The Islington Race Equality Forum is a network, bringing together community organisations, residents and activists from Islington to address race inequalities affecting the community. Our work includes:
- Community meetings
- Civic engagement and participatory research
- Facilitating partnerships and capacity building
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Quarterly community meetings
Our quarterly forum meetings are intergenerational community gatherings, open to all, providing a safe space of solidarity for local people, to collectively address race inequality and the structures that perpetuate it.
We meet once a quarter for open and reflective discussion, to generate community responses that amplify the community voice in local decision-making. |
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Next meeting:
on BAME Supplementary Schools
at Brickworks Community Centre
in November 2019, date tbc
We'll be looking at the imminent impact of funding cuts to Mother Tongue Supplementary Schools (MTSS). Currently a network of BAME organisations deliver MTSS provision, which aims to support the achievement of black and ethnic minority young people, by providing additional support in subjects such as English, maths, art, science as well as Mother Tongue subjects such as Arabic, Bengali, Somali and Turkish; MTSS aim to raise self-esteem, confidence, intergenerational cohesion and promote a sense of identity in young people through classes in mother tongue and culture and through providing role models from student's own communities in the form of teaching staff.
Funding to MTSS partners will end in March 2020. This meeting aims to:
- understand and document the impact of the MTSS funding cuts on BAME children and young people who are currently students and future generations.
- generate a community response to look in to funding and community action to ensure these valuable services can be sustained.
ARCHIVE: Past Community Research Publications |
Fair Futures: How Fair (2017)
The Fair Futures Commission was launched in February 2017 by Islington Council to explore what is needed to improve the futures of children, young people and their families. The Commission invited contributions from the community to gather insight and recommendations on how to close inequality gaps and make Islington a great place to grow up.
We wanted to ensure that the voices of all young people were heard in this exercise and consulted with 20 young people from across the borough from Black and Ethnic Minority backgrounds to understand how living in Islington impacts on their wellbeing and what their visions are for a fairer future.
The young people shared their daily realties and concerns for their future; they highlighted how gang related violence, poverty, poor schooling, poor engagement from public services and the rich-poor divide in Islington impacted their lives and their life opportunities.
Their experiences and visions for the future are shared in this report.
Thank you to the young people and the youth organisations Eritrean Youth Project, Company Three and Copenhagen Youth Project for collaborating in the project.
Read the full version of the report here
It's no fun being on benefits (2015)
Contrary to what we hear in mainstream media and political debate, being on benefits is not a ‘soft option’ Our 2015 report shows that unemployment and poverty are rarely the result of people not wanting to work. We capture real experiences, exposing the misery endured by residents on benefits and the human impact of the Tories’ cuts to the benefits system. |
BME and Refugee Partners against poverty and unemployment (2014)
Evidence collected by BME organisations and Islington residents for the Employment Commission, showing the barriers to employment faced by disadvantaged communities, the failure of mainstream employability support and recommendations for helping people into meaningful and sustainable employment. |
