Women Inspiring Social Action: Networking Event

As research shows women are more likely to be community leaders, we sought out inspiring women within Redbridge to share their stories to aspiring social action leaders. The aim of the session was to provide a good network of people with a common goal and have discussions about the future of our neighbourhoods.

Bushra Tahir, from AWAAZ a women’s rights charity, was the first of our speakers. She shared her story of how one particular year, a number of events in her life left her feeling depressed and lost. It took a lot of time and her mother’s encouragement for things to turn around. She discovered that helping others was her remedy to feeling better and having a focus on helping women who were in worse situations helped Bushra to start AWAAZ. She praised her friends that helped her start AWAAZ, who had come to the event for moral support. She explained that they are more like a family as they support each other and other women to improve different areas of their lives.

Alison Smith from Empowering Parents Together, our next speaker discovered the influence she, as an individual could make, when she wrote a letter to a magazine about something she thought should be changed in line with health and safety and to her surprise the company took this on board and changed their adverts. From here she continued to write letters to people and organisations, and this mentality helped Alison understand the power she had to make changes. She shared that, from her personal experience of struggling for years alone with schools about her son’s performance and attitude, she was relieved to discover at the Parents Together forum, that other parents shared similar stories. Alison is now the chair of Parents Together, and their main goal is co-production, which involves parents working with policy and service makers to improve outcomes for users: young people and children in the borough. This leads to “educating the educators”. Alison advised that looking out for and joining existing groups is an excellent way into social action, as they will already have established contacts and a network of people who share the same values.

Judith Garfield founder of the Eastside Community Heritage spoke about her childhood shaping the work she is now involved in. Growing up in the Borough during the 1970’s, Judith has experiences of being chased from the synagogue from members of the national front, a far-right fascist political party. From campaigning and representing residents, Judith joined the Eastside Community Heritage. Their aim is to document stories and share them with others, particularly to young people to inform them about their heritage. Judith is excited about the East End Women’s Museum, which will give a women’s perspective on our history which Judith says has proved challenging as women tend to downplay their role in society. Overall Judith’s story showed us the importance of appreciating and learning about our local past as it is essential in understanding and shaping the future.

Jocelyn Davis from the Redbridge Foodbank spoke about how her experience in the private sector that provided her with the skills that in part has enabled the foodbank to be so successful. When Jocelyn was made redundant from the job she had had for over 30 years, she was approached by the minister of her Church about an idea of starting a foodbank, at the time Jocelyn was not even sure what a foodbank was but with a group of willing Church volunteers, they managed to start it up. Jocelyn has seen how rewarding it is to make a difference in peoples’ lives and understands the need for our community to come together when we see problems to resolve them ourselves.  

From our Q&A and group discussion, it was clear people want better community spirit and they felt physical face-to-face meetups are a good way to engage people. They believe co-production is something we should be thinking about when improving neighbourhoods. All our speakers were proof that anyone can make a difference and from them opening up and sharing their stories, we can see the importance of voicing our opinion, standing up for those who need it and working together.

Judith Garfield, Eastside Community Heritage (ECH)

Executive Director of ECH, Judith was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2012 for her work and commitment to Community Heritage. Since its inception, ECH has worked with over 900 community groups, 10,000 individuals, produced 18 publications, over 80 exhibitions, and founded the East London People’s Archive (currently holding in excess of 2500 oral histories and thousands of pictures). Previous to joining ECH, Judith was a set designer and stage manager at Theatre Royal Stratford East, working with Mike Leigh. Judith is an avid reader and keen enthusiast for contemporary history, art and drama. She is currently undertaking a Masters in the History of East London.

Bushra Tahir, AWAAZ A Voice for Women

A series of life changing events in the year of 2000 led Bushra Tahir to founding the women’s charity AWAAZ. AWAAZ’s aim is to provide quality services and empower women from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities to help them improve their overall health and wellbeing. Bushra’s inspiration from her selfless mother has taught her that no one gets through life alone, so it is important to look out for each other and lift each other up. This is shown through AWAAZ, who envisions a just society that promotes and protects the rights of women, believes in gender equality and celebrates womanhood.

Alison Smith, Empowering Parents Together

Alison is the sole mother of one who never expected to be getting involved with anything more than her admin jobs, family and social life. However, finding through a long tortuous process, that her son has Asperger’s and required additional help to manage at school, she found she needed help beyond her mother’s instinct about what her son needed. Initially, she became involved with the forum for support from others who understood her predicament and latterly understanding that the voice of our children needs to be heard where decisions are made. She has since taken on the role as Chair. She and the other members Representatives (who are for the most part women) endeavour to work strategically with the local authority to provide the best outcomes for all the children and young people within the borough. The heart of the concept is co-production. Although Alison is the Chair of EPT, it is the voice of all the parents, who are Experts by Experience, and the work of all the Representatives that drives the work (local, regional & national) forward.

Jocelyn Davis, Redbridge Foodbank

Jocelyn Davis started her career with the Performing Rights Society (PRS), an organisation responsible for collecting and distributing royalties due to writers, composers and music publishers for public performances of their works. Here Jocelyn worked her way up for an astonishing 33 years, unfamiliar in today’s society. After being made redundant at the end of 2009, she was immediately approached by her church leaders to help with a foodbank project they had in mind. This idea soon turned into the successful Redbridge foodbank that has now been running for over seven years. The foodbank distributes 3,500 food parcels per year from their 3 foodbank centres, has over 100 volunteers, receives 40 tonnes of donated foods and toiletries per year, and has 260+ front-line care professionals identifying individuals and families in crisis and in need of food.