Budget not so bad

After one of the toughest budgets in Ireland's history here is what we in Camara think (our press release).

Camara welcomes Irish Aid’s commitment to aid effectiveness as reiterated in its response to today’s budget. According to Cormac Lynch the CEO of Camara “While the €25 million cut in overseas aid is unfortunate, it represents a cut of only 4% which could have been much worse in these hard economic times.”

Camara wholeheartedly welcomes Irish Aid’s determination to ensure that ‘development has maximum impact and is rigorously focused on achieving clear results for the lives of the poor and the hungry’. In the wake of massive cuts totalling 24% in 2009, the government’s new effort to stabilise the aid budget is encouraging.

The government's resolve to maximise aid effectiveness provides major opportunity for reform in the sector and Camara welcomes this challenge. The organisation strongly believes that the Irish taxpayer deserves significant demonstrated results from charities, and in this regard has published extensive and critical impact assessments of its own work. Cormac Lynch, emphasised today that “The newly-stabilised aid budget should be spent with primary focus on results, value for money, and achieving maximum demonstrable impact for the world’s poor”.

Where have all the risk takers gone?

I'm sitting here on a rainy Friday 13th wondering where all the risk takers have gone.

I have 20 jobs advertised within the Camara family of companies (go to website to check out) but the only people who seem to be interested are emailing from New Delhi or Lagos and are asking about relocation expenses and work permits. No one in Ireland, the UK or that home of the risk taker, the US seems interested in applying.

All right so none of the jobs pay anything for the first 6 months (or until you raise enough money to pay yourself) but thats not a reason to ignore the opportunity. If I didn't already have a job I would be queuing at the door of The Digital Hub on Monday morning with CV and passport in hand.


So what are you going to do next year? Will you be at the same desk going for pints with the same people? Life is moving on so get on board the Camara experience and change everything forever.

Why Charlie Camara?

In looking at the Social Networking arena and how Camara can best use this phenomena to promote ourselves we were advise by the "Experts" that people prefer listening to other people, people with distinct personalities rather than listening to unemotional organisations.

Hence Charlie Camara. The name is meant to represent the people of Camara, the culture and the vision of the organisation. We (rather I) chose the name Charlie because its a friendly name and because it can apply equally to both a man or a woman.

Why was Charlie Camara invented today? Well I was meant to be in London at some meetings (trying to get a Chairperson for our new UK operations) but because most of the meetings fell through I had to cancel my trip. With nothing scheduled in Ireland I decided to work from home, update my LinkedIn page and generally do some things I had been putting off for a while.

Charlie Camara is now born. Remember this day!