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Untold Stories of Good Relaons
BUILDING A COALITION OF VOICE AND INFLUENCE
JO BROADWOOD with
NICOLA SUGDEN, BARRY NAVARRO, LUCY HOLDAWAY, PHIL CHAMPAIN & HEN WILKINSON
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND THANKS
We are grateful to the following people for their input into this report:
Tom Andrews, People United; Tariq Bashir, Who Is Your Neighbour?; Raj Bhari,
Talk for a Change; Lisa Cummings, Programme for a Peaceful City Bradford;
Mike Fier, Who is Your Neighbour?; Paulina Janus, Stockwell Partnership;
Avtar Jhalli, Aik Saath; David Millar, Just Lincolnshire; Ruth Richardson, Global
Educaon Derby; Dan Silver, Social Acon Research Foundaon; Hen Wilkinson,
Community Resolve.
We are grateful to all who have contributed their wisdom, experse and insight
through the development group. As well as those listed above, they are:
Alex Ankrah, Tutu Foundaon; Aisling Cohn and Debbie Danon, Three Faiths
Forum; Mark Ellis, Newcastle City Council; Rob Meeks, Aik Saath; Maria Power,
University of Liverpool; Sean Simms, Working with Men; Marn Wright,
Lambeth Mediaon Service.
We are grateful to our local hosts; their hard work, enthusiasm and local
connecons made an enormous contribuon to the success of the local events.
They are in:
Stockwell Partnership
Foundaon for Peace
Social Acon Research Foundaon
ARCH and Newcastle Conict Resoluon Network
Together for Peace, Programme for a
Peaceful City, Who is your Neighbour? and Centre for Good Relaons
Barton Hill Selement and Community Resolve
Conict and Change, Involve and Resolve, and the
Kitchen Table Café
Wolverhampton Network Consorum
Just Lincolnshire
Aik Saath
Global Educaon Derby
We are grateful to Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Oxfam
for their nancial support for this work.
Contents
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2
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5-6
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9
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13-19
Introducon
59%
15%
8%
6%
6%
2%
2%
1%
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Background
1 Centre for Good Relaons (Burnley), Community Resolve (Bristol), Conict and Change (Newham), Internaonal Alert,
Talk for a Change, Who is Your Neighbour? (south Yorkshire).
2 Broadwood & Sugden (2012)
We need to talk about..can discussing controversial issues strengthen community relaons?
hp://www.talkforachange.co.uk/wp-content/themes/haworth/publicaons/We%20Need%20To%20Talk%20About.pdf
‘…that which aims to build more engaged, resilient and cohesive neighbourhoods. This work could be focused
around ethnicity, race or faith. However, it could just as well focus on dierences of age, class, geography
etc. It means engaging groups and communies in acvies that support them to know and understand
each other beer, to develop voice and agency for change, and awareness and empathy across divides. This
may include directly engaging communies and groups in conversaons about controversial issues.’
What do we mean by good relaons work?
7
The current context: factors inuencing good relaons across England
hp://www.jrf.org.uk/media-centre/tough-atudes-poverty
hp://www.migraonobservatory.ox.ac.uk/reports/migraon-news
hp://tellmamauk.org/latest-gures-on-islamophobic-hate-crimes-from-the-met-police/
hp://www.nspcc.org.uk/news-and-views/media-centre/press-releases/2014/childline-report/bullying-self-harm-
suicide-increases_wdn100346.html
7 hp://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/mulmedia/infographic-income-inequality-uk
1. Work that strengthens the voice, agency and engagement of a marginalised or vulnerable group.
2. Work that seeks to build greater understanding of dierent identy and interest groups and develops
skills for posive interacon
3. Work that brings people together for a common purpose, or in a common place.
What kind of work is good relaons work?
4. Work that directly tackles tensions between dierent groups and communies through mediaon
and dialogue.
8
5. Capacity building work.
6. Campaigning, polical and rights-based work acvely challenging media narraves and local and
naonal policy.
8 p48 Broadwood & Sugden (2012)
We need to talk about...
hp://www.talkforachange.co.uk/wp-content/themes/
haworth/publicaons/We%20Need%20To%20Talk%20About.pdf
Much of the research on interpersonal resilience points to the ability to talk about the relaonship itself as a key aspect
of resilient relaonships.
7
Divisive narraves
Changes to the benets system and cuts to local services
Exisng segregaon of communies
Challenges to good relaons
This term was rst used in a UK context by Who Is Your Neighbour? in South Yorkshire, a community organisaon using
dialogue and conict transformaon approaches to tackle inaccurate percepons held by one group about another and
to strengthen understanding across divides.
hp://www.ethnicity.ac.uk/census/885_CCSR_Neighbourhood_Bullen_v7.pdf
hp://www.the-challenge.org/press/item/188-mulcultural-britain-becoming-more-segregated-–-friendship-study
Management of immigraon
Other factors
Posive stories
8
Work on good relaons is complex and requires me and resource
Cuts
Measuring impact
Praconer skills and condence
Challenges to good relaons work
Opportunies to link with others locally
Skills development and learning from others
Help telling other stories
Academic and research perspecves
Naonal network and alliance focused on good relaons
What kind of support is required?
Conclusions
Next steps
Locally driven:
Locally and sub-regionally hosted but with naonal coordinaon:
Light-touch:
Making use of technology:
Good pracce case studies
WORK THAT STRENGTHENS VOICE, ENGAGEMENT AND AGENCY
WORK THAT SEEKS TO BUILD UNDERSTANDING OF DIFFERENT IDENTITIES AND INTERESTS
WORK THAT DIRECTLY TACKLES TENSIONS BETWEEN GROUPS AND COMMUNITIES
WORK THAT BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER FOR COMMON PURPOSES
WORK THAT BUILDS CAPACITY IN COMMUNITIES AND GOOD RELATIONS ORGANISATIONS
CASE STUDY ONE: Talk for a Change assists community groups to nd a shared voice
‘Before Ramadan we had one relaonship-building meeng with residents – consisng of older white w/c
residents and younger m/c resident groups, and then another where we worked out what we can do to
avoid the an-social behaviour. Prayers oen nish around 12.30/midnight. Some young people say they
are going to the mosque but instead they link up with their friends, or they leave prayers early and link up
with their friends. St Paul’s Church and Darul Ummah mosque organised a rota where they had volunteers
with high viz jackets on all around the estate to approach young people to ensure that an-social behaviour
was avoided. Perhaps the rst me ever in the history of Tower Hamlets that a Chrisan church and a
mosque have worked together on this sort of iniave. So a two-fold approach – volunteers who did the
estate outreach work, and then the Rooted Forum provided alternave acvies so that young people didn’t
need to hang out outside. Interesng to see white English people looking like they are part of the mosque
parcularly throughout Ramadan. We are the second largest mosque in Tower Hamlets so it sets a really
good example for the rest of the borough.’
CASE STUDY TWO: Avon and Somerset Police help people to speak up about hate crime
CASE STUDY ONE: Schools Linking Network: Routes to Peace Event
‘The Routes to Peace iniave engages so many dierent communies. Bradford is a leader in peace heritage.
There are 130 naonalies in the city – and today has been an opportunity to celebrate and engage dierent
cultures. If we want to make more peace in the world we need to nurture our future generaons.’
CASE STUDY TWO: Aik Saath working in schools on understanding dierence
CASE STUDY THREE: Boston College CabCam
WORK THAT SEEKS TO BUILD UNDERSTANDING OF DIFFERENT IDENTITIES AND INTERESTS
CASE STUDY ONE: ‘Who Is Your Neighbour?’ South Yorkshire conversaons
‘intra’ ‘inter’
within between
CASE STUDY TWO: Kumon Y’all address community tensions
‘we refuse to be part of the problem, to be vicms, to bury our heads in the sand, turn the other cheek or walk
away. Above all we refuse to say there is nothing we can do to change things or bleat what can we few do.’
‘Normally with football there are arguments, but we had none. It was really good fun and our aim of
making friends and having a good me was achieved. We weren’t even o the eld and people were asking
when the next event would be!’
CASE STUDY ONE: People United – We All Do Good Things
CASE STUDY TWO: Interacve – Leeds Intercultural Partnership
CASE STUDY ONE: Programme for a Peaceful City – Thinkspace
,
CASE STUDY TWO: Newcastle Conict Resoluon Network
‘The course was excellent, it was delivered very professionally. The content was very interesng and relevant
with lots of shared learning.’ ‘The other parcipants were fantasc too and we have agreed to keep in touch
and connue our friendship, I can honestly say I haven’t laughed so much for a very long me and that was
a tonic in itself.’ ‘I will use the techniques that I have learned to resolve conict without aggression and
violence.’
hp://www.ica-uk.org.uk/
hp://www.ica-uk.org.uk/images/stories/Kumi_History_and_Descripon.pdf