Tuesday 20 January 2009

O man! Obama!

Somebody called it 'America's Mandela moment' when Obama got the presidential vote and he inspires in people all over the world the same kind of hope and joy that Madiba did (and still does, though it is probably now more reverence and love in the latter case). The words used to describe Barack Obama are all 'presidentially' positive - emotional balance, temperamental maturity, an intellect of power, intuitive, realistic, pragmatic, a strategist. Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times put it neatly when he wrote 'Obama acts like a kind of antacid to the American stomach. He has walked through the churn of cultural and racial and religious polarisation and somehow calmed everyone down'.

My delight for the day is this woman, Camila Batmanghelidjh - no I don't either - who runs Kids Company, a London charity she founded in 1996. The charity helps 12000 boys and girls a year, most of whom arrive helpless and with multiple traumas.
Camila's style makes you smile. It's happy. She wears fabulous garments made from all kinds of stuff. In a colourful article in the Sunday Times magazine (from which this pic is taken) she described her gear 'The scarf was given, the sleeve fabric was from a charity shop, the tartan for my trousers was a tenner, and I used the rest for my gloves. The bracelet was from one of the kids, the turban is from a museum, the boots from a second-hand shop.
You can't help loving a woman like that! By the way, if anybody wants to discover more go to kidsco.org.uk. It's worth a visit.

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