From Solidarity to Power

It is so easy to feel helpless when looking at the scale of challenges our communities face today.

We at Greater Manchester Citizens (GMC) were appalled at the racist violence over the summer. Like many others, we decided to come together to stand in solidarity with our Muslim friends and colleagues. Hosted in 2 wonderful Masjids who are members of GMC, we shared food, heard powerful stories, and stood with our friends.

An important act, but we knew there was so much more to do.

We committed to doubling our efforts to strengthen our bonds across communities by organising for social justice. Over the last 6 months, this is we’ve been doing…

1. Building relationships across difference:

The violence across the summer showed us there is lots of work to do to build relationships across communities. One of the ways we do this is coming together in-person for 2-day training all about Community Organising.

Members from Petrus Community, Caritas Shrewsbury, the Living Wage Foundation, Methodist Central Hall, Cheadle Masjid, Manchester University, Manchester Islamic Grammar School for Girls, and Caritas Salford spent 2 days together, at 2 of our different member organisations. Never in CUK history has Day 1 been spent at a Catholic Social Club, and Day 2 at a local Masjid.

We had 1-2-1s with each other; conversation to build relationships. We hosted a house-meeting as part of the training to find out exactly what issues communities are facing. We learnt about the power through relationships.

Leaders went away with the task of finding 10 more people in their communities to have 1-2-1s with – some of whom have now joined our campaign action teams. We committed to coming together again in the Spring to train more leaders in Organising.

Bit by bit, relationships across our different communities are deepening. This is what organising is all about!

2. Developing leaders:

A core part of Organising is developing leaders who win in their community. One of the best things about it is no matter your age, anyone can be a leader.

Greater Manchester Citizens have recently launched 3 Muslim Youth Leadership Programmes with Cheadle Masjid, Khizra Masjid and Manchester Islamic Grammar School for Girls – something that has never been done in Citizens UK before.

Stewarded by Neelam, Sajjad, Aaliyah and Hamayoun, 4 of GMC’s incredible leaders, young people are working through our cycle of action – building teams of people, listening in their communities, identifying what they want to change and working towards action.

We have also been working with Dixons Brooklands Academy in Wythenshawe, supporting them to do guided listening to find out exactly what is putting pressure on young people. They have listened to over 100 people so far in their communities.

We’ve heard powerful stories about young women not feeling safe walking home on their own, down paths with no street lamps. We’ve heard that young people are feeling under extreme pressure, with a lack of mental health support. These are the things they are working to change through Community Organising.

3. Taking action:

Our work is not just about relationships, stories and leaders. We’re here to win lasting change, and that requires action.

On 30th January next year, our youth leaders will be telling their story in front of 200 leaders from across Greater Manchester at our Delegates Assembly.  The assembly will bring together our powerful alliance of faith, bring together our broad-based alliance of faith, education, housing, health and third sector organisations to build on our work.

As a chapter we are campaigning for better mental health services, to secure the real living wage across the region and improve the experience of those on Universal Credit. On January 30th we will be launching our listening campaign on these 3 priorities, alongside finding out about other issues are impacting our communities.

We will then come back together in April next year align our priorities, and commit to the next steps.

Join us in January as we take action and win change for our communities in 2025.