The Magpie Project

We are finally confident - after nearly 4 years of kerfuffling - that we are moving to a new building. The days of setting up and putting away a full children's centre worth of toys and lunches and donations each day ..... The days of scrabbling for a corner to do a zoom meeting in - car, cupboard, heaven forbid the loos ... The days of becoming instantly overcrowded if it rains... The days of prepping lunch for 100s with just a microwave and a kettle.... We hope the are gonna be a thing of the past soon. Our new building will have a dedicated kitchen, (and a few tea points to boot) A dedicated 'shop' for our donations A massive play area Actual rooms for our visiting professionals instead of legal advice in the sandpit (although we hope some of that will continue!) A real cafe! BUT there's lots to do. Can you help us create a beautiful new nest - with all the shiny things - for our wonder Magpie Mums and Minis?: If so have read and let us know what you're in for. Thanks - our wonderful community! https://lnkd.in/eba9svyy

Our long and deep partnership with London Rhymes means that we now have an archive of co-written and recorded songs that map our mums and minis concerns, hopes, fears and every day concerns 'Please go to sleep!' and 'It's still raining! But mainly what the songs end up being about is love, and connection. This new release for mothers' day is no different. What a lovely way to celebrate Mother's day. Flowers, and tears all round today as we launched it with mums and minis today https://lnkd.in/enQkd6kr

just look at this glorious group of people at Ziipline. All ready to set off collecting items for our baby bags and bags for women fleeing violence today. What a great idea for a corporate charity day. We are so excited to know you, and to have your support. We hope you had a fun time! Thank you for the wonderful support and here's to at beautiful friendship.

just look at this glorious group of people at Ziipline. All ready to set off collecting items for our baby bags and bags for women fleeing violence today. What a great idea for a corporate charity day. We are so excited to know you, and to have your support. We hope you had a fun time! Thank you for the wonderful support and here's to at beautiful friendship.

At last, important data on under-fives in TA. Thank you Inside Housing.

Support Helen from Just Ideas Sustainable Solutions Ltd. who is running the London Marathon and fundraising for us at the same time. Thank you Helen Garforth.

Proud of our steering committee mums, who take on the responsibility of making sure we stick to our mission, vision and values through monthly meetings. These new T-shirts mean all mums can find them and feed back with questions, complaints, suggestions. When we were tiny as an organisation our three-word strategy 'ask the mums' was easy - we literally asked everyone, every day what we could to to help, what they needed in order to nurture their minis. Now we are larger we have had to embed this ethos in to structure. Our steering committee is going from strength to strength providing important challenge on everything from what we cook, to where we get our funding from - this is no tick-box exercise! Handing over power without handing over enormous amounts of work, or demand for energy, is not clear cut, sometimes it does not look like 'it should' in terms of meetings where everyone sits at a table, there are no babies coming in and out, everyone is 100% present, there is not someone falling asleep in the corner. We meet everyone where they are, with no expectations. We are also very keen that we don't want to be singling out individual mums to thrive or fail in positions of power and responsibility such as a place on our trustee board, when we don't believe that this system of governance is yet psychologically safe, trauma informed, and energetically appropriate for them. Instead we feel we have to create alternative and parallel power systems fit for our mums first - and allow our trustees, our staff, and to a certain extent our funders to do the travelling and adjusting to fit in with how our mums are willing and able to do things. Each time we think that we should 'do it how it should be done', creating systems of engagement which don't take multiple barriers in to account - we mis-step and create unrealistic expectations of engagement, energy, setting our beloved mums up to fail. etc. When we do that, we need to remember to breathe, reset, and - when we want to know how to successfully share power with our mums and minis - go back to our three-word strategy and before we even decide on feedback and power sharing structures, ask the mums how, where, what and when to do so.

Happy #InternationalWomensDay to our wonderful, strong, funny, gentle, fierce, fragile, energetic, exhausted, hopeful, ground-down, enduring, endlessly inspiring international women - it is such an incredible honour to journey with you daily. https://lnkd.in/ed4PCW6C

Happy #InternationalWomensDay to our wonderful, strong, funny, gentle, fierce, fragile, energetic, exhausted, hopeful, ground-down, enduring, endlessly inspiring international women - it is such an incredible honour to journey with you daily. https://lnkd.in/ed4PCW6C

As our beloved Muslim sisters enter in to Ramadan - the holy month of reflection and fasting - they are sharing the traditions and observances with us. We are planning one Iftar meal a week at the Magpie Project to cook and reflect together, we have also been learning about and sharing the importance of Suhur (suhoor) the meal that starts the fast. It is no accident that this meal traditionally consists of things such as oatmeal, dates, eggs, legumes - slow-release carbohydrates and lots of protein - to sustain the faithful through the fasting day. Unfortunately the ability of our families in home office hotels to observe this crucial part of the religious calendar will be threatened by the fact that they will get no hot food at all during the whole month of Ramadan, as the hotel providers refuse to adjust meal times to suit a really large number of the hotel's families. Instead they will have to take a 'snack box' full of inappropriate food. Food such as biscuits and croissants which will actually make the observance of the fast more difficult being quick release of sugar and energy followed by a potential slump. For the Iftar meal - which falls outside regular meal times - families also have to face taking this in a box and eating it cold as there is not access to microwaves. What would you do? Observe the fast at the potential risk to your wellbeing of having no appropriate, or hot food for the whole month, or as some less than helpfully suggest - simply don't fast at all. We believe that being able to observe your culture and religion freely is a basic right that should be afforded to all - and we are not alone it is enshrined in the human rights act. What do you think? We are a tiny charity, with a very small voice - are there any big guys who would like to help us raise this issue? Is there anyone who would like to get together an open letter? Is there anyone already working on this? Do be in touch. If you agree check back as we keep speaking out on this issue through #ramadan #ramadankareem.