I first met Camila (pictured below) at a roundtable event in 2008 to discuss rising youth homicides. One of my mentors introduced us before quietly saying to me: “Watch carefully how she works the room and listen to the words that she chooses to use…we all could do with being a little more like her in the causes that are important to us.”
I looked and listened with amazement; she was one of those rare people that really understood where young people were coming from. Like a teacher, she would know the names and job titles of everyone in a room. Although softly spoken, she could be direct, almost incendiary, in terms of the words she could use. She could be very Bob Geldof-like in the way she could ask for money and although she was flexible, once she took a particular stance on something I rarely saw her back down.
Most of all, Camila cared passionately about the issues affecting young people and their families. It was through that lens, and that lens only, she operated and that proved to be both her greatest strength and some would say weakness. Was she radical? Definitely; her approaches were often described as far from conventional – when many of her contemporaries would be talking about punitive responses on crime, she would argue for the opposite approach. She was one of the first prominent voices on the connections between attachment, trauma, violence and social inequalities and long before contextual safeguarding she was talking about the need for safe spaces for young people and girls.
So much has already been written about what happened to her and Kids Company, which she ran for more than 20 years before it was forced to close. What is less publicised but perhaps more important is that at the time of her passing she was exonerated of nearly all the charges placed against her and her organisation. However, the damage was done. Her vilification in many ways silenced one of the staunchest defenders of children’s needs. Even though charities within the space continued to exist, they became much more diluted in terms of their directness. Lessons across the sector were learnt: be non-partisan, be careful what you say and avoid making enemies. Non-figureheaded organisations are harder to take down. Diversify your funding pots and be dependent on no one.
I for one will miss her voice at roundtable meetings, her no-nonsense, can-do attitude and the challenge she represented in the youth space to make things better. As was said to me after our initial introduction: “We all could do with being a little bit more like her in the causes that are important to us.”
-
Junior Smart is founder of SOS Project St Giles and director of Smart Training and Consultancy
