UUKMA - The Future

Thanks for all those constructive feedbacks, which is encouraging, which is also an evidence of large scale interest for an effective national umbrella organisation for all UK Malayalee associations. An umbrella organisation, which can effectively address the increasing needs of this ever growing migrant community. An association to act as a bridge between the communities within and beyond their immediate living areas and in this case, different continents, an agent to ensure new generation malayalee inherits and adopt the true malayalee culture in a totally different environment.

To be an effective functioning umbrella organisation, there are many fundamental and basic needs , which are to be developed, understood and agreed by participating members, associations and the governing agencies of our place of living. And the situation becomes more complex, when member associations are independent with elected executive committee and their own individual governing documents. UUKMA’s current situation is not different, looking forward to act as the Big Brother without sufficient authority over the member associations is not so promising, and the situation can be far worse without own resources or again if it has to depend on the member association’s annual contributions. Therefore developing UUKMA to be an independent and self sustainable professional organisation should be the most important agenda at this time and for that we should have :

(a) Strong Constitution – a basic binding document, which should be simple, very easy to understand and practice. We live in a country where the laws are made to make the life easy for its inhabitants, resulting excellent life comforts. There are many other reasons for the simplest form of a constitution, a growing umbrella organisation should have an open gate policy, binding documents should be attracting more associations to it rather than creating hurdles or blockades for their entry. Should be abiding the host country’s rules and regulations, a constitution will only be valid when accepted by the existing government agencies, authorised to look after the welfare of these volunteer associations. Governing documents should be prepared in line with the various policies safeguarding, member’s interests, member association’s interests, children and vulnerable groups interest. Also in line with the various funding agencies requirements, who are likely to support us all along at different stages of development to a successful charitable community organisation.

(b) Resources : Donors don’t give to institutions but they invest in ideas and people in whom they believe and trust. UK is the place where any community volunteer organisation receives all form of necessary support, funds as well as training support to raise funds, there are more than 10000 funding agencies keen to grant their resources to any efficient and able organisation. There are the other traditional fund raising methods, raffle tickets with attractive sponsored prizes from those growing business firms benefitted by our own Malayalee community. After all any fund raising activity is not easy and needs committed leaders to positively motivate members for their contribution. Developing members faith in the organisation is a major factor in any fund raising activity, the organisation should be able to prove that their hard earned contributions are used to meet the objectives of the organisation. More specific objective based fund raising activities are likely to be successful than the standard blanket or general fundraising programmes. In short UUKMA should be looking forward to generate own income rather than depend on its member association’s unsecured contributions.

(c) Programmes/Activities : Any organisation’s public visibility is through its programmes and activities, which are again based on its basic objectives. Routine programmes can reflects the presence of an organisation but more specific programmes successfully addressing current issues affecting its members will highlight the importance of its existence. Being a responsible community association working for the benefit of its members, should be diverting all its resources to those current and relevant community issues in order to highlight the importance of its existence, most importantly, not on any projects benefitting individual or commercial interests. All projects and programmes should have its SMART objectives, more Specific and precise on what you are going to achieve, Measurable objectives or demonstrable in line with its written objectives, Achievable by the organisation and its leaders, Realistic- do we have all 5Ms (men, money, machines, materials, minutes). Timed – is it relevant and are able to achieve within the specific time period.

(d) Communication : Ability to communicate effectively is necessary to carry out the thoughts and visions of an organization to the members. The importance of speech and words whether through a paper or a voice is a communication medium to convey directions and provide synchronization. Without appropriate communication, there is no way to express thoughts, ideas and feelings. Unlike older days, currently we have sufficient varied communication mediums to convey all sort of messages at any given time, It’s very important to initiate monthly or bimonthly news letter either printed or electronic, generic email ids for the members to air their suggestions/concerns, Interactive web form to provide information and obtain feedbacks. As responsible effective organisation, we should be looking forward to utilise all the advanced mediums to keep the members informed on all developments and activities.

(e) Executive Committee : Without effective leadership, it’s difficult for any organisation to progress for which thousands of live examples around us. Many organisations meet their premature end only because of leadership clashes, leaders trying to hang on to their positions even after proving their non-effectiveness. An organisation like UUKMA with a complex responsibilities all around UK and back in home state is in need of not just leaders but effective leaders, effective leaders who doesn’t discriminate on positional values but promote equality on the basis of their volunteer responsibilities. With the establishment of responsible regional committees, national executive committee’s responsibility is considerably reduced and also is in a position to concentrate solely on UUKMA’s national agenda. The number of this national executive should be kept to the minimum not only to prove the individual’s effectiveness in that position, but to avoid delegating responsibilities or to avoid clash of responsibilities. The most minimum number of executive committee can avoid groupism within and also could be a mechanism to assess individual’s performance during their term in the office.

Community Leaders/Volunteers : Community Leaders are Volunteers and are the servants of the community, who have volunteered to sacrifice their leisure time for a good cause and for the benefit of the community. Unfortunately few of these volunteers promote themselves to an imaginary super powers, where they create themselves of a celebrity status and conveniently ignore their basic volunteer responsibilities. It’s tendency in undemocratic politics, leaders tend to outgrow organisation, in politics it’s a survival tactics for the so called self proclaimed leaders and those organisations does not survive much longer, perish along with those leaders. These myths can only be changed by promoting community leaders with appropriate responsible leadership qualities.

Responsible Leadership– Leadership is not only leading but a role model to guide the organisation and its members to the desired goal. Within the numerous leadership qualities, appropriate “Vision” remains the leading quality of a leader, Vision to visualise what lays ahead for the organisation, for the members and ultimately for the community to be sustainable. Leaders with vision and passion can achieve great things, more importantly they can generate enthusiasm and energy for the members. Ideal leaders are always visible and will stand up to be counted, they show by their attitude and actions how everyone else should behave. It is with their continued efforts to motivate, listen, sooth and enthuse, keeping the people to a high level commitment to achieve this vision. A responsible leader, who can carefully observe, flexibly adopt, stepping forward and involving people in the process without loosing the values is the need of the time to lead our community and the UUKMA at this early stages in UK.

UUKMA National Elections

UUKMA – A national umbrella organisation looking forward to represent whole UK Malayalee Associations and Malayalee Community.

This national body is completing two years of existence and is looking forward to elect new national executive members on 10^th July 2011. I believe this is an opportunity for all malayalees in UK and interested malayalees elsewhere in the world to comment on the future of this national association.

I do believe and understand there are thousands of malayees looking forward to an effective organisation which has the capacity to address and take up the common social problems of migrant malayalees in UK and elsewhere in the world. Even though there are hundreds of malayalee associations in UK, very few are effectively working, but most of them concentrate their activities to either celebrating few popular occasions or is acting as a forum for their popular personal get together. Developed countries like UK have various governmental agencies working to support these small social groups, for some undisclosed/un-probed reasons these groups doesn’t want to be helped or they are not approaching these agencies. Again another factor, because of the unwanted groupisam within these small associations/committee’s (Kerala’s common name - temple celebration committees) very few development oriented or forward thinking malayalees dare to lead them. There are many cases where few of these courage’s people were forced to withdraw from their active social life and off course I’m sure waiting for the right opportunity.

Any umbrella organisations like UUKMA can always effectively guide these small associations to grow further, UUKMA can act as a bridge to fill gap between these small associations and our host country. And the most important factor for this itself is a Strong UUKMA, and the basic need for an organisation to be strong is the strong leadership. If the leaders, leading an organisation doesn’t have right attitude and approach, the organisation will never initiate measure to achieve the objectives of the organisation as well as the members needs. This is the time and the opportunity for all the UK malayalees to elect able and efficient leaders for this organisation, right time to ensure UUKMA can develop to a professional association to meet all the social needs of UK malayalees.

I’m not much interested to comment on the previous committee’s performance, I leave it to all of you to discuss and debate, but unfortunately there are few uncompleted basic needs like an agreed Constitution, office bearers duties and responsibilities, election procedures, office rules and regulations and a common minimum organisational objectives for any committee during their tenure. If we are unable to address any of these minimum requirements, then I don’t think any organisation or leaders can effectively fulfil their responsibilities. Before going further on these basic details, I would like to draw all your attention to the objectives of the UUKMA, and for the time being I prefer to concise into  three short headings with very broad coverage.

(a) UK Malayalee’s developments : UK Malayalee’s have achieved their initial economical objectives, most of them are economically stable both in UK as well as in home country. While gaining on one side, are they losing on their rich cultural heritage. Strong Indian family structures and unity have worldwide appreciation and acknowledgement (with limited exceptions). With the migration to countries with lesser popularity on these values is likely to have long term anti effects, in the long run, likely to lose their own personal identities and reputations. Human being is a social animal, and are in need of a society to live in, our strong village lives are the best example. A strong bond and relationship can only be formed with continuous interaction within the society.  As most of the malayalee families taking up Permanent Residency or Citizenship in UK, it’s very important for them to integrate with the existing community/society without losing their own identities, and this can be achieved using these small malayalee festival committee’s. Many other important issues like IELTS, many of the qualified and experienced nurses cannot continue in their profession, some sort of negotiation is urgently needed.

(b) UK Malayalee Association’s Development : Very popular proverb – where ever two or more malayalee’s get together, there is equal number of groups, which may or may not affect the growth of the these personals, I’m less optimistic on this and believe these unwanted groups always act against the developmental of the group/society. But in this democratic world without supporters none can implement new ideas, therefore to a certain level a developmental oriented group is acceptable and again we are not against the wall of barriers. Let’s not divert from our main topic which is how to develop these small associations to effective community associations, an association which is able to provide all societal needs of the members, an association which can act as a bridge between the members and the government, an association which are able to receive all government benefits specifically meant for the community. A responsible and strong UUKMA can do this job, will be able to guide and nurture these small associations to responsible community associations.

(c) Contribution for Kerala’s development : Malayalees are very fortunate to get a timely and appropriate education all along their growing stage, I’m not trying to establish the reasons for this highly celebrated literacy status or want to debate on this success, but would prefer to highlight the achievements of Malayalee Nurses, and appreciate the efforts of those initiated the nursing courses and institutions. Outstanding and praiseworthy effects, along with worldwide employment opportunities they brought in the huge amount of NRI wealth to our God’s Own Country. Several thousands and lacs of families benefited out of this and of course major part of UK migration is based only on this profession. Thus we all are here enjoying unlimited first class facilities along with the people who created all these for their own people, do we have a responsibility towards our own less fortunate people back in Kerala. Are we morally obliged to help them develop their lives along with supporting a developing but under developed nation. We can easily develop many large projects as a national association along with many UK and international agencies. International development agencies like the British Council are looking forward to responsible volunteer organisations, who have direct contacts in developing nations.

Another burning issue is the duration of National Committee, current committee is in the office for last two years and could only convene a general body meeting after 17 months in the office, which was again due to  the prompts and resolutions from the strong SWSE regional committee. One can’t understand the rational behind this move to reduce duration to one year, anyway it appears this decision is being reconsidered/re-voted. As a standard practice, duration of any committee should be based on the nature of their responsibility and objectives. Any volunteer association looking forward to develop projects for the benefit of its members need time, enough time to plan, schedule and secure funding for projects. A country like UK , where total machinery, bureaucracy and welfare services runs on appointment systems, how anyone could imagine to organise any national events in the short period. Another simple example is elections, one time national committee election procedures itself will need minimum three months period, to conclude, any duration less than two years cannot guarantee  objectives to be met or expected results.

In UK, effective community/voluntary organisations have the potential to achieve and provide all community needs, but unfortunately  many of the malayalee association leaders are either haven’t realised this or misunderstood or ignorant of their responsibilities towards the association and its members. Before volunteering to lead or work for the community one should understand and accept the responsibilities. One should personally think of time and own abilities to deliver resutls. At least should have the willingness to utilise the opportunities and learn from others and other similar organisations.

There are plenty of specific areas and sub-areas to cover, but that again an endless list, what’s happening right now is the centre of attraction, UUKMA is here for the last two years and whether it achieved any of the above objectives, if not whether it can achieve or not. Let’s be optimistic this time and think of  the initial steps required to achieve at least the basic objective of functioning as an umbrella association to deliver services to the member associations. Reminding ourselves that these members associations have paid for their membership.  Whether big or small, objectives are to achieved, for that how each and every one of you can contribute, think as any common malayalee and request your friends to contribute towards this debate.