Making the world a better place

My Day

Patricia Moreira Lima, head of PR at ActionAid UK, talks you through her day...

7.15am: My iPhone wakes me up. I listen to the BBC World Service and catch up on what’s going on in the world while I make my breakfast.

7.30am: While I eat I watch BBC Breakfast to stay abreast of the day’s news and quickly check if there are any urgent emails from work in my inbox. If there is an emergency (such as a flood, earthquake or tsunami) then I know my team will have to stop all scheduled campaign work and dedicate their time 24/7 on the emergency work. This can include us going to do our bit for the DEC (Disasters Emergencies Committee).

9.00am: Arrive at work and check emails, phone messages and say “hi” to the media team.  We read two papers each day and upload anything we find that relates to international development, any of the campaigns we work on or about pertinent issues in the 40-odd countries we work in around the world, or anything about other NGOs. This is distributed to the whole of ActionAid UK so they don’t have to trawl through the papers, but can keep up with the latest news and issues being discussed in the media.

10.00am: We (the media team consisting of the head of media, news team and the PR team) sit down together and have our weekly team meeting every Monday. It’s a short, sharp meeting that we prepare for by sending updates of our top priorities the previous Friday to distribute. It’s our weekly chance to discuss anything general, but also it gives us that one calm moment before the storm of the week to chat about what everyone else is doing. This is really important – especially during an emergency – as often the news and PR team’s work dovetails into each others’, but without this catch up we wouldn’t be aware of what each other were doing.

10.30am: Brainstorm with campaigns team about our next big stunt. As well as my PR team I always get our volunteers to come along to these sessions so that they get to experience what it’s really like to be part of the team. Besides, in all my 15 years of PR I have often seen the best concepts come from the most unlikely sources or tiny ideas.

11.30am: Get on with organising the Millione launch party. I’ve done my research and found a venue that’s intimate but big enough to hold the 200-plus guests we’ll have attending. Next step – drawing up the list of important journalists and ActionAid celebrities to invite. The whole team get on board as this is a crucial but time-consuming part of putting together an event like this. Millione is the brain child of Jerry Lockspeiser – he is one of our most generous supporters and a total expert in the wine business. So, he came up with the idea of bringing out a wine (it looks good, tastes good and does good) and has against all odds managed to persuade all the supermarkets and Laithwaites to stock it. From each bottle one pound goes towards building schools in Sierra Leone. The idea – we sell a million bottles, we raise a million pounds. I don’t stop for lunch I just have a bowl of salad in front of my computer, eating too much in the day makes me sleepy and I have to be on my toes.

1.00pm: Meet one of the most inspiring women of my life (and am reminded why it is that I chose to work for an NGO rather than stay in the private sector). Maggy Barankitse, a Tutsi woman is from Burundi and despite being threatened and beaten by a genocidal mob, Maggy managed to rescue 32 children and, with help from ActionAid, keep them safe throughout the civil war. Since that fateful day in 1993, she has brought her message of peace to more than 10,000 orphans. When you hear what some people have gone through in their lives it puts our moans about the daily grind into perspective.

2.30pm: Meeting with Susan Mearns my celebrity co-ordinator as she’s taking Maggy to meet Emma Thompson. Emma is one of our biggest celebrity supporters. She’s so down-to-earth and just brilliant in every way (and so is Susan).

3.30pm: Meet with the head of fundraising and events to discuss the next big fundraiser, Call My Wine Bluff.

4.00pm: After squeezing in some time to reply to some emails (I am a strong believer in answering emails immediately). My whole team know I’m kind of obsessive about this, but it works for me.

5.00pm: Attend meeting about our next child sponsorship campaign. Love the initial idea. I know my senior media officer Leslie Sinoway (I have a great team of over-qualified people!) will jump at this one as she used to edit magazines back in the day and loves a good campaign title.

6.00pm: After nailing down the PR strategy for International Women’s Day campaign for 2011, I catch up on the last of my emails. My aim is to have a clear inbox when I leave each night (not always possible as on average I get over 100 emails a day). I love my job, every day is totally different and it’s full-on, it feels great to work towards making the world a better place.