I’m moving!
Posted by admin | Filed under Social Entrepreneurship
The time has come to do juggle things up a little.
For a while now I have wanted to integrate my work strands better- merging my photography, writing and social entrepreneurship activity under one roof on the web. With that in mind, I have launched a new site, from which is grow and expand my business.
Drumroll please:
This site, www.claremulvany.com will be still available however, aimed now to provide a portfolio showcase of my photographic work, and still incorporating the client section of the site (which is very handy indeed).
So from now on, you can keep up to day with my current happening, wanderings, writing and work over on the new site. I’m excited to get going with it, and I hope you will join me!
Onwards, Inwards, Upwards!
Happenings and Wanderings.
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography, Social Entrepreneurship, development
Some months seem to have skipped. October is well and truly embedded, and as with every autumnal turn, I am loving watching the leaves shift in tone, as equally as I’m loving cycling through the red, orange and brown ensemble of colour on the streets.
It has been a busy time. My camera has been doing the rounds, most notably at the Social Entrepreneurs Ireland annual awards, a few photos of which can be viewed here. This year, the shape of the offering has changed, and 3 worthy winner were selected for a monetary prize and a pledge of organisational support to increase the social impact of the organisations. The winners were:
-Dara Hogan, Fledgings Childcare. Providing affordable childcare.
-Francis Black, Rise Foundation. Providing family based addiction councelling
-John Lawlor, Bridge to College/ Suas. Developing an alternative model of team-based secondary school education.
We took some Why Do you Do shots on the night too, and I loved the diversity of some of the responses.
The camera also came out for a lovely wedding I shot in Glendalough, a photoshoot for Habitat for Humanity and for the Cathal Ryan Scholarship, which is an annual fellowship award to a social entrepreneurs. This year it went to Krystan Fikert, from MyMind.
As a new college term gets into swing, so too do the Suas Global Issues courses, where groups of up to 35 participants have a chance to lean about Global Development. I opened 3 courses- UCD, RCSI and Trinity, and have been so enthused by the attendance and level of engagement this year. The courses had long waiting lists. It is all anecdotal, but I reckon it is a sign of the time. As Ireland has become a more uncertain place to live, I think more and more people are looking outwards, asking questions and seeking understanding. This is a good thing!
I’m also busy working on a suite of marketing materials for the Washington Ireland Program- a leadership and service programme- poster, video and website copy. The programme is a really interesting opportunity for college students to intern in the US for a summer and engage with discussion on the future of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Applications will open towards the end of November- but you can register your interest here.
In between all of that there was also a trip to London. I got to pay a visit to a very innovative social enterprise, Media for Development, who run an interesting series of media training programmes working with marginalised communities to help get their voices heard and learn new skills.
It was also a wonder and delight to meet Marianne Elliott, who is somewhat of a kindred spirit all the way over in New Zealand and who was passing through London. Marianne is currently working on her first book, which is an account of her 2 years working with the UN in Afghanistan, and also is a yoga teacher. She even runs online yoga programmes, which you can check out here. Her blog, I warn you, is addictive! I am so happy to have connected with her online, and now in person- what an inspiration she is.
And of course speaking of yoga, there is always Dublin based yoga down at the wonderful Samadhi studio. Greg Walsh, who runs the studio is participating in Movember next month when he’ll be bravely sporting a tash to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. He is also offering a €5 discount to all of his ‘Mo Bros’ for the month. Go Greg!
Splashes of Autumn
Posted by admin | Filed under poetry
Autumn is well and truly here. There was a hot water bottle in my bed last night, and a fresh crispness that only comes with when summer slips, and the leaves begin to fall. And as certain as the season, a certain poem also inevitably returns to my head at this time of year, Seamus Heaney’s Postscript. I had memorised it at one point, and each September my memory serves me a little treat, as I begin to recite in my head (and usually when I am cycling):
And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park or capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open
And tonight, as I was thinking about poems, I also found myself crawling back to this one by Adrianne Rich which I had only come across earlier in the year, but loved it immediately:
Stripped
you’re beginning to float free
up through the smoke of brushfires
and incinerators
the unleafed branches won’t hold you
nor the radar aerialsYou’re what the autumn knew would happen
after the last collapse
of primary color
once the last absolutes were torn to pieces
you could beginHow you broke open, what sheathed you
until this moment
I know nothing about it
my ignorance of you amazes me
now that I watch you
starting to give yourself away
to the windAdrienne Rich.
…
What poems to do return to for Autumn?
The call of instinct, and learning to listen.
Posted by admin | Filed under Social Entrepreneurship, development
Is it really seven years? Really?
Back in 2003 I pestered for a job. I had read an advertisement for a new educational charity that was setting up, and a support person was needed. So I applied. Walking to the interview, there was a positive swing in my step, little did I know what I was getting myself into. I’ll never forget that day. Colman Farrell (now CEO of Suas) greeted in at what was then Media Lab Europe, introduced me to two other people (including my now good friend, Bryan Patten), and something in me clicked. I don’t remember the detail of the interview, but I remember that I knew these people have big plans, big ambition, and big hearts. I wanted to be involved.
I waited a few days and then they got in touch to say that I didn’t get the job. But something in me told me ‘no, that I must persit’, so I wrote back explaining that I can learn the skills that they are looking for, and really, I am the right person. Somehow it worked, and that was one of the best rejection letters I ever responded to.
Suas was just getting started. It turns out I was their first hire. It turns out the ‘they’ were really just a group of young people, looking to make a difference, and trying to figure out the best way. It was all very vague. But still my heart said ‘yes’. I started working part time (finishing a book with the rest of my time), but very quickly it became very full time, and I began to run the volunteer programme. It was a bolt to the system, as we worked hard to develop the organisation, find placements overseas, seek funding, rally supporters. It was a huge lesson in persistence, team work, planning, working through deep complexity and staying true to a vision, while in turn allowing it to expand. But somehow that initial commitment saw me through.
Seven years on I am still involved, and this year I am designing the return reception and exhibition for the 2010 volunteer cohort. Suas thankfully has changed, grown, adapted. People have come and gone. Over 500 young people have now gone through the volunteer programme, and thousands and thousands more been impacted by the programmes that the organisation now run- in Ireland, India and Kenya. The managers that came after me developed things even more, put their own hearts into the work, made their own mistakes, championed their own dreams and have carried on. There are some new hires coming on over the next few weeks, and recruitment for the 2011 Volunteer programme will soon commence. The clock ticks.
As I have been sorting through images and looking a video footage this week, I am thinking about links in a chain: how sometimes we set things in motion and really don’t know where they are going to end up. We build up upon the success and work of our predecessors, we add what we can, we learn as we go, and we try, best as we can to make a difference. I’m looking back on that young girl of seven years ago, respecting her for listening to her gut instinct, and reminding her to listen once again, because you just never can tell where the chain to going to lead or the next rejection letter may come from!
Available for Hire!
Posted by admin | Filed under Uncategorized
Yes, I am on the hunt. New opportunities, even new shores, are calling me- but I just have to find the right one! My door currently has one big sign on it, ‘Open for Business’.
I’m looking to tell a good story, and put my creative, visual and communication skills to work. My toolkit is diverse, packed along the way with such skills as photography, writing, project management, documentary making, creative facilitation, event management, development education, teaching and exhibition curation. They all come wrapped up with a broad knowledge of international development issues and social innovation. I’ll travel too, camera and documentary tools in tow, and I’m happy to speak publically about the experiences- on radio, TV, at conferences, in schools, in universities.
I’ve worked around the globe, from Tonga to China, from Kenya to Dublin: the world is my home, and while Ireland will always have a place deep in my soul, the flexible streak in me allows me to adapt and learn quickly. Being chatty with strangers means I can create networks and make friends just about anywhere.
So, if you know of an opportunity, in Ireland or elsewhere, which you think may tickle my interests and broadly match my profile, please do send it along. I’ll in turn, provide a more detailed CV, a pat on the back and a twinkle in my eye, as together we weave a better world.
The Official Hats:
Writer: One Wild Life went International
Photographer: Particular focus of documenting the work of NGOs and social innovations. Portfolio is here.
Social Entrepreneur: Got an award from this crowd
Programme Manager: I’ve worked a lot with Suas over the years, including Volunteer Programme Manger for three years.
Development Educator: I’ve worked with Irish Aid, and as a freelance facilitator
‘A Creative”: I’ve been called this quite a lot. I love ideas and a knack for looking a things in new ways.
A few curious facts you may not know:
- I’m published in China, I wrote an English language text book while working as a lecturer at Peking University.
- I love reading. Bedside reading often includes recipe and children’s books. (I’d like to work on both of those in the future)
- I got scholarships to Oxford and Cambridge. Oxford won, and what a privilige it was.
- I have a thing for journals and have been keeping once since I was 11. Blank pages work best for me.
- There is a novel I wrote sitting in a drawer. I am glad it has stayed there. Sometimes you just need to write.
Things I love:
Yoga, books, photography, documentary, seeing someone alive with passion, travel, Philip Glass, cooking, puppets, BBC World Service, coffee, big ideas, squash, Dave Eggers, raspberries, TED, baking with my niece, taking pictures while baking with my niece, people watching, Jeanette Winterson, dogs, ‘The Hours’, swimming (in Vava’u), hearing the click of a camera shutter, the sea… and the list goes on with each day and each insight.
Reciprocity, on the Rocks.
Posted by admin | Filed under Uncategorized
We took ourselves to the rocks last week, Mari Kennedy and I, photo session and laughs in hand. The sun came out to accompany us, as fisherman swarmed in on the mackerel shoals below, and the view of Dalkey Island stood supremely beautiful beyond us.
The portrait session was a result of a little reciprocal spree Mari and I have been going on over the last few months. Mari is a coach, yoga teacher and project guide. Spirited, dynamic and wise she has a way of asking questions which gently guide and shape ideas into action and a manner which brings a level of clarity to even fuzzy thoughts. What’s more, her yoga practice helps to keep it all grounded in an graceful reality, underpinned with an understanding of flow and balanced pace. Mari has been helping me, offering her coaching skills from a place of belief in potential. It has been a beautiful thing.
So, in return for her remarkable generosity, I offered her a photo shoot- some of the results can be seen below. It is good to be operating in the spirit of barter and reciprocity. You give and get and get and give, and as the spiral does its whirl, you grow.
I’m so happy to have met her, and am delighted to be able to recommend her…
Information on Mari’s coaching services can her found here, at TransformationalSpace
She teaches Yoga in Oscailt, more information about which can be found here
A reminder of what summer is about…
Posted by admin | Filed under Uncategorized
‘There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats’- Kenneth Grahame.
A few weeks back to took a visit back home to the Shannon, and came across some old family friends on the river. The spirit of community and generosity among boaters always warms and amazes me. If you are ever in need of a healthy dose of both escapism and friendly banter, I do recommend a trip.
Topsy Turvy
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
Sometimes I think things are so much more interesting when turned upside down- new perspectives and outcomes occur, new options emerge.
When turned upside down this image sparked a whole new set of stories for me. I saw animals, children’s books, and a whole host of animated characters.
I love the way imagery can do that! How you can spin an image in another way, and get a whole new angle on a situation. Seeing problems through a different lens can equally help to focus the eye on an alternative solution or direction. So, when things seem a little upside down at times, try turning it another way, and see what story emerges!
Portrait sessions available in August.
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
Portrait session slots are available in August for anyone interested! They make a lovely birthday or anniversary gift idea.
And thinking of portraits, this is one of my all time favourites. I took it on the same day as the photo shoot mentioned below. Her name is Afsana Khatum, and lives on the outskirts of Kolkata, India.
To me she is the essence of beauty and elegance.
Along the railway line.
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography, Social Entrepreneurship
I had a little wander down memory’s path this week, when Suas posted a link to an audio slideshow with images and sound from my last trip to Kolkata, India. One morning last August I followed the lovely Hasif Seikh from his home in Guitary Sharif along the railway line to his school, documenting the sights and sounds he hears along the way. The school is run by one of Suas’ partner organisations, Sabju Sangha. Hasif is just one of the 12,000 children Suas helped to send to school last year.
Hasif was not feeling the best that day (I learned after the event!), but he was so gracious and polite. His mother, Halima, was also beautiful and eager to share some of her own story. You can view the show here:
And you can view some more images from that trip here
(Slideshow edited in collaboration with Sam Whelan-Curtin)
Thanks Suas for the reminding me of the experience.