poor and sick across the country will be horrific.
This country, since 2010, has seen an appalling rise in the misery imposed on those who were already struggling to get by. More than four in ten disability benefit claimants have attempted suicide under the government’s brutal regime. Suicide has become the leading cause of death in men under fifty. Poor mental health abounds, yet the government has today shown it remains determined to punish and persecute those who cannot work – and indeed that it is determined to deny the reality of life in this country for so many.
In my constituency of Leicester East, we have seen endemic exploitation and poverty wages in our garment industry. I told the Chancellor in response to his Autumn Statement that the unionised manufacturing base of Leicester East has long been diminished – not replaced by technology, innovation and good modern jobs with decent pay, but by fast fashion, sweatshops and unscrupulous employers paying illegally-low wages. All this has been exploited by brands and retailers who are in a race to the bottom for ever-increasing profits while their supply chains fail to pay the minimum wage.
I asked him what action the government will take to regulate and ensure that brands and retailers are held to account for the sustainable outcomes of their products in their supply chains and wage justice for the people that make their goods, and to tackle those British brands and retailers who threaten to seek cheaper labour overseas so they can avoid paying the new minimum wage that the he had just announced. There was no meaningful response.
The government is using tweaks to the minimum wage – which it misnames the living wage – as cover for its handouts to business, but its increases are still very far below the level at which a person working one job could live on. The government claims work is the way out of poverty, but millions who are working are among the poorest.
Mr Hunt claims the government is going for growth, when in fact they are doing the exact opposite of what our economy needs – and hurting millions to do it. Economists recognise that the best way to boost economic growth is to give more money to the poor, because they have to spend it. But yet again the Conservatives are giving more to the rich and to corporations who will put much of it into offshore bank accounts where it does no good. As it is, despite his claims of growth he has had to acknowledge that the Office for Budget Responsibility is downgrading growth forecasts for the next three years.
And it has to be said that the Labour party is largely in agreement with the government it is supposed to oppose. This country needs politicians with the courage to speak the truth that the punishment of the poor to enrich the wealthy is a political choice and not a necessity or even productive. Sadly such politicians are at the moment in very short supply at the moment.
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