I write this with a bit of a heavy heart as this is my last week at Pilotlight. Before I leave the UK for new adventures, I wanted to reflect on and share one of the most important things I have learnt over the past few years working in the charity sector in this country.
Having worked with small charities in different countries most of my career, hearing their stories and falling in love with their causes and passion, it has always surprised me how privileged the third sector is in the UK. When describing it I’ve often heard people say “think of any cause and you will find a charity for it” – well yes, and so you should!
Why shouldn’t grandparents who are being separated from their grandchildren have an organisation supporting them? Who’s to say that a charity for siblings of children with rare diseases is less important than any other cause? Should we overlook mental health problems in the work place, just because there already are general mental health organisations?
These, and many more I can’t even think of because I have been very lucky in life, are worthwhile causes and need to have a voice, and a loud one.
Small charities and social enterprises, whether they are advocacy organisations or not, represent particular areas of society, however niche they are, and have the insight and knowledge to speak up for them. These organisations, some of them tiny, provide what the state does not, because it is already stretched focusing on more general needs. We should applaud and be proud of that. We – as a sector, as a society – should defend them, too.
I’m humbled every time I hear about an organisation working for a cause and tackling a need I had never heard of. Wouldn’t it be great if everybody, no matter their place in society, knew about and really understood the different challenges other people face, even if they have never encountered them first-hand? That would make us a more empathetic, a more inclusive society and we should work towards that, regardless of what our job is.
I genuinely think we need to recognise the richness of the sector that may lie in its numbers (“are there too many charities in the UK?” – I won’t go into that, but how many times have we heard it?). That richness means the ability to represent and give a voice to those who otherwise wouldn’t be heard.
The charitable sector in the UK really is a good example – far from perfect, of course, but one I will definitely follow in my new endeavours working with charities and social enterprises back home in Peru.