YouSaid · the spoken record

Valerie Amos

lines on the record: 35
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yes, and to listen sometimes to what the advice that others are giving us don't always have to take it, but sometimes they know something or may they may have seen something in us that we haven't seen in ourselves”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sometimes to narrow it down a little bit because it is so big. And the last thing I would say is that having life and being able to live through our lives. It's an extraordinary thing that we're doing, even when it's in really, really difficult moments. So yes, be serious, but also have fun too.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Work in their local communities, for example, making a difference. So everybody doesn't have to do the kinds of things that I did. I think the important thing is to have a bit of a sense of what you as an individual would like to achieve and who can support you to get there. I think the support and building alliances is incredibly important. We need people who will give us feedback, honest feedback. We need people who will keep our feet on the ground, but we also need people who will be really supportive as well when we're going through difficult times. That kind of critical friend, you know, the love of your family, wider community, friends is important, but also just having people who say, well, have you thought about this? Have you thought that? Give you permission to maybe have a wider vision.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm always a little careful about giving advice because they are growing up in a different kind of world. But I'm very happy to have discussions and to think through and give a kind of guiding hand when asked. What are the kinds of things I would say? I think working hard is really important. None of this success as it is seen from outside comes without quite a lot of hard work, quite a lot of challenge. I think it's important to really have a sense of self, to know who you are, what you care about, and what you'd really like to do with your life. And that doesn't have to be a huge thing. I mean, I'm always so impressed looking around at the people who are doing tremendous amounts of work.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was myself, the then Duchess of Cornwall and Tony Blair, then there is a ceremony in the morning, actually it stands at midday, to induct you into the order. We were privileged to have the late queen, who is the person who made the decision about us becoming members of the order. It's a very personal thing for the monarch. There are only ever 24 members of the order. A few members have died, so we are a little light, so I would expect that there would be new announcements over the next few years, but it's a very, very privileged position to be in. In terms of day-to-day duties, we don't really Have day-to-day duties, it is very much an honour in the way that an MBE or an OBE or a knighthood is an honour.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it is one of the highest honours in Britain, so for me this is a recognition which is not just for me. I think it's a recognition that comes for a community that I am part of, but also a recognition of the importance and the important role that we play as black people in British society. an annual ceremony. The order is based in Windsor. St George's Chapel is our spiritual home. There is an annual procession from Windsor Castle down to St George's and there is then a service that is held when there are new companions as there were last year in 2022.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“for ourselves about where we would like to place ourselves in that world, but it's also about the opportunities that come as a result of that, which could be around employment, but there are around other things as well. For me, reading has always been a very important part of my life, having the opportunity to discuss and debate with others as I did very much at university, being an environment here now where this is about the young people who are our future and having an opportunity to engage with them about the things that interest them, but also to see the more complex world in which they are having to navigate. And perhaps having an opportunity to give a little Bit of guidance and advice along the way.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Education has been a very strong thread through my family. My grandfather on my mother's side was a head teacher in Guyana. My parents, as we talked about already, were both teachers. My sister was a teacher in the early stage of her career and I have one of my nephews who's now a teacher. So huge pressure on the next generation. One of them will have to be a teacher. Education for me is important because it's not just about opening up for us a big vista of what is out there in the world. It's also about the opportunities that come to us as a result of that education. So it's a big kind of intellectual project if you like, helping us to see the world in very, very different ways and giving us the opportunity to make decisions.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very, very firmly on the ground. People around me have always been very proud of what I have achieved and very supportive. My family first, but also a wider community and that has always, always helped me.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I always say to people somebody's got to be first, and I think the important thing is that you don't close the door behind you. There are lots of advantages of being first because in a way nobody has trod that path before you, so you can do it in your own way. But of course it brings with it quite a lot of scrutiny. It also brings with it, I think, quite a lot of personal issues that because you are the first you think to yourself, you have got to do this well. And one of the things that I know is that for us to get better at what we do, we need to make mistakes. But it's very hard to make mistakes in the glare of being the first because you feel that you are letting the side down. So it's important to know yourself, to make sure that you have support, that you keep your feet.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But also very fulfilling in the sense that you see the worst of humanity, but you also see the best of humanity. The way that people will support each other in the midst of the most horrific circumstances is something which is really extremely humbling. And when people said to me very often, as they did Why has the world forgotten us? It wasn't always possible to come up with an answer, but I knew that part of my job was to make sure that the world did not forget.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Environment within the UN trying to find solutions to these different difficult and complex challenges. This was my day-to-day life. It's a job that I described as you go in with a full tank and basically the tank is running down over the years because it really is a job that's 24-7.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On the road because part of my role was to draw attention to what was happening across the world and to try to find the resources to make sure that we were able to respond, that we were supporting governments in their national response, but also when you think about conflict, it's also about how do you try to work to prevent those, but also how do you try to work to bring them to an end. And so many of the conflicts that I worked on during my time are still ongoing. Syria, which evolved during my time, I inherited conflict, for example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is still ongoing now. So managing and leading that response effort, working in a highly political and politicized”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's probably the hardest job I've ever done, but also probably the most fulfilling job I've ever done. And I've done a number of really interesting jobs. I mean, I have loved doing all of them. But in that role, I was responsible for coordinating the response to humanitarian crises across the world. I mean, obviously, working with other UN agencies, working with civil society organisations domestically and internationally. But the key thing about this is that you're responding to different kinds of crises. They may come out of conflict, they may come out of famine, they may come out of flood, other kinds of natural disasters. And these are happening around the world all the time. I was constantly”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Definitely working with Arthur, we cannot deal with these huge global challenges that we are facing trying to be one island. So thinking about who we work with, how we deal with that, the recent pandemic was a good example of that. How can we work with others to make sure that those countries and peoples in the world that didn't, for example, have access to the vaccines in the way that we did, that we could play a different kind of role? And that was one of the things that was so important about the development of the vaccine here in Oxford, because that was a key part of what they were about, which was that this vaccine would be offered at cost to countries around the world.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some of the fallout of that, but I've also seen, I was International Development Secretary, I did a lot of work in development. We had at one point, I think, a kind of national, a kind of coalition that was in support of that broader international development agenda. It was really important for the work. I think that has shifted over time. I think we have become much more internally focused, much more focused on a kind of narrow nationalism in some instances that has taken away from the way that we are viewed internationally, but I think also the way that we see ourselves and our responsibilities. And I very much hope that bringing back that kind of values piece. To how we see ourselves as a nation and how we operate on the international stage, that that will be part of our future foreign policy agenda.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That kind of sense from some that don't mess with our history as if history is not made up of a whole number of different parts that you bring together. And actually what we are doing by talking about the different elements of that history is opening up and expanding and really beginning to understand who we are, what we are about as a nation, and why it is we have such a diverse population. That's something that we are still, I think, struggling with. But in terms of our foreign policy, of course, the kind of key thing that had a big negative impact on our perception as a government, but also I think had an impact on us as a country, was the war in Iraq. And I think we are still seeing”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An international system where Britain could really play its role in a positive way. But of course there was also that recognition that as Britain we had a colonial history, we had the history in relation to the Atlantic slave trade and the impact that that had had on the world, but also on Britain. And one of the things that I think I and others were very keen to try to do was to ensure that domestically in our education system and everywhere else that we were really thinking about that past and the impact that it had had on all of us in terms of our present and the impact that it would have on our future. And I think we are still struggling with that as a nation. I think the way that we now have those kind of culture wars and”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, there was huge excitement in 1997 when Tony Blair won the election and it was on the back of that that I was asked to go into the House of Lords. I was then asked to come into government a year later. Patricia Scotland and I were the first two black women in the House of Lords. So there was that tremendous sense of excitement and with the huge majority that we had as a Labour government a sense that we could really make a significant impact on Britain and we could be different. And Robin Cook of course was very clear that he wanted, he was foreign secretary, that he wanted a foreign policy that had values at its heart. And being part of a multilateral system”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, and it seemed like a natural thing to do because those issues around social justice and equality and inclusion, they work at many different levels in our societies. So all of these seem natural to me, but it was also about seizing opportunities. I was someone, and I hope still am someone, who is not afraid to seize opportunities as they arise.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For that government to try to bring about equality, to try to level the playing field when you had such a huge gap in distance between those who were doing extremely well, purely on the basis of the colour of their skin and those who were not. And that government and the ministers in that government, their civil servants were looking everywhere. Working on justice issues with the Ministry of Justice and also working on human rights issues with the Human Rights Commission. It was an extraordinary time for me and I learnt so much.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was an extraordinary time. So I went with friends to South Africa after that historic election victory and it was incredible to see the huge challenge that the government faced. I mean apartheid had meant that there was a small section of the population, the white population who were doing extremely well had all of the services focused on them and the majority of the black population lived in terrible housing. They had a different kind of education system, different kind of healthcare, but also you had some extremely successful black people who also had to live in the townships. I mean, you know, the system was absolutely appalling and the challenge”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Learned about working with ministers, working in a highly political environment. I learned about advocacy. I learned a lot about leadership and management. This was an organization that had offices not just in England, but also in Wales and in Scotland. you know managing at a distance as it were was also important, a tremendous role for me in terms of my growth and development.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You can be guided to something which you're not necessarily thinking about, which actually will have a profound impact on you. I moved from working in local government to working on the national stage. We were funded by government, but independent of government. It was a time when we were using judicial review to challenge government legislation, which had an unequal impact, for example, an unequal impact between part-time workers and full-time workers. The majority of part-time workers being women. And we were successful. But it also gave visibility to me as well as to the work that we were doing. So it was a very, very important time. I learnt a huge amount.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was interesting. I saw myself as having a career in local government, having started in the London borough of Lambeth and I worked in the London Borough of Camden and then in the London Borough of Hackney and I could see that I felt very comfortable in local government and I could see that this was a place where I could be successful. And I was headhunted for the role at the Equal Opportunities Commission. I have to say I resisted the headhunter a bit. She called me up, said that she'd heard my name many times, encouraged me to apply. I was a little resistant. She kind of guided me through the process and I ended up being offered the role. And it was such a pivotal moment for me in my career. And I think that there is some learning there for all of us, that sometimes there”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Shape who we are and what we're about came from there. And so that partly drove what I studied, but it also helped to drive where I saw my career as ending up. Once age, I thought about being an academic, but it wasn't something that really suited me. It felt too lonely in a way. linking back to my interests, to those interests around social justice and equality. I worked as a race relations advisor, as a women's advisor. These helped to guide the kind of work that I subsequently did.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Movements which involve violence in some countries on the African continent. So we always had a very outward facing look at the world. So that's how I grew up, very conscious of Britain being part of something bigger, as a black person being part of something much bigger, much greater. So in going to university and in going to Warwick, I met people from all over the world. I became very close to friends from different countries on the African continent and elsewhere. And I had a huge interest in issues around equality and social justice. And I think that my commitment to public service and understanding how public institutions”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Michelle Obama had this amazing phrase, if you'll recall, when you had some of the Trump comments about America and so on. She said, when they go low, we go high. And it was very much the approach of my parents, which was to help us to deal with racism, with discrimination, but in a way which wasn't about sinking to the level of those who were perpetrating that discrimination. And this was very much a conscious part of my growing up. But in addition to that, was just also that sense of being part of a much bigger world, that there were all kinds of independence movements happening. There were certain kinds of independence.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think it's important to go back a bit because I think that whole experience of being a migrant coming to a different country, watching my parents adapt, although I wasn't conscious of it at the time, it was very much part and parcel.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was sent front and centre of who we were and what we were about. Our parents were absolutely clear that a good education opened up so many opportunities.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ahead, others of our age group in our schools. So there are a lot of things for us to grapple with as individuals. We've got a lot of support from our parents in dealing with that, but a lot of things that those around us also had to adapt to.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interest in us, interest which was people had never seen, many people had never seen a black person before. Our parents really helped us to deal with that, but also a lot of assumptions about who we were, what we're about, where we had come from, the kind of knowledge about other parts of the world, despite Guyana, British Guyana as it then was, being a colony of Britain, the kind of understanding was not very great about what these countries were like. So, part of what we had to deal with had to struggle with was there are many who thought that actually We came from the African continent, not the South American continent, for example, had all of those Preconceived ideas about what it was like, how we grew up, and in educational terms, actually we were”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the first thing to say is that I was the first black girl in that school. And my sister was the second three years after me. So we were very much a minority, but I was very studious. My sister was very sporty. I love sport as well, but I was very studious, very quiet actually, which people sometimes find surprising. And it was a school that really suited me because it was a school that had that strong academic piece, but also prepared young women more on the technical side. And I think that being an environment amongst other young women who had also passed the 11 plus, it really helped me, I think, because it was a really difficult thing to move countries, to Be a family in Kent, who one of the first families in our community, so there was a lot of”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Guyana between the different communities in Georgetown. But we actually lived way in the country. I'm a country girl at heart. We lived at a tiny village on an island in the mouth of the Essequibo River. There are three huge rivers in Guyana. I think people very often, because we're a nation that very much align with the Caribbean, they think of us as an island rather than a country being on the continent of South America and vary much big rivers and”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, actually, my father came first. He came a couple of years before us and we followed in 1963. The backdrop in Guyana at that time was, it was pre-independence. There was an independence movement, but there was also quite a lot of tension in Guyana between the Afro-Guyanese population and the Indo-Guyanese population. And I have a vague memory of 1963 when we left, when there were race riots.”
undated · Off The Agenda · Baroness Valerie Amos: Politics, Humanitarianism & Higher Education | Off The Agenda | OTA Media · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source