The Civil Society Report to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Through consultation with over 150 civil society organisations, The Runnymede Trust has compiled a number of recomendations for the UK government in order for them to address racial inequalities in England.
in 2016, the UN Committee on the Elimintion of Racial Discrimination (CERD) provided a set of recommendations, however this report argues that in fact, the UK government’s policies have been in direct breach of these, and that they have failed to protect vulnerable BME groups from continued discrimination and inequality.
Their hope is that the CERD will endorse this report and encourage the government to address the issues outlined.
Find the full report and extensive recommendations here.
The Baobab Foundation Report
‘Digging Deeper Report: Insights on tailored funding to organisations led by black people and communities experiencing racial injustice in 2020’
As stated in a previous article, The Baobab Foundation has been set up in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the stark inequalities further exposed by the global pandemic. The foundation aims to reestablish how black and ethnic minoirty-led VCSE organisations are funded and expose how the funding landscape has “enabled” or “limited” the work of these organisations.
Their report spoke to 26 respondents from 19 organisations.
Findings:
Rise in funding but exposure of limitaitions of support that would bring about systemic change, proportional investment
Focus on emergency response, not long-term solutions to tackle racial injustice
Some funders are putting social change as a priority, but more needs to be done to “integrate a racial and intersectional lens across funder strategies”
Thoughts:
Baobab do not use acronyms, as they regard them as an oversimplification of the lived experiences of individuals
Need to use ‘Intersectional approach’ as a framework to understand inequalities. Intersectionality which considers the various plethora of contexts and backgrounds that contribute to a persons lived experience, needs to be taken into account to build knowledge and resistance.
Funder Progress:
Increased availability & flexability of funding
“Shift towards participatory funding models”- including funders listening to experts on racial injustice
Investment into “lived experience funders and organisations”
Community issues now:
Progress remains limited, due to inhibted long-term and scaled flexible investment:
Funding doesn’t go beyond March 2021
Funding has failed geographical and intersectional disparities across UK
Groups still struggling with historic underinvestment
Moving towards an anti-racist & intersectional funding approach:
Funders need to be explicit about racial inequities
Understanding that racial injustice spans many social change strategies
Funders need to increase equity and transparency
Funders need to adopt risk-taking behaviour to generate innovations
Funders need to consciously work with groups outside of London
Trauma-informed approach to reduce harm in funding process needed
Call to Action to Funders:
Long-term and flexible funding (5+ years)
Address dispairites for groups outside of London
Build strategic partnerhships with organisations led by black people and communities experiencing racial injustice
Use “transforamtive policies and practices”
Adopt a trauma-informed approach across funding
Full report here.
Brief report here.
The Runneymede Response to the Sewell Report
The Sewell Report is a government commissioned publication exploring ‘Race and Ethnic Disparities in the UK’ which was released last week. In summary, it concludes that ‘insitutional racism’ is not prevalent in the UK; the report’s findings and argument have attracted strong criticism from across the country, from academics, journalists and indiviudals alike.
Runnymede, who operate as the UK’s leading independent race equality think tank, have advocated a particularly strong stance against the findings of the Sewell Report. They give several examples of why the findings in the report are not representative of the lived experience of many BME communities. Furthermore, they berate the reports highlighted issues, (such as exploration of the the acronym ‘BAME’ as problematic), and suggest that this also negates BME communities reality.
Runnymede explore the report in the following video:
The Runnymede written response can be found here.
The Baobab Foundation
The Baobab Foundation has been newly created as a mechanism to secure long-term funding for black and ethnic communities and for those organisations that support them. It has been set up both as a response to the impact of Covid-19 and the murder last year of George Floyd.
Health inequalities are rife in the UK and across the world; BAME communities have been affected disproportionately throughout the global pandemic and it is imperative that this is addressed. Baobab’s vision envelopes transferring power and agency to those organisations who are often issued with less funding; they plan to be led and govered by the very same. Their inspiring vision is to have created this new organisation by the end of Summer 2021 and launch with £5-10million in grant funding by the end of the year. Their longer-term prospectus aims to raise £1billion in endowed funding which will help with adminsitering £50million in funding per year.
They have monthly meetings for members, which is expanding quickly, including many regional and national black and ethnic minority organistions and networks. They are continuing to gain support and traction from charitable funding, corportations and philanthropists.
They do however, still need help and assistance from local infrastructure organistions to reach to every nook and cranny across the country.
They are asking if each CVS could aim to target 5-10 black and ethnic minority community organistions in their networks to become members.
Please contact Jermain or Yoanna for more information.
This is a wonderful and much needed vision, a fantastic tool which will be invaluable as the UK addresses the extensive inequality and racism experienced by many communities.
Covid-19 Vaccine Queries Answered in Several Languages
Sharing information and encouraging vaccine uptake is vital to help take control of the Covid-19 pandemic. The UK proudly is the home of citizens from a plethora of different backgrounds and mother tongues, and thus it is imperative that information as important as this, can be understood and digested by as many people as possible. This is a step in the right direction to addressing some of the inequalities that exist in our society.
AskDoc have a growing online resource of videos answering common questions about the Covid vaccines, translated into a range of languages. AskDoc put the health of the BAME community at the forefront of their mission, which aims to “engage, educate and empower the Great Manchester BAME communities”.
Please follow them on Twitter.
Pilotlight Race and the Voluntary Sector Report
Pilotlight have released their new report 'Learning and Listening for Mutual Action: surfacing and building the evidence base to support Black African, Black Caribbean, Asian and other Minoritised Ethnic led voluntary sector organisations', in which they explore and ask what the specific support needs of organisations in BAME communities and led by BAME individuals are. It is authored by Fancy Sinantha, an independent consultant, together with the support of Cornish and Grey.
The pandemic has cast further light on the level of inequality experienced in our society and especially in BAME communities. Thus, it is ever more imperative that we explore what is needed to minimise this inequality, especially across the VCSE sector. The sector itself is plagued with institutional racism, a critical subject explored by many of our speakers at VSNW’s Festival of North West Thinking, and a problem that needs to be triumphed. Pilotlight’s report recognises that ploughing money into these organisations despite being necessary, does not address these systemic issues, thus paving the way for their report questioning: what are the needs of these organisations?
Vaccine Scam Info Available in Multiple Languages
Sadly, as the UK leads the way in terms of Coronavirus vaccines, some scam artists are using this opportunity to commit fraud. It is vital that information regarding this is widely published, which includes making sure warnings are available in an array of diffierent languages.
The BBC Asian Network has created some fabulous resources exploring vaccine scams in Urdu, Sylheti, Punjabi, Tamil & Gujarati.
For more information and to watch the videos see here.
GMCVO Funding for BAME-led Organisations
During our Festival of North West Thinking, a recurring theme throughout all of the events was the unequal affect Covid has had in BAME communities. Furthermore, this has meant that BAME-led voluntary and community organisations have also been under more pressure, due to the increasing demand as a result of the pandemic. Emergency funding has been granted to many organisations; however, issues have been raised over how equal that access is due to the institutional racism that exists within our sector and within funding organisations.
Please watch highlights from our first Festival of North West Thinking first event ‘Covid-19 Recovery: VCSE Leadership Voices Assembly with a Focus on Inequalities’ and in particular the point of views of Natalie Creary, Director of Black Thrive and Farzana Khan Executive Director and Co-founder of Healing Justice (HJL) who talk passionately and eloquently about inequality experienced in BAME communities and how Covid-19 has enhanced this.
GMCVO Funding:
Speaking to some of the issues raised above, last year, Greater Manchester BAME Network distributed almost £200,000 of funding to small GM BAME-led VCSE organisations affected most by Covid in order to respond to the increasing needs of BAME communities. These grants were administered by GMCVO using funding provided by Comic Relief and the National Emergency Fund.
We are pleased to share that in response to additional funding there is a second round of grants now available. The grants are aimed at finding new activities, services and any adaptation needed due to Covid-19.
On 18th December, round two of the small grants (£1000-£5000) opened; this will close on Friday 26th February 2021.
Organisations who have already received a grant are still entitled to apply for further help.