October is Black History Month in the UK, and the Ubele Initiative and Locality have issued a report calling on the government to give greater support to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities for community development projects, following research which reveals the future of many community assets is uncertain.
Locality writes:
On the first day of Black History Month 2015, the Ubele Initiative and Locality are highlighting the need for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities to be supported to take over community buildings to ensure they can meet the needs of their neighbourhoods for generations to come.
A new report by the Ubele Initiative and Locality reveals the scale of issues facing African diaspora communities across England in retaining places to meet, support, work, learn, celebrate and mourn.
Ubele was funded by Locality, the national network of ambitious and enterprising community-led organisations, to carry out the first phase of Project Mali which provides an important overview of asset ownership within the African diaspora community.
The report, called A Place to Call Home, highlights the vulnerability of community buildings secured by the Windrush Generation and underlines the failure to build on the struggle for social justice and equality in post-war Britain by protecting important meeting places.
Locality Chief Executive Tony Armstrong said: ‘This report highlights some inspirational stories of leaders and the determination of African diaspora groups to establish and retain important meeting places for their communities. But it also underlines the uncertain future of community buildings primarily used by BAME groups and stresses the struggles and losses that many have faced in recent years. The government needs to act to ensure BAME groups are supported take on and retain the important community assets which mean they can make a difference to the people in their neighbourhoods.’
Huge leaps in equality, prompted by civil unrest in the 1980s, have taken a step backwards recently as local authorities fail to renew leases on important community assets, meaning BAME groups are being forced from the centres which have been the cornerstones of their communities for decades.
Uprisings in urban areas such as Brixton, Toxteth, Bristol, Handsworth and Tottenham, from the early 1980s onwards, led to the emergence of new community organisations and spaces being leased to African diaspora community leaders for up to 30 years. However, a lack of renewal of these leasing arrangements over the past five-10 years has left many without the community assets they originally ‘owned’.
Data was captured from a total of 150 organisations across England and 54% of respondents said the future of their community buildings was ‘insecure’.
Ubele Chief Executive Yvonne Field said: ‘A Place Called Home unearthed unexpected stories of many BAME women’s unheralded leadership accomplishments but also suggests that African diaspora communities need to embrace change in our enterprise-based contemporary culture by upskilling younger people to become future leaders. There is an urgent need for a more joined up or holistic strategy to help save and restore iconic community centres and buildings. We need to bring together key national, regional and local stakeholders with BAME communities with assets in need of development.’
Ubele and Locality will now be working to influence central and local government to ensure that BAME communities are proactively identified and supported to use their rights under the Localism Act, as well as other measures, to take over the ownership or management of important community assets in their area.
The report recommends that BAME organisations are skilled up in order to create a more level playing field to ensure they are in a position to bid to take over land or buildings for community use.
