Citizens UK: Birmingham: Celebrates Six Year Anniversary

This month our Citizens UK: Birmingham Alliance celebrated six years of community organising in the city. The chapter marked the milestone with special event kindly hosted by Canon Gerry Breen at St Chad’s Cathedral.

After a successful six years of community organising in the city - from Living Wage campaigning to refugee resettlement – the chapter has gone from strength to strength. Citizens UK: Birmingham has grown to an independent civil society alliance made up of faith, education, trade union and community institutions.

At the event, 54 leaders from across the city celebrated and reflected on the success of Citizens UK: Birmingham. Given special mention was the hugely successful Community Sponsorship work in the city and efforts to resettle refugees. Councillors Tristan Chatfield, Waseem Zaffar, Alex Yip and Claire Spencer were given special recognition for their leadership and support.

Our member schools also took part in the anniversary celebrations. Pupils from St Francis’ Catholic Primary School in Lozells shared their personal testimonies on being part of a “refugee welcome school”. Students from the CORE Education Trust also presented a brilliant new city project called Echo Eternal remembering the survivors of the Holocaust and the reflections they have for us. As well as this, a host of other Citizens UK leaders shared news on current projects: Community sponsorship, the Business leaders project and the Islam & Public Life Commission.

Finally, three moving personal stories were read out to introduce a new campaign by Safe Passage: 80 years on. ( https://80yearson.org.uk/ ) The campaign recently received the backing of Cllr Tristan Chatfield at Birmingham City Council to take in 80 child refugees on first instance dependent on securing funding from Government. If you would like to get involved or find out more please email Saidul.haque@citizensuk.org