Karen Bartlett is a writer, journalist and film maker.
Karen writes for The Times, The Sunday Times,The Guardian, WIRED and Newsweek. In broadcast Karen has made documentaries for the BBC World Service, and directed a series on the economic meltdown.
Karen’s book 'Architects of Death' about Topf and Sons will be published in March 2018. She is also the author of 'After Auschwitz', a critically acclaimed biography about Dusty Springfield, and a book about disease eradication in the Twentieth Century.
Growing Up X
Fifty years after he was killed, the daughter of Malcolm X wants to make sure her father isn't written out of history Half way down a winding country road in New York’s wealthy Westchester County, one of America’s most famous revolutionaries lies buried under three feet of crisp white snow. I...
Newsweek
How one man gave Congo’s women hope
Life is hell for women caught up in the conflict in the Congo. But one remarkable doctor helps survivors to build a future Why are the lives of African women worthless? It’s a question that Denis Mukwege asks every day that he works with the raped and mutilated women of the Democratic Republic...
The Times - World
‘If they gave me a house, I’d take it tomorrow’
All I want is to die under this mountain.” Noor Ebrahim, a slightly-built former messenger for Reader’s Digest, has returned to the area where he grew up. Now retired, he likes to remember the old days; he can point out his school — “it was tough” — the mosque where his family prayed and the spot...
The Times - World
Momma D: Dionne Warwick, the Grande Dame of Divas
She learnt her stagecraft from Marlene Dietrich; 50 years on, she’s mentor to Whitney Houston and P. Diddy Dionne Warwick opens up her arms in a stage bow: “I’m looking pretty good, don’t you think,” she says. The singer seems slightly surprised to be turning 70, and, with pearly white teeth a...
The Times - Arts
India's Barefoot Revolution
What would it be like if women ran the world? In some parts of India, it’s already happening If all revolutions begin in unlikely locations, few could be as unpromising as Borda. It’s a poor village in the poorest district of one of the poorest states in India. Only the blasting from a nearby ...
The Times - World
It’s murder on your mobile, says The Killing’s Sarah Lund
Hit crime drama The Killing is back for a second series, and Karen Bartlett talks mobile phone forensics with actress Sofie Gråbøl Detective Sarah Lund is a Luddite. The loner heroine of Denmark’s hit crime drama The Killing is as much of a 70s relic as her Faroe sweaters: She makes notes by h...
Technology
Skateistan: How skateboarding took off with Afghan kids
It’s no surprise that in a world full of rules most kids want to do something with no organisation, and no adults. “This country has more restrictions than just about any other,” Oliver Percovich says, explaining how his own passion for freedom and fun led to groups of boys and girls flying acros...
The Times - World
Life and Love with 'The Greatest': Muhammad Ali
When Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams was six years old she looked out of her front door in Louisville, Kentucky, and saw an energetic young man holding court to a wide-eyed gaggle of neighbourhood boys, including her brother. “Who’s that big man?” she asked her mother, not knowing that the answer wo...
The Times - Arts
Polio's Last Stand
Eradicating the Last 1% of Polio Is Deadly But Essential When 40-year-old Liberian civil servant Patrick Sawyer died of Ebola earlier this year in hospital in Lagos, having carried the disease from his home country to Nigeria, global health workers feared the epidemic would spread in West Af...
Newsweek
Bringing Anne Frank Home – to Germany
Like many people in their seventies and eighties, Buddy Elias and his wife Gertie are downsizing – clearing out the attic and getting rid of several generations’ worth of papers, clutter and possessions from their family home in Basel, Switzerland. Unlike most other pensioners, however, Elias is ...
Newsweek
A Race Apart: the beauty queens of the apartheid era
The Miss World finalists are now at the World Cup, but the women who represented South Africa in its past have divided memories So far the game has not been beautiful for the World Cup’s “33rd official team”. They have gone largely unnoticed in South Africa’s impressive new stadiums, despite d...
The Times - World
Maki Mandela: “As Nelson's child, I can say I am proud of him”
In the week that London marks the statesman's 90th birthday, his daughter reveals how she overcame her resentment that he was a father to the world, but not to her Nelson Mandela arrives in London today for what is likely to be his last major public appearance; a 90th birthday charity concert ...
The Times - World
The Vagina Monologues turns ten
Eve Ensler transformed the New Orleans Superdome into ‘Superlove' for a celebrity-studded event to campaign against violence towards women Few people know that New Orleans is the vagina of America. Few would suggest it. “It is fertile. It's a delta. And everyone wants to party there,” explains...
The Times - Arts
Christine Yuen did not expect to be a banker for life. She went to work for a branch of HSBC in Canada as a cashier because it was better paid than working in a clothes shop. Eleven years later, Yuen, 29, was still with the company, having acquired a master’s degree in finance and moved to London.
“I was working in corporate banking by then, on the team that managed retail accounts such as Coca-Cola and Tesco. They were the first to be hit by the downturn. One day I discovered that most of my team were being made redundant.”
To her shock, Yuen found herself out of a job, too. “It had never occurred to me that I might be made redundant. The impact was more emotional than financial. The confidence was knocked out of me and I was full of self-doubt. I thought maybe I am bad at my job. Maybe I deserved to lose my job.”
Shock, loss, denial and anger are emotions commonly associated with redundancy. A month after leaving HSBC, Yuen said she felt that she had to “get to grips with my feelings, come out of my depression and move on”.
Now she has set up her own business, Zentime, which offers personal and corporate concierge services to executives. “We do everything from administrative work to walking the dog, planning travel itineraries or waiting for a technician to come and set up the television,” said Yuen.
Experts fear, however, that less resourceful people find coping with redundancy much harder. In the macho culture of the City, successful men are often the least able to cope. Since the beginning of the downturn there has been a spate of suicides among high-profile international financiers, including the death of Kirk Stephenson, chief operating officer of the Olivant private-equity firm, who took his own life by jumping in front of a train last September. Stephenson’s wife, Karina Robinson, said: “High achievers don’t blame the recession. They tend to blame themselves. They believe they are in control of their lives and so are quick to condemn themselves.”
Accurate figures on the number of recession-induced mental-health conditions have yet to be compiled but concerns about a rise in suicide and an epidemic of depression prompted last week’s government announcement that more people would have access to therapy. Research has shown that redundancy has the same emotional impact as a close bereavement, with initial shock and loss of self-esteem turning into more long-term conditions. The Department of Health said the scheme would aim to train 3,600 new therapists and increase access to “talking therapies” by up to 25%. Staff on NHS phone services would also be trained to give more advice to people calling about financial or recession-related worries.
John Rose of the mental-health charity Rethink has been running a pilot project of the scheme in Stoke-on-Trent. Since the centre opened in July more than 3,000 people have sought its help. Rose said: “Feeling devastated by losing your job is a normal reaction. Some people can cope with that but for others it becomes long lasting. We offer therapy but also support workers who are there to get people back into employment and deal with financial and housing matters as well.”
Quick access to help would have helped Dave Stocks, who went into hospital for a mental-health problem when he found he had lost his job and was unable to cope with mounting debts. “There are long waiting lists and I couldn’t get seen by an NHS psychiatrist. It was so bad that my partner pleaded with me not to take my own life. The bills were coming in day after day and creditors were phoning up all the time. I was stuck at home and it was more than I could live with. In the end I borrowed money from my parents and went to see a private psychiatrist. I was admitted to hospital for three months. If I had found someone to talk to earlier it would have made all the difference.”
The stress of redundancy may be unavoidable but experts warn companies not to overlook the impact on employees left behind. They often suffer from a “survivor syndrome” and feel guilty that they still have jobs. Some companies have now set up “survivors’ courses” that involve retraining remaining staff to take on new responsibilities, running staff forums on how the company is moving forward, and rearranging desks so that the absence of old colleagues is not so glaringly obvious.
Communication at every stage is essential if companies are to recover from the recession. The executive transition company Fairplace trains line managers to deal with difficult encounters. Director Michael Moran said: “It is important to treat people with dignity but also terminate their employment in a professional way. People get very upset and, while you would sympathise, it’s unprofessional for the manager to say things like ‘I know how you feel’ – or blaming the company. Dealing with people openly and fairly is the most important thing. If not, remaining staff will remember – and the company will suffer.”
Rebecca Clake was human-resources manager for a retail chain that had to close six stores, losing 40 staff in each one. “One of the most important things was to ensure everyone got the same information at the same time,” she said. Without open communication, rumour and office gossip often make a bad situation worse.
Clake said she had to cope with losing colleagues in her own department as well. Remaining professional was the only way to deal with it: “You have to take a step back, otherwise you cannot be there to support other people. You have to keep reminding them that it’s the job that is being made redundant, not the person, but that can be difficult because it feels very personal.”
Welcome to my website. I hope these pages give you a flavour of some of my work in books, print, onl…
Last week I was in Istanbul attending a Youth Forum for teenagers from around the world. But not eve…
When Nelson Mandela retired after serving one five-year term as President of South Africa in 1999 he…
I’ve just returned from China, after a gap of about 16 years, and I met these undergraduates – comin…
Eradicating the Last 1% of Polio Is Deadly But Essential
When 40-year-old Liberian civil servan…
When Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams was six years old she looked out of her front door in Louisville,…
She learnt her stagecraft from Marlene Dietrich; 50 years on, she’s mentor to Whitney Houston and …
What would it be like if women ran the world? In some parts of India, it’s already happening
If…
*Life is hell for women caught up in the conflict in the Congo. But one remarkable doctor helps surv…
All I want is to die under this mountain.” Noor Ebrahim, a slightly-built former messenger for Rea…
Hit crime drama The Killing is back for a second series, and Karen Bartlett talks mobile phone foren…
It’s no surprise that in a world full of rules most kids want to do something with no organisation…
Fifty years after he was killed, the daughter of Malcolm X wants to make sure her father isn’t writt…
Like many people in their seventies and eighties, Buddy Elias and his wife Gertie are downsizing –…
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