Give Back Month — Part 1
In line with Twinkl’s Give Back month, I was asked to meet and write about people within the company that do something to contribute to communities, charities, or society as a whole. It was a great commission. Not only did I get to meet some fascinating people, but there were so many good people doing good things that I now have to write a second article to fit them all in.
It’s been a cheering few weeks.
There are a lot of people for you to read about, so I’m not going to take up any more of your time. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to the Dog Rescuer (Becky Escreet), the Shamans (Oscar and Saydyy Kuo South), the Runner (Joseph Hayward), the Walker (Bethan Drew) and the Youth Worker (Anna Sandersfield).
The Dog Rescuer
At Twinkl, Becky Escreet is the Product Owner of the Classic English and Handwriting products. She worked as a teacher for many years and now uses this experience to make resources for educators. But she also volunteers at OUR Dog Foundation, rescuing dogs from kill shelters in Romania. She organises their travel over to the UK and adoption.
It all started when she saw a picture of a dog named Alba online. Becky had lost her own dog, Bonnie, a few years previously and, now working at home, was looking for a dog to adopt. OUR had just started and volunteers were posting pictures of puppies that needed rescuing. There, on the site, was Alba.
‘She had a really cute smile,’ Becky says. ‘We just fell in love with her. Well, I did, and then I convinced my husband.’
Becky and her husband signed up to adopt Alba, but it was during a period when, due to Brexit, transport laws were changing. There was a period when it seemed unlikely Alba would actually arrive, but Becky was determined.
‘I was ready to go to the ends of the Earth,’ she says. ‘I’d have gone to Calais or Romania, wherever she was, to get her.’
But, in November 2020, Alba made it to the UK. Now, she’s called Shirley and lives with Becky, her husband, and her four children in Rotherham. As I talk to Becky over Google Meet, Shirley pops up in the background and then disappears again.
‘She’s very nervous,’ Becky says. ‘She’s scared of my computer chair.’
Once Shirley had arrived, safe and sound, Becky became a volunteer. With the help of some other talented Twinkl people, she helped design the website. Since she joined in November 2020, the foundation has brought over 250 dogs from Romania.
Romania is a tough place to be a dog. During the country’s period of communism (1945–1989), many people were moved from the countryside into apartment blocks in cities. They weren’t allowed to keep pets in these new buildings and so let them roam free on the streets. These dogs then bred with each other and now, decades later, the country is overwhelmed with strays. New laws allow for dogs to be euthanised within 14 days of them entering a shelter if they are not adopted.
But ‘euthanised’ is a bit of a stretch. Many dogs are killed in terrible ways. Becky sees the photographs of the dogs as they come in, having often been treated brutally, or survived attempts to kill them. One day, she came across a picture of a Jack Russell puppy in a bag — someone had tried to suffocate her and left her on the side of the road. This puppy was Maureen, who is now Becky’s second rescue dog.
‘Maureen and Shirley get on like a house on fire,’ says Becky. ‘They’re best mates.’
It’s a great experience and very rewarding, but it does take up a lot of time. The volunteers have to do very thorough checks on all potential adopters, deal with finance and fundraising, and negotiate travel restrictions. At the moment, there’s a travel ban for all animals in place until the 14th July, and it’s likely it will be extended. Currently, the dogs are staying in a foster home on the border with Ukraine and the team needs to find the funds to keep them alive until the ban is lifted.
It’s clearly a stressful and heartbreaking thing to do, but Becky says it’s wonderful too. Ben, a dog recently rescued, is now a support dog in a care home. Becky’s found homes for dogs with her neighbours. When she takes Shirley and Maureen for walks in the field opposite her house, they often meet fellow furry Romanian expats.
Becky’s made a lot of dogs and a lot of humans very happy. On the Our Dog Facebook group, volunteers post pictures of the dogs in their new homes. It’s also a great place to find out more about the foundation and discover ways you can help.
The Shamans
Oscar South is a data scientist at Twinkl. In his spare time, he’s a musician. A lot of people play music in their spare time, but Oscar’s music is unlike any other I’ve heard. He and his wife, Saydyy Kuo South, are UDAGAN — a musical project based in Sheffield. Udagan translates as ‘she-shaman’ in the Sakha language. The Sakha Republic is an indigenous community in the north of Siberia. It’s where Saydyy was born and raised. Now living in Sheffield, Saydyy and Oscar have built UDAGAN around the traditional music, culture and heritage of the Republic of Sakha.
‘We met through touring with other music groups,’ Oscar says. ‘I was performing Celtic music, she was performing the music of the Sakha Republic. We were just interested in the same kind of things. Her performance at the festival where we met was the first time I’d experienced that kind of music. I’ve always been into networking, so we traded contact details and kept in touch.’
Oscar and Saydyy worked together, with many miles between them, to bring Saydyy’s vision to fruition. They joined charity initiatives so they could meet up and perform or take part in musical projects.
‘Eventually, Saydyy moved to the UK,’ Oscar says, smiling. ‘As the story goes, now we’re married, and she lives in Sheffield.’
Though they live in Sheffield, Oscar and Saydyy channel the culture and beliefs of a place very far away. In Sakha culture, shamanism is passed down from generation to generation; Saydyy has inherited this role. She is the Udagan.
‘In our culture, you don’t just take from nature. You give to nature as well,’ Saydyy tells me. ‘Shamans are like conductors. They can sense things that ordinary people can’t, so they pass on the knowledge through the generations. In the modern age, shamans still give blessings and heal people. They do a lot of work in communities to help tribes keep going.’
In Sakha culture, female shamans are much stronger than male shamans. Women are seen as inspirational; they’re life-bringers and often rise to leadership positions. A lot of modern universities and businesses have female leaders. Saydyy says that she and Oscar work hard to make sure they’re not just playing music, but also spreading knowledge about the Sakha culture.
‘We thought carefully about what the ethos of the project would be,’ says Oscar. ‘And we finally refined it as ‘Love your heritage; respect others’ heritage; be inspired by all heritage.’ There’s no limit to what you can be inspired by. No one owns culture. You should be proud of where you come from, inspired by everything, and respectful of the history and the roots.’
But the music of UDAGAN does not feel like a lecture in ethics, geography or history. Music is such a uniting, emotional, mysterious thing. It cuts to the quick, and gets you to a psychological place immediately, in a way that very few other things do.
‘There have been many moments in my life when I’ve figured something out about myself because a piece of music has triggered a thought or a feeling,’ Oscar says. ‘I’ve listened to the music, contemplated the feeling and then made a decision that has changed my life. That wouldn’t have happened if I was sitting in silence. We hope we can play the role of traditional healers by allowing people to access these moments.’
The pair draw on folk knowledge to write their songs. Snow foxes are native to Siberia and dig in the snow to find food for their young. The Sakha Republic was heavily repressed under the Soviet regime; Saydyy liked the image of the snow fox as a listener, searching for fragments of culture to pass on to future generations. So she and Oscar wrote Snow Fox.
The song feels ancient and modern at the same time. Ancient because of Saydyy and her khomus. The khomus is a percussion instrument played with the mouth. In Sakha culture, it’s believed that the khomus is a sort of horse used by shamans to travel to different dimensions.
‘When you put it in your jaw, it feels like it’s breaking your head,’ Saydyy says. ‘You feel a different sense of yourself. It’s difficult to explain. The world is driven by science, but I definitely experience it. There is more to the world than what we see.’
I ask her how it feels to play.
‘I feel like I’m going to fly away,’ she says, smiling.
So, that’s how it’s ancient; deeply-rooted, eternal. How is it modern? Oscar. In lockdown, he taught himself how to generate orchestral music through computer code. He is a data scientist, after all.
‘All the synthesised and orchestral sounds in Snow Fox were generated through computer code,’ he explains. ‘We recorded the vocals on top of that.’
Both Oscar and Saydyy have creativity and competence pouring out of them. Not only are they supremely talented, but they also seem to be channelling that talent in a way that does good. Growing up in Siberia, Saydyy says they wouldn’t pick a mushroom or berry without giving an offering to nature. UDAGAN’s ethos, of loving, respecting and being inspired by culture, seems to echo this. It’s all ebb and flow, taking and giving back. Loving where you come from and loving where you’re going to go next.
The next step for Udagan is exciting. Their new track is a remix of a recording they did in a blacksmith’s forge, in honour of Kuday Bakhsy, an important spirit in the Sakha culture. The forge has been operating for over 400 years and, in the recording, the blacksmith operates his equipment in time with the other instruments, as well as playing the mouth organ.
So get your ears ready. Here it is:
If shamans are conductors, responsible for spreading knowledge to others, it seems that both Saydyy and Oscar have assumed these roles. Not only do they pass on the electric spark of interest in their inherited cultures, but they also make you curious about your own.
We’re all snow foxes, digging through ice and frozen ground, trying to find out who we are. We all want something to pass on. Sometimes, the story is made in the telling. The face is formed in the reflection.
The Runner
Joseph Hayward is a graphic designer at Twinkl. In 2020, he began training for the Manchester Marathon. He planned to run twenty-six miles to raise money for Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide in memory of his mum.
‘People don’t really talk about suicide,’ Joseph says. ‘I think a lot of people don’t understand the impact it has on you. I’ve had people say things like, ‘it happened so long ago, you should be over it by now.’ It’s not that simple. I wanted to do something that would help raise awareness.’
So he began training for the marathon. But then, of course, coronavirus put a stop to that.
‘It was really frustrating,’ says Joseph. ‘Aside from the physical training, people had sponsored me and I didn’t want to let them down.’
The medals for the race had already been made and printed with the date, so the organisers agreed that, if the runners ran 26 miles around their local area, they would send them through the post. Joseph ran 26 miles around Sheffield and got his medal.
But that wasn’t enough.
The race was finally reorganised for 4th April 2022. Joseph started training again but he didn’t tell anyone he was planning to take part until he knew the race was definitely taking place. He’d already reached his target of raising £500 and so, after receiving so much support increased his target to £800. He’d soon raised £850, 106% of his target.
Then it was time to run.
‘The support on the day was incredible,’ he says. ‘Your name is printed under your race number, so people that don’t even know you are egging you on. It was really great receiving so much support from friends, family and the many spectators on the day!’
The support was great but the race was hard. For the first 30km, Joseph broke his personal record, but then he hit ‘the wall’.
‘It’s quite common to hit it around 30km,’ he explains. ‘Your body isn’t used to running that far, you don’t run that far during your training, so it’s constantly telling you to stop.’
It was a great experience and Joseph is glad he did it, but he’s not sure if he’ll be doing it again for a while.
‘Half marathons are a good distance,’ he says. ‘Once you go over that, it can get tricky.’
It’s not just the running that’s the challenge. There’s the training, the getting knocked back, the dealing with it, the carrying on, going back to sponsors, all with an extremely emotional cause at the heart. You can be fit as you like but, it seems to me, that the real marathon is in the mind. Joseph seems able to run rings around most.
You can check out Joseph’s JustGiving page here and find out more about Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide here.
The Walker
Bethan Drew is a part-time Content Writer at Twinkl and teaches on the other days of the week. Around this busy schedule, she’s also a foster-parent and charity walker.
She did the ‘Walk the Walk’ Moonwalk Marathon for the first time in 2015 and has since completed it another two times.
‘You meet at Clapham Common in the evening,’ she says. ‘There are entertainers and lots of warm-up activities. You all start at different times, based on your fitness level. The people that run a lot tend to power walk, so they’ll go out first, but it might take other people 10 hours. It’s good that it caters to lots of different people.’
Every year, thousands of men and women dress in brightly-coloured bras and follow routes around London, Edinburgh and Iceland, throughout the night, in order to raise money for breast cancer charities.
‘Two of my aunties had breast cancer,’ Bethan say. ‘As well as two of my really close friends. When you’re in your thirties and your friends get it, it’s a real shock. I remember my friend ringing me at half-past four on a Monday and, as soon as I saw her name on my phone, I knew it wasn’t good news. Sure enough, she was calling me to tell me she had it. She was 39 at the time, and her mum died from it in her 50s. But she’s doing well now; she’s in remission.’
One of the friends Bethan met while in her first teaching role, aged 21, was also diagnosed in her thirties. A woman who became the mum through adoption to one of the little boys Bethan fostered has also recently been diagnosed.
‘They’re a really amazing couple and the three of them were just having the best time together,’ Bethan says. ‘When she found out she had it, I just said, ‘there’s no way this can happen.’ He had a neglected childhood, came to us and was finally doing really well. The idea that he might then lose his mum — I was just horrified. But she’s actually doing OK too now. I’m fortunate in that all the people close to me that have had breast cancer have survived.’
This year, Bethan did the Moonwalk with her cousin. Her cousin lost her mother to cancer, her father currently has cancer and her stepmother has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.
‘At about six in the morning, my cousin phoned my uncle and her stepmum,’ Bethan says. ‘She got really emotional and kept saying ‘I’m doing this for you. Everything hurts and I’m in so much pain, but I’m going to do it, and I’m doing it for you.’’
Walking can be deceptively difficult. Bethan was walking with a marathon-runner, who said she’d rather run the marathon than walk. There’s something about the amount of time it takes, the stamina it demands, that’s physically and mentally exhausting. Bethan actually broke her toe at around mile twenty. But she kept going.
‘When you walk or run a lot, you lose toenails,’ she says. ‘It’s just part of it. So I thought that’s what has happened. But the adrenaline keeps you going, so I carried on. When we’d finished, I took my trainers off, put my flip-flops on and, straight away, I knew it wasn’t right. Later that week, I went to the doctor and she said it was definitely broken but that they didn’t do anything for broken toes! So now I have a permanent reminder of the walk — my little toe is all twisted and wonky!’
In spite of this, Bethan says she’d like to do it again, when her life is less busy, so it must feel good. It’s a truly bonding experience, she says. If you’d like to find out more about the Moonwalk, you can visit the site here.
The Youth Worker
Anna Sanderfield is another of Twinkl’s Data Scientists. But, on Friday nights, she’s a youth worker at a church in Sheffield. The group supports young people from the age of eleven to eighteen.
‘A lot of them are church kids but we’ve also got a few that are just looking for something to do with their Friday night,’ says Anna.
There have been several versions of the group. For a time, Anna helped other youth workers serve hot chocolate after school on Wednesday nights to provide a place where young people could hang out together. During lockdown, however, they had to move online, where it was sometimes difficult to keep children engaged after a whole day of screen-based schooling.
Anna is from Sheffield herself and was a member of the group in her teens.
‘Even when I was really young, I knew I wanted to go back and give back,’ she says. ‘It was really helpful for me to have support from people who were a bit older and could listen to problems but weren’t my parents or teachers. When I came back to Sheffield after uni, I knew I wanted to get involved again.’
The group is based in a church, so there is a Christian element to the group. But on the whole, it’s more about allowing members to socialise and relax away from school, in an environment where they don’t have to put up a front or wear a mask. In the past, the group have been on camping trips and weekends away to Thornbridge Hall in the Peaks. They run teaching sessions and outdoor activities, eat together and play games.
‘At the moment, we’re a bit stretched so we can’t do as much as we used to,’ Anna says.
Anna’s been volunteering since 2016, so now she’s watched members join aged eleven and followed them all the way through until they leave as adults.
‘They really come out of their shells,’ she says. ‘Some of them are really shy when they join and don’t say anything, but then end up becoming a big part of the group.’
As a teenager, Anna says the group really improved her mental health. Being able to speak to someone about friendship problems, exams and any other worries she had, was huge. It was also a chance to meet people from other schools and communities with whom she wouldn’t have otherwise crossed paths. She’s still friends with people she met there and now watches similar friendships get forged.
Your teens are a tricky time. Sometimes you need someone like Anna to give you a hot chocolate.
There’s more where this came from. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be talking to more good people, up to good stuff.
It’s all part of Twinkl’s Give Back Month, organised by the Wellbeing team to celebrate team members who are giving back to others, in whatever way that might be.
We want to hear your stories.
