We are happy to say that the report Inequalities Experienced by Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Traveller people residing in Belfast, produced for Belfast City Council, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, and Public Health NI, with ACSONI and POLCA, is now available in multiple formats.
Cover of the Research Summary Report
We are happy to say that the report Inequalities Experienced by Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and Traveller people residing in Belfast, produced for Belfast City Council, Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, and Public Health NI, with ACSONI and POLCA, is now available in multiple formats.
Fingal Integration Forum committee: Lawrence, Olanike, Oghenetano John, Mojisola, Helen and Yetunde
Notes from a speech by Dr Lucy Michael to Fingal Integration Forum Balbriggan Diversity Awareness Event, 18 May 2022
In my speech at Fingal Integration Forum about building Inclusive community, I spoke about the need for local community groups to hold public bodies to account, not just in formal mechanisms, but through local engaged and responsive framing of key issues:
1. To keep public bodies deeply and keenly engaged with our communities, who they serve
2. Not to wait for consultation on the terms of the public body, but to prompt consultation on the needs of the people
3. to keep the local community appraised and informed of key issues and how they can respond effectively as individuals and groups
4. To track and complain about inequality & injustice in a robust way
5. To educate on & highlight different experiences of public services
6. To provide a safe intermediary space for residents to discuss issues of unequal service or blocked access to services, for collective action (where individuals feel too vulnerable to complain with their own names)
7. To frame issues of inequality in public services as issues which are legitimate points of collective discussion by and within the whole community, not only the subject of individual complaints mechanisms, which can isolate and burden those most at risk.
The point is to “Trouble the comfortable, and comfort the troubled” (quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer), and in this case, the comfortable are those in public services who see no urgency in addressing real community concerns unless they are packaged “just right”. Our challenge, as communities, is to make it inescapable that (a) public bodies see those issues through the eyes of the most affected by harmful/denied public services and (b) they account to the public they serve for harmful/denied services
As the public, we want to remove both (1) the burden which complaints mechanisms put on affected individuals, who are often multiply marginalised already and (2) push public bodies to be proactive, not reactive, to issues of inequality we raise. These things are crucial to building an inclusive community, because local community integration projects will never rebalance the power of structural racism to exclude and divide communities, through harmful/denied service in education, health, policing, welfare, planning, etc.
To “comfort the troubled”, we need local efforts which centre justice, inclusion and repair, accountability for harm and denial of public service, and share a vision of public service which really serves the public. What do I mean by harmful or denied public service? Denied accommodation needs, denied welfare needs, denied access needs, school and police discrimination that leads to punishment and exclusion, denied healthcare, harmful public spaces or service access routes.
Ireland has an anti-discrimination infrastructure which the Minister last week described as excellent. But it is accessible to only a proportion of those who need it because it centres formal complaint, lengthy legal process, and promotes imbalance between the injured party and injurer. Public services are not subject to that Equality mechanism either (major issue 🚩). Neither is the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty actionable by any individual against a public sector body. So relying on affected individuals to (a) name themselves and assume more vulnerability and (b) access and navigate difficult complaints systems, is not a path to equal service for all by public services.
That’s where community action comes back in. Local groups don’t have to be huge, but they should be well networked. Like public bodies, it’s okay to have a specialism. But many local groups addressing injustice and inequality often find themselves battling on all fronts. Because the same group of people are affected, and public bodies (and even specialist local orgs) often don’t want to confront how their services interact with others to create forms of multiple and interconnected exclusions that divide community. By keeping the focus on the individual, blame is kept there too, and it’s up to the individual to “prove” discrimination. That’s not how this should work at all.
If we take seriously the concept of systemic racism, which reminds us that racism was part of the social system which created all of these public services, we should be reminded that the “public” is by default a homogeneous or limited set of groups. And in turn, they are often set up as more or less deserving service users, and that’s built in to practices and policies of our public services. We have to act in unison and with rigour to change that.
Inclusive community projects need spaces to help us get to know one another and reduce isolation, and mechanisms to reduce exclusion, but to be sustainable, our work must address the collective experiences and institutional practices which reproduce these harms.
We recently conducted a survey on behalf of the Archbishop of Armagh amongst members of the Church of Ireland, seeking views and examples of good practice on Ethnic Diversity, Inclusion and Racial Justice matters.
The survey results have been shared with the Archbishop and working group, and recommendations are now being developed for the Church to consider.
At the recent General Synod (the annual all-island decision-making meeting of the Church), the Archbishop shared some of his thoughts on the survey results, where he addressed issues of welcome, inclusion and historical acknowledgement.
The Archbishop’s speech (section on survey only – full speech at https://www.ireland.anglican.org/news/11313/general-synod-2022-presidential-address
“You may remember that last year I mentioned a piece of research into ethnic diversity, inclusion and racial justice in the Church of Ireland that I had commissioned. The research project was designed by Dr Lucy Michael (a member of this Synod for the Diocese of Dublin) and in collaboration with a small group of clergy and readers from a range of ethnic backgrounds. The results of the research survey have been written up over the past week or so and will, I hope, form the basis of some practical work closer to the ground which will be planned and rolled out in the coming year. As I have said repeatedly in General Synod and elsewhere, any family (and the Church of Ireland is a family) derives its vigour and interest, not from the family resemblances of its member’s, but from the differences that exist between them, including differences of ethnicity and colour. The results of the survey show that we are indeed a welcoming Church, but also that we are hesitant about what to do after we’ve said “hello”.
To generalise from what I have been able to take in from the hard data of the survey, it seems we are more likely to go on to say “I hope you are able to enjoy the riches we have on offer”, rather than “tell us about your experience of God and your thoughts about his Church and his World”, much less “how can you help us deepen our experience of these things?”. I think the results of the survey show that we recognise the benefits of inclusion, but are uncertain about how to turn that recognition into meaningful participation. We need to do some work on that.
Although perhaps not the finding of the survey with the most far-reaching implications, the one which stands out most prominently is around an insufficient acknowledgment by the Church of our entanglement in the past with slavery. As far as I can tell it’s not a statue-destroying militancy, but a heartfelt desire for an understanding based on accurate facts and an appreciation of the legacy that the gruesome reality of slavery has left. Nor is it about the “enormous condescension of posterity” (there is also an appreciation of the part the Church played in the abolition of the slave trade) but an appeal for clear-eyed appreciation of our actions and inactions in the past, and a willingness to address them.
Up until now this project has been something of a personal initiative of my own but the aim is to embed it much more widely throughout the Church of Ireland. This work is important for a number of reasons, not least perhaps in helping us explain to ourselves why, in a world of migration, the numbers of people of different race and colour, are very low in the Church of Ireland. It is true that many may not be Anglicans when they come to Ireland. But it is known that migrants are much more likely to “shop around” for a spiritual home when they arrive in their adoptive country. It might be useful to know why people have popped their heads around our shop door and decided “it’s not for us”.
But it’s important for a much more fundamental reason, which is that, regardless of numbers, Christian pastoral ministry is about the spiritual well being of every individual. And to do that we need to make the effort to see what other people see and hear what other people hear. It is not only the Anglican Communion that is held together by bonds of affection, but each parish and faith community. And in this instance, as I’ve said repeatedly, it means that we can credibly consider ourselves as fully part of the Catholic Church. As disciples of Jesus Christ we are not free to satisfy all of our appetites but we have a vocation to satisfy the desire for knowledge and understanding which the survey reveals. I look forward to the work which we can do in the year ahead to make this more of a reality.
Tuesday 10 May, 2022, Immigrant Council of Ireland Migrant Integration Conference
Panel: Lord Mayor of Longford, Uruemu Adejinmi, Aga Wypychowska of Laois Partnership and Joy Eniola of Dublin City Council, chaired by Lucy Michael
It’s our pleasure to publish here our notes of the panel, capturing the expertise of the speakers. You can also see the thread and commentary on Twitter here
On Principles to support strong coalitions; Lord Mayor Adejinmi pointed to communication, respect and equality. Shared goals are key. Joy Eniola highlights the need for ownership, inclusive representation, learning, and being willing to redefine success around outcomes rather than outputs. In that, it sounds rather like Joy is moving towards a Theory of Change approach!
Aga Wypychowska points to the need for organisations to understand each others drivers – voluntary and statutory organisations are driven by very different aims, with different resources and timescales.
Migrants are not at the tables setting integration policy, or even designing and managing programmes or activities designed for their inclusion. In this, Integration work can actually reinforce exclusion and distinction between receiving communities and migrants.
Inclusion is not just in terms of the wider activities, but must also be at the decision making table too. Trust is key to making good integration plans and programmes effective, and that only happens with migrants involved in plans aimed at them.
We turned to factors that undermine good coalition working, and these are multiple. I think we can all recognise these from our work in this sector.
Capacity on the voluntary side means that you often see the same faces at multiple tables. That can lead to singular approaches, and sometimes blurred lines because they are across different coalitions.
Big organisations (esp statutory) dont recognise the urgency of volunteer organisations. Frustration and delay leads to volunteer dropoff as they become exhausted.
Other factors: meetings about meetings, micro management, lack of accessibility, poor leadership from the Chair/lead organisation, and high turnover of key staff supporting coalitions can lead to collapse.
Above all, the absence of shared principles and equality in coalitions for integration means that the very aim – equality – is missed. Thus it is possible for partners to say they are working on integration but not interested in equality or discrimination issues.
It’s necessary to see who’s at the table – Aga and Joy both point to the problem of big hitters not being there, or the wrong people filling seats.
Not all coalitions should last – some are formed in crisis, or in response to funding opportunities. If there’s no pause after crisis / funding to reassess, to look at aims and roles, a coalition can continue zombie-like, and prevent new effective coalitions taking shape.
Keeping accountability on the agenda is crucial to preventing a coalition slipping into stasis and volunteers feeling frustrated. Especially if external accountability (eg a grant) disappears, it’s urgent to get new accountability measures and processes into place.
Finally, it’s important for any coalition to recognise when they need external expertise and be willing to bring it in. Quick investments on knowledge and capacity building can (re)invigorate a coalition and pull everyone in the same direction.
And remember… Integration work without equality is just assimilation. More equal power relations are key to ensuring integration is multi-directional and multi-level.
If your interventions *only* target migrants, are you really doing assimilation work instead? What parts of your work target receiving communities for integration with newcomers?
Thanks so much to our brilliant panel and to @immigrationIRL for arranging this event.
If you’re interested in the Theory of Change approach for integration planning, intervention design and measurement, may I humbly point you to a handbook I wrote on that subject for IOM – UN Migration
And do share this thread with everyone you are in a network with, whether you’re in statutory or voluntary roles, whether your coalition is new or well-established. Our panel know what they’re talking about! Best of luck!
