Welcome to Routes to Solidarity
Supporting ethnic minority women in their struggles and aspirations
The Routes to Solidarity project goal is to create a stronger black and minority ethnic (BME) women’s sector, with increased strategic and influencing power, particularly in the North of England.
About this site
On this website you can:
- Find out more about the Routes to Solidarity project
- Find out what you can do to help
- Find information to help you develop your skills
- Find out who can help your group
- Read the latest issue of the Routes to Solidarity newsletter and discover other key resources
What is Routes to Solidarity?
Routes to Solidarity supports BME women and their organisations to:
- Increase knowledge of their rights;
- Exercise greater leadership;
- Build confidence and the capacity to work together and to influence decisions;
- Secure and develop links to help influence policymakers.
The project offers a unique opportunity for ethnic minority women and their organisatons to collectively share their experiences, and to act on the needs and issues they experience. The project will also work to support a community cohesion strategy that is both pro–poor and anti racist, and which will improve and sustain ethnic minority services and communities.
Routes to Solidarity is being run in the UK by Oxfam as part of the Race Equality Programme; focussing on overcoming racism, poverty and inequalities. The project is funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government.
Project activities
Project activities include: training programmes, mentoring, developing/supporting networks and forums, developing partnership projects, organising events and policy seminars.
It is our aim for at least 120 women from various organisations to gain improved knowledge and understanding of their rights, and to exercise greater leadership in economic, social and political spaces – this means that these women judge themselves to have reduced feelings of isolation and to have had an impact on power relations at household and community levels.
We also hope to continue to provide support and mentoring to participants who seek a longer-term partnership with Oxfam; helping to build confidence and capacity to inform and influence decisions that impact on the women's work and their service users, locally, regionally and nationally. The results of this project will be used to develop best practice case studies, and as a basis for further lobbying activities.
Capacity to influence decisions will be improved by developing relationships with policy makers and using relevant and supported information to build solutions that benefit BME communities. We will support the participants to work together to produce policy papers or responses to government consultations, and by request, to meet at least 60 policy makers at different levels.
Communities and Local Government Empowerment Fund
The Department for Communities and Local Government is investing £9.25m in third sector organisations over three years through the Empowerment Fund. The Empowerment Fund is supporting organisations with charitable, philanthropic or benevolent purposes working across the country, to assist local communities to take forward the proposals in the Communities in Control: Real people, real power white paper.
The fund represents a new way of doing things - and is designed to support the third sector as it works towards helping build more, cohesive, empowered and active communities.
Key aspects of the fund:
- The approach was developed in consultation with the third sector
- Working with disadvantaged communities or those considered 'hard to engage' was an essential criterion of the fund
- Seven themes including Social Enterprise, Community Involvement in Planning, and Improving communication between councillors and citizens
- Investment increased from £7.5m to £9.25m over three years.
After following a robust process the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government awarded grants to 21 organisations. For more information about what these organisations are doing under the relevant themes of the Empowerment Fund, please visit the Communities and Local Government website.
Trinity House Community Resource Centre
Trinity House Community Resource Centre will engage with young people of Somali and Caribbean origin, who reside in deprived wards of inner city Manchester, to identify the key drivers of exclusion and the consequent lack of community cohesion, and work with them to make better choices for more positive lifestyles and outcomes.
This is a 6 month project aiming to explore and develop a richer understanding of the multiple factors that contribute to, or undermine, cohesion for different racial groups in disadvantaged areas.
Runnymede Trust
Runnymede will work with partners to identify and engage with multi-ethnic groups of residents of three relatively deprived areas. The debate will focus on shaping future efforts to promote community cohesion with an emphasis on tackling poverty and racism.
This is a 6 month initiative and the results of this work will be shared with policy-makers and opinion formers.
PeaceMaker
PeaceMaker will deliver an action research project in Greater Manchester to explore how government-led initiatives on race equality and community cohesion have either supported or failed to meet the needs of black and minority ethnic groups. This is in response to several of the recommendations from PeaceMaker’s research into the effects of community cohesion on local organisations, particularly for BME-led organisations in Oldham.
The aim of this project is to ensure that participating groups have an increased understanding on their work on race equality through shared learning, and act collaboratively in addressing common challenges posed by community cohesion. This is a one year project and will work with at least 6 - 8 organisations from BME organisations and at least 5 - 8 mainstream groups over this period.
JUST West Yorkshire
JUST West Yorkshire will carry out two projects:
UK Racial Justice Alliance
JUST West Yorkshire, in partnership with Equanomics UK and Operation Black Vote, aims to develop a UK Racial Justice Alliance to bring together organisations within the BME-led sector to challenge the current discourses on race equality and to establish poverty, racial and economic injustice as the key issues for achieving meaningful race equality in the UK.
These partners will work with other BME organisations to: increase alliance membership with at least 10 signed up members in the first year; challenge policy-makers with a mix of evidence, inquiry and dialogue through roundtables and e-networking; support the production of a UK Manifesto for Racial Justice including a website and organisation of two face to face meetings in the first year; launch a media campaign; produce 3-5 briefing papers and an end of project report.
Youth Rights Network
JUST West Yorkshire in partnership with Liberty aims to encourage greater youth participation in political decision-making, and to support the development of a youth charter that defines the rights of young people from both BME and white communities living in West Yorkshire. The overall goal of this project will be to empower young people of different socio-economic and racial backgrounds; giving them a louder and clearer voice so they are proactively involved in influencing policy and practice in the region.
Pakistan Advice and Community Association (PACA)
PACA works to alleviate poverty through providing support, advice and information in deprived areas of Sheffield. Based in PACA's community centre, this project will work with young people, especially women, to increase engagement in local democracy and facilitate meetings with public policy makers. This work will strengthen the voice of young people from different ethnic minorities and make them increasingly vocal on their rights and concerns; creating role models and future leaders from poor neighbourhoods.
The pilot project will involve a training programme with at least eight young people from three ethnic groups including Pakistani, Slovak, and Somali over a seven month period. The focus of the training will be centred on empowerment, citizenship and decision-making structures and processes.
Routes to Solidarity is a three year project run by Oxfam and funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government.
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