Belonging

This week, we had the pleasure of speaking to Saira Neam, Manager of EASA, a community hub in Bradford. Based in the centre of town for the last 30 years, the organisation has its finger on the pulse of the community and its needs, specifically […]

We recently had the pleasure of speaking to Julie D’Souza Walsh from The Furnival, a community hub in Sheffield. Working largely with young people through the mentoring and therapeutic project ‘Cellar Space’, they have branched out more recently to include Creative English, after school clubs, […]

Barking and Dagenham Somali Women’s Association (B&D SWA) is a registered charity that empowers and enables women both in the London borough and surrounding areas. It offers services to women from a variety of backgrounds – all women in the area are welcome. As well as running FaithAction’s Creative English classes, […]

Anne and I recently attended a conference at Goldsmiths University of London titled ‘Welcome is a Radical Act: an action/reflection event on the arts and refugees.’ In all honesty I hadn’t really done any brain-engaged thinking about the title before we arrived—I suppose I was […]

Teachers all over the country are trying to find ways to add the government’s ‘British values’ to their lessons. The British values are: democracy the rule of law individual liberty mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those […]

This piece was written for the Theatre, Dance and Performance Training journal and was first published on their blog. This notion that the leader needs to be ‘in charge’ and ‘know all the answers’ is both dated and destructive… Fear leads to risk aversion. Risk […]

Last Wednesday, at our Community Hub’s weekly café session, something very simple, but profound and touching, happened. Riyad, who is 20 months old, was watching George, in his 80s and in a wheelchair. Riyad’s mum, Lamyae, said to him (in Arabic) ‘Go and shake hands […]

Community projects are great. They galvanise volunteers, they engage new residents and beneficiaries and sometimes they even attract funding! And that’s not all. They are locally rooted, they address practical needs and they are a good use of local community centres and places of worship. […]

What makes a Briton and a ‘British value’ is the thorniest of issues, but whether we agree with current government policy or not, we can agree that speaking English is a key entry point for anyone who is to integrate within the United Kingdom today. […]

All human beings need a sense of belonging. It is integral to our well-being. A lack of belonging underpins the divisions in UK society that the Casey Review has identified. Segregation, deprivation and social exclusion are both the source and the consequence of failing to feel that we belong.