Ric Flo is an Artist, Motion Graphic Designer, Rap Workshop Facilitator and Foster Care Advocate. He uses the art of rap and his experience in foster care to encourage positivity in young people through creative workshops. In this guest blog Ric shares some thoughts on his own experiences of racism growing up in Foster Care.
Right now, listening feels more important than ever. Listening to people’s experiences, listening to solutions. Listening has always been core to our work, working alongside people with important stories to tell to feel confident and able to tell them in their own ways and in their own words. Our Being the Story podcast offers a chance to stop and listen to new voices.
Catherine is a partner, mother, nurse and special guardian to five year old “E” . She is also a member of Family Rights Group kinship carers’ panel and lives in Leicestershire. In this guest blog, Catherine shares the difficulties of being a kinship carer and key worker during the crisis and how a special guardianship support worker became her hero.
Tina Cribbin is a community activist based in Hulme Manchester and is part of community group On top of the world Hulme. Tina is also involved in the Seanchai Cafe, a community cafe based in South Manchester. In this guest blog Tina shares what it’s like to be a Tower Block resident in Lockdown and how they’re bringing joy to their residents and tackling isolation.
Phil works with Expert Citizens, he is a part of multiple peer research teams and is an insight evaluator. Expert Citizens is a community interest company led by an independent group of people who have all experienced multiple needs – combinations of mental ill health, homelessness, addiction and offending behaviour. They give their ideas to services like the local authority, police and homelessness services of Stoke-on-Trent, and nationally, to help guide and shape them to improve the care of multiple needs citizens. In this guest blog Phil shares how Covid19 has impacted him and his hopes for how it could impact services for the better beyond the pandemic.
Nikki Aitchison is the Head of Employment Development Projects, at Aspire – an award winning Charity and Social Enterprise. Aspire works with people experiencing significant disadvantage in their lives such as homelessness, providing personalised support to build on their strengths to overcome barriers. Over half of the team have lived experience of overcoming adversity, and Aspire works to innovate, and get upstream to prevent problems spiralling in the first place. In this guest blog Nikki shares a spoken word piece, and writes about how we need to use this pandemic to shake up the system and create change in the homelessness sector.
Amanda Hailes is a women’s rights campaigner, volunteer outreach worker and peer researcher for organisations including AVA and Agenda. She is passionate about highlighting multiple disadvantage and championing those with lived experience. In this guest blog she shares how the lessons she learnt whilst in recovery are helping her through coronavirus lockdown.
As the UK lockdown continues in the fight to deal with COVID-19, new challenges have arisen for some of the most vulnerable people in society and we have become more reliant than ever on the frontline workers that hold up our services and support our communities. Our third Digital ThinkIn with Tortoise gave a platform to some of these frontline workers.
Md Mominul Hamid is a human rights ambassador and community advocate who is campaigning for the rights of asylum seekers to access higher education. He is an asylum seeker himself, and in this guest blog he shares how he has been recently dedicating his time to support other asylum seekers and vulnerable people by setting up his own food bank, as well as handing out food parcels around his community on his bike.
sounddelivery Founder Jude Habib shares her reflections on the BBC Radio 4 Documentary; Unchained. Unchained was presented by Brenda Birungi aka Lady Unchained and shares the stories of women failed by the criminal justice system. One of the testimonies was shared by Amanda Hailes, Amanda and Brenda are part of sounddelivery’s Spokesperson Network.
