HEAR not only listens; it is listened to
19/08/2008
Increased impact and strengthened voice
HEAR, the equality and human rights sub-group of the Capacitybuilders’ London Regional Consortium (LRC) has helped its support provider members increase their impact and strengthen their voice.
Sharing the knowledge
Now these members are feeding their experience and knowledge back for potential national benefit.
Raising the profile of issues of equality
As around half of England’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities live in London, the LRC knew from its inception that equality issues would be vitally important.
Building a diverse membership
It set up a sub-group that quickly broadened its membership to cover all types of equalities organisations, reflecting London’s hugely diverse communities.
Joining forces
It was the first time different equality strands had been pulled together consistently in London, with groups learning to listen to each other and to find commonalities so that they could overcome challenges together.
Strong foundation
HEAR now has a steering group of 20 members, around 300 members in its wider network and is gaining confidence in developing partnerships, making its concerns known at a higher level, and facilitating inter-group consultation.
'Working for equality'
These elements were brought together at a recent ‘Working for Equality’ event that was attended by over 100 people from equalities organisations around London.
Drawing on experiences
So effective has HEAR’s networking become that, when Capacitybuilders issued an open invitations for organisations to bid to lead the National Support Services new equalities and diversity workstream, two members drew successfully on their HEAR insights to inform their bid approach.
Working together to bring about change
They are the Women’s Resource Centre (WRC) and the Consortium of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Voluntary and Community Organisations who, with two other partners, are now delivering the workstream.
Brining equalities and human rights issues to a national audience
WRC’s Isabel Hudson says that the workstream will raise the profile of equality and human rights on a national level and will draw on the work that HEAR and similar organisations have done.
Learning and evaluation remains key
“We’ll be looking for a lot of feedback from the ground. If you try to do it (bring about change) without involving those with actual experiences of the problems, you can be too removed from why it is needed in the first place.”
Impact on the ground
HEAR members who deal with the frontline, like Chaya Spitz of The Interlink Foundation, which provides support to the Orthodox Jewish voluntary and community sector, and Christine Goodall of the Disability Law Service, recognise HEAR’s great value in keeping them informed, enabling supportive partnerships and providing a vehicle to feed their views into policymaking.
Getting organised
“An umbrella body like HEAR is the only way we can really get together in an organised way,” says Christine, noting that the people her organisation works with are rarely ‘just’ disabled people but usually are also affected by other equalities issues, such as gender or ethnicity for example.
Turning up the volume
"HEAR is really very important to us,” adds Chaya. “We serve a specific niche and on our own our voice is often not heard; but when we join with other organisations and that input gets fed upwards, we are much more powerful.”
Footnote: For further information about the National Support Service Equality and Diversity workstream please visit the Improving Support website.
