Going viral around the internet today is a story about a nine year old school girl called Martha, in Scotland, whose blog Neverseconds caused Argyle and Bute Council to ban her. Her blog documented her school dinners. She would take a photograph and score each meal within an overall rating, a healthy rating, a hair count, number of mouthfuls etc. It is a wonderful blog and I do recommend, dear reader to click on the Neverseconds link and read it. It is well written by an obviously very intelligent young girl. Her blog was not only informative, but actually achieved positive results. Her blog prompted officials to change school meals by allowing “unlimited salads, fruit and bread”. How brilliant is that! The blog is read all around the world with people sending their own photos of school meals. It also came to the notice of Jamie Oliver who has supported Martha's efforts and Nick Nairn the Michelin star cook, had her at his cookery school. So writing a blog passionately about food in schools, meeting top celeb chefs, driving through changes in the system to the benefit and health of school children. What more can this nine year old do. Well turns out she is a philanthropist as well. She has a Just Giving site, raising money for Mary's Meals a Scottish charity that helps schools feed their pupils in areas of extreme poverty and hunger. She even donated £50 of her own money which she got from a magazine that published some of her photos.
Wow this girl has done more with her life in nine years, than most of us, (and I include myself), will ever do in the whole of our lives. Her parents and family should rightly be proud.
However there is a dark cloud hanging over this story. In the form of a bureaucratic council, who obviously never heard of the Streisand effect .
In Martha's blog the last entry is titled Good bye
“This morning in maths I got taken out of class by my head teacher and taken to her office. I was told that I could not take any more photos of my school dinners because of a headline in a newspaper today.
I only write my blog not newspapers and I am sad I am no longer allowed to take photos. I will miss sharing and rating my school dinners and I’ll miss seeing the dinners you send me too. I don’t think I will be able to finish raising enough money for a kitchen for Mary’s Meals either.”
Her dad also added....
“Hi,
Veg’s Dad, Dave, here. I felt it’s important to add a few bits of info to the blog tonight. Martha’s school have been brilliant and supportive from the beginning and I’d like to thank them all. I contacted Argyll and Bute Council when Martha told me what happened at school today and they told me it was their decision to ban Martha’s photography.
It is a shame that a blog that today went through 2 million hits, which has inspired debates at home and abroad and raised nearly £2000 for charity is forced to end.”
Turns out the way a council, that was unhappy with a journalist report about school meals and instead of complaining to the paper, decided in an act of incredible cowardice and to be frank acting like a school playground bully, picked on Martha. Unbelievable! How can we nurture curiosity, teach about the importance of freedom of expression and the belief that you can change a system, if we smack them down at every turn. Cllr Roddy McCuish has not come out of this with any credit. Although they have since done a u-turn after complaints from the likes of Ian Rankin, Jamie Oliver, Nick Nairn, as well as politicians and of course around the globe.
There is another plus side the coverage and support has meant that at the time of writing from about £2000, Martha's just giving page has raised a staggering £38.5k. According to Mary's Meals they have enough to build a school kitchen in Malawi. I hope they name the kitchen in Martha's honour.
Below is a link to Martha's just giving page.
http://www.justgiving.com/neverseconds
It is people like Martha that give me so much hope for the future and people like Roddy McCuish that make me fear for the present.
Update: As of 17 June, Mary's Meals have raised a staggering £77,616.00 and I think that means they could build about 11 Kitchens for schools where hunger and poverty are rife. Also Martha (Veg) will be blogging again on monday.... Yay