“My name is Surraya Bibi and in my professional capacity I work at the Halifax Opportunities Trust. It's such a pleasure working for a charity that believes in strengthening the community, to kind of anchor our organisation in the heart community that we're based in, I think looking at projects and ideas that will help communities to develop their skills, gives the very needy the kind of opportunities they need, whether they are new arrivals or whether they form part of the kind of settled communities. It's really good to be part of that, In particular I manage the inclusion and integration programmes."
How can we open up the opportunities for newly arrived individuals to participate actively in their communities?
Can you briefly summarise your role in the community of Calderdale?
“My name is Surraya Bibi and in my professional capacity I work at the Halifax Opportunities Trust. It's such a pleasure working for a charity that believes in strengthening the community, to kind of anchor our organisation in the heart community that we're based in, I think looking at projects and ideas that will help communities to develop their skills, gives the very needy the kind of opportunities they need, whether they are new arrivals or whether they form part of the kind of settled communities. It's really good to be part of that, In particular I manage the inclusion and integration programmes.
We have delivered a series of programmes over the 11 years where we offer opportunities on a wide scale for individuals to develop & enhance their skills in order to improve economic participation chances. We foster & harness partnership working opportunities that enable us to ensure correct alignment of services remain. We are proud that the Trust is quite unique in the way we deliver our services however we do recognise the importance in collaborative working. We stand out as designing our own bids allows us the flexibility to respond to local need but more importantly to ensure all projects allow the alleviation of barriers & improve access to provision. We think that's key because mainstream provision doesn't allow that. We recognise the restrictions of astringent eligibility criteria that more often inhibits access to education & training opportunities & how this causes detrimental impact on communities. Our projects, allow the instant access upon arrival to the host society (for newly arrived communities) thus enabling immediate access to education, skill development & strengthening access to economic participation.”
They need the language. Without that, how do they go out and about you know? It can be immensely difficult.
What does inclusivity and diversity mean in relation to your work in Calderdale?
“So It's all about instilling that level of connection so when you come to this country you have a sense of belonging. But how is that demonstrated in a practical way. There are practical ways that you can encourage people to change, unfortunately there are still misconceptions that certain communities hold for BAME communities in particular, that they do not want to be involved. Do they want to come here to work, do they want to be involved? Well yes, of course. But I think it's those very vital opportunities that they need upon arrival and doors to very important funding streams that will allow projects like that to flourish.
I think the word ‘empowerment’ is key for us. You know empower individuals, to think, “I really understand the geography and the history of the UK, this is my life now. How can I best place myself in this country, it's by being involved.’ And I think it's that bit that we do really well at the Halifax Opportunities Trust that gives us such good results. During the pandemic we were thinking ‘how do we sustain our position’? And we've gone from that transitional phase from face to face to offering successful remote learning. Obviously new to everyone, a whole new kind of world of working on the best results, for people who are digitally excluded, getting them on Zoom and doing all sorts of things is amazing.”
What do you think the key problems are that we face in meeting people's differences and including marginalised people in Calderdale?
“I think if I talk about new arrivals. They don't know the environment upon arrival, but until there are organisations that will open the door of opportunities to allow accessibility to information, (I don't think that was there, you know, a good few years ago). I know funding constraints have really hampered the way organisations can deliver their services. but also it's about specifically designed opportunities or programmes that will enable those opportunities to happen. They need the language. Without that, how do they go out and about, you know, it can be immensely difficult.
The lack of opportunities, financial constraints. And I think more partnership working, would help. Its the lack of resources I mean, the number of problems that I've kind of just touched on that we would say this is our specialism However, if we don't work in collaborative form, how will our beneficiaries or service users benefit? You know, money is not always the solution. Sharing resources can be in different shapes and forms. I mean, we created our own thing. Well, a social space. I don't know whether you've had a chance to come to our fantastic Staying Well Hub - come and have a look, the groups that we created, facilitated community consultation groups to identify local need. We identified the need to create a social space for people to meet up. We involved our local people to help design & identify activities. It's giving them that voice.”
If we can make individuals increasingly self-reliant, they will participate, they will contribute. That’s the key to empowering local communities!
So how can we kind of use one project as a platform for the next? That's the hard bit when things are short term.
“It's been a great challenge however our success is due to the Integration projects – one example to give you is, we placed a programme in the Minster specifically to mitigate stereotypical views of Muslim women joining in. People said “what are Muslim women doing in the Minster”. And I said, “Well, where does it say that they can’t ”. We did a school project, school pupils & our clients working together on a craft project making cassocks & through this collaboration they were all exchanging learning on Islam & Christianity.
We’ve had partnership projects with York Minster in order to harness interfaith opportunities we took groups of women to visit the Minster at Christmas time. A pre mass going on, and people said “you can’t go in there – there’s a mass going on” and the priest was pleasantly taken aback & joked “I'm surrounded by all these Muslim women I'm going to get in trouble”. And I'm saying, “No, they're eager to learn. And the only way they can learn is by being involved”. You know, those kind of areas where you need people to help them learn and see how they can be involved. And we did – we were bold in many ways.
But you have to be. You have to be.
I mean the food bank for example we got women to work doing volunteer work, like four hours a week, at the local food bank because we wanted to raise awareness. They're actually shocked to see that this is Britain, why have they got food banks? To help educate them, although not an area that you really want to teach, you know. People said that this is a church. And we said, yes, and then we decided to that year raise funds to create a ‘dough’ project
For Neighbour’s Day the women ran a stall selling food in the Piece Hall & raised funds for the food bank for the Ebenezer Church. And every time, people came to the stall and asked, “who you raising funds for” and we said “Ebenezer church” and they said, “we're very confused - and are you not Muslim? How come you are raising funds for a Christian church?” And then we stand there and said well okay you have the conversation with them now. It was just amazing to see that interaction, you know, they were having that dialogue. I'm saying ‘everything is fine. Well it's okay for us to work for a church, it's fine because we feel that that church is part of our community’. Do you see what I mean so again it's those kinds of opportunities that you have to create that in return give positive outcomes.
If we can make individuals increasingly self-reliant, they can go back into their communities and by being actively involved they will give back they will participate and they will contribute, that is the key to empowering local communities. So in a nutshell, you have empowered that one individual to go back into their communities and be involved.
We mentioned a little bit about how things have changed during the COVID crisis. So I'm wondering, have people become more marginalised or have your activities shown that people can become less marginalised, as a result of some sort of difficult event?
“It was challenging because we became frontline operational right from the onset of the lockdown. And so it was about identifying creative solutions as to how we could sustain what we do throughout all the programmes that we offer at the Trust. We work with the most vulnerable communities that have expectations & as we have found this pandemic has increased the vulnerability & in particular for BAME communities.
Our service delivery saw a massive change from face to face to remote learning. This in itself presented huge challenges however again it was about the importance of sustaining our services to avoid the risk of our services users becoming further marginalised.
However, whilst the clients appreciate the delivery being sustained they do miss the interaction with staff & friends etc. I think the emotional well being has been hit hard. You know where people have lost loved ones there's been a lot of sorrow & loss faced by our service users. As new arrivals one can understand the likely barriers the pandemic is to cause.”
The amount of small-scale projects that have a big impact is absolutely immense and I think it's under documented. How you do get vulnerable people volunteering and interacting, supporting one another. going back into the community, having more confidence, feeling more included? It’s simple stuff.
Some businesses recognise that there are still marginalised communities and that there needs to be more diverse ways of bringing these communities together
So I've got one last question and I think probably will draw together some of the stuff that you said before, which would be, you know, in your ideal world, what would be the main ideas for impacting diversity and inclusivity in in Calderdale in in the future.
“I just think, more fantastic programmes that are specifically geared around inclusion and integration. I think the local authority do recognise that we are a diverse community. However, in terms of opportunities for communities to improve ‘ social integration’ how well does that happen in practical terms, I think there needs to be more. I think more needs to be done.
We have our Elsie Whitely Business & Innovation Centre which is ideal. Businesses come and hire the space, and we currently have such a diverse range of companies based there so the advantage of introducing business ideas is great. A number of companies that are new to Calderdale find it an amazing locality to introduce their business ideas “this is amazing, we didn't realise this is what Calderdale physically looks like, the community. How can we be involved?” Ackley Bridge Film production are in Calderdale & it’s so exciting to see people from the community being selected from different diverse backgrounds. That’s a great start.
And then you've heard of Northern broadband Haven't you? Yeah, we’re working quite closely with them. They seem to be kind of really harnessing on the work that's already been done in Calderdale, and specifically for Park Ward, looking at deprived communities where they can, again, pull in resources and I just really welcome that again because I think, again, they're recognising that they need to place resources in areas that have not really had doors, they recognise that there are still marginalised communities and within that they recognise the fact that there needs to be more diversity approaches in bringing communities together.
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