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Creating places for everyone

Our new research project, Creating Places for Everyone, will look at the role of place-based organisations in fighting for racial justice. Find out more about where it’s come from and what we hope to achieve, as well as how you can get involved to help shape the project.

This new research will investigate how place-based working can support or restrict an anti-racist approach. It will allow us to develop practical support to help local community organisations fight for racial justice.

We’re pleased to be supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation in this work. This funding means we will be able to dedicate capacity to it across the Locality staff team, as well as ensuring members are renumerated for participating. It also means we have been able to engage New Ways – an anti-racist behaviour change consultancy – to provide expert support and act as a critical friend.

Background to the research

As a network of local community organisations, we’re united by our focus on place. While their particular activities may vary, our members work in a specific neighbourhood, where they support local people over the long term.

This is at the heart of our strategic framework and theory of change. We believe that by supporting local community organisations to be strong and successful, we can achieve our organisational vision of “a fair society where every community thrives”.

However, as part of our work on diversity, equity and inclusion, we have been thinking hard about what this focus on place means for one of the biggest barriers to a fair society: racial injustice.

Structural racism is far-reaching, shaping and affecting the lives, wellbeing and life chances of people of colour. It is therefore fundamental for us as an organisation committed to achieving a fair society that fighting for racial justice is at the heart of what we do.

Yet there has been a tendency, across the community sector and wider policy world, to draw a hard distinction between communities of place and communities of identity. This has sometimes led community organisations with a geographic focus – and their representative bodies like us – not to prioritise issues of race and ethnicity.

This needs to change. So we have been working with our members to develop this new project – Creating Places for Everyone. In an initial phase, we worked closely with a steering group of Black and racially minoritised Locality members. This was an invaluable experience, which brought to the fore the opportunities and challenges of this work, and often showed us what not to do.

In particular, it showed us we need to work hard to build trust. People from Black and racially minoritised backgrounds are often tired and frustrated at being asked to engage with projects like this without seeing anything change and without enough recognition of the structural and systemic barriers which exclude them. While these barriers are systemic, they are not uniform, and will be experienced differently if you are Black Caribbean or Black African, Bangladeshi or Pakistani.

Our initial work also highlighted that our members approach racial justice differently and there is a wide range of understanding and practice. For some, it is embedded in all they do by virtue of where they are located, for example in a racially diverse location. For others, racial equity is the foundational reason the organisation exists. For others still, there may be unquestioned assumptions about their broad social justice focus being sufficient to meet the needs of all people.

This research will therefore help us understand the particular role of place-based community organisations in the fight for racial justice and the different perspectives and practices across our membership. It aims to shape Locality’s practical actions to help support and progress racial justice across our membership.

Following a summer when racist and Islamophobic violence has swept our streets, this project feels more important than ever. We’ve seen how painfully divided we are, but also in the community response, just how strong we are when we stand together. As in the wake of so many crises in recent years, community organisations have a vital role to bring us back together. We hope that this new project can help us as a network to understand how community organisations can lead the fight for racial justice in their neighbourhoods: whether it’s better supporting a Black-led organisation to continue on their tireless journey, or helping an organisation in a white working-class area learn how to be an ally.

How Locality members can get involved

We want to ensure Locality members from Black and racially minoritised communities shape the project from the very start. So, while there will be a range of different ways for members from all backgrounds to get involved, initially we are recruiting a Steering Group of Locality members who are people of colour and have experience of place-based working.

The Steering Group will help shape our approach to the project and co-create the research plan, working with us to ensure the work is laser-focused on its overarching goal: providing community organisations with the support they need to ensure they are truly creating places for everyone.

We have eight funded places available for Locality Essentials or Membership Plus members, with bursaries available for current Network members who might be interested in joining.

We’ve published an FAQ guide with more information about the Steering Group – what the role might involve and what the benefits might be. Most importantly, we want to work together and create a space for honest reflection.

Please fill out an expression of interest form by 9am on Wednesday 16 October if you'd like to get involved. And do get in touch with me directly at ed.wallis@locality.org.uk with any questions or to have a discussion.