During this year I was told that I had privilege, white privilege something that in all honesty I found offensive; privilege was certainly not a word I would have ever attributed to myself or the work it had taken me to get to the position I hold today. There was certainly no silver spoon or helping hand that had helped me, which for me is what privilege meant. I left the conversation feeling hurt, angry and certain in my belief that this statement of privilege was made by someone who didn’t know me or anything about my life, how dare they make such a statement.
That was that, they were wrong I could go forward happy in the belief that I was certainly not privileged.
Yet 2020 would open my eyes as never before to the inequalities that pervade our societies, where time really had not changed the fact that the colour of your skin still very much predetermines much of your life before you are even born; where our silence individual and collective is unwittingly allowing the continuance of these inequalities.
For many this silence will not be something that they are even aware of, but conscious or unconscious the outcome is the same, the status quo remains the same.
How can we change things? In all honesty I don’t know, but what I do know is this, that by continuing to keep things just out of focus and convincing ourselves that we really can’t change anything so what is the point even trying is being discriminatory by default.
Not a comfortable thought is it and one I daresay many of you will disagree with and respond in the same way I did when I was told I had privilege, but if something makes you uncomfortable and engenders counter arguments as a response, then the root of that emotion needs to be looked at even if it is at home in your own company.
My hope is that by being so brutally honest with myself, I can use the privilege I have to open eyes, doors, minds that I have influence over in my role to make changes, as every small change has an impact that hopefully will led to future generations truly reaching equality for all.
Mrs E Elie MBE
Executive Director Somers Town Community Association & Executive Lead for the St Pancras and Somers Town Living Center
During this year as an organisation we challenged ourselves to see what was visible and more importantly what was not and as a result we :-
Made an commitment to the wellbeing of all staff, volunteers and users and to create wellbeing champions within our team
Made a commitment to tackle food poverty locally through the realisation of our assets and resources
Made a commitment to tackle period poverty locally through our networks and fundraising
Made a commitment to address the extreme I/T poverty faced by our community especially our young people, through fundraising and raising awareness
Made a commitment to making the invisible VISBLE where ever it may be
We ask you now to look and look again and ask yourself what you could do to make a difference, every step is never in vain or lost and if you would like to get involved with our work email sarah@somerstown.org.uk
January 2021
During January we our Wellbeing Champions delivered their first coffee morning for our staff and volunteers , we commenced work on the Wellbeing Index 2020-2021 and looked to commission training on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for our staff volunteers and board members.
February 2021
We have commissioned training from Diversiti UK and have begun talks with Square Circle and we look forward to working with such amazing innovative organisations and learning from them
October 2021
We are commissioning further training with Diversiti UK for our staff/volunteers and board members as we look to develop our Diversity Equality and Inclusion plan, which we aim to have approved by the board by the end of this financial year.
During 2022
We have continued to access training across all areas of our work, to ensure our staff are fully able to do their jobs to the best of their abilities, feel empowered to do so; in that they are equipped to respond to the ever more complex needs of the community we serve.
We have found that that post pandemic our staff and centres are struggling to cope with the ever increasing demand and as an organisation during 2022 we were looking not only at how we meet that demand, but equally at how we can put in place additional support for our team during this challenging time.
Our aim is to work towards the completion of our EDI plan in 2023