How we can (still) make 2021 a more equal year in Camden
2021 is not getting off to the start we crossed our fingers for. After a year of rapid change that has been felt the hardest by those who already had the least, we are starting another year that looks likely to be full of even more rapid change, and if we are to make sure that this change benefits those who need it most, we need to understand what changed last year.
5 things Camden needs more of in 2021
It’s already been a difficult start to the year, so here are some good things you may be able to do right now that will be bring about equality in Camden’s communities (further below I’ve talked about why Camden Giving think these things are needed):
If you’re working for a businesses that’s hiring. Young people at risk of violence need jobs (that pay them a real living wage, are at least a bit satisfying and where colleagues understand that life can be complicated for some young people experiencing inequality). If you’re in a position to employ just 1 young person in a vulnerable situation, the ripples of this throughout a community are huge.
If you’re giving to money to charities. Trust the people who are experiencing inequality to make decisions about how your money is best spent. You can do that by giving to Camden Giving, but if you fancy doing it in other ways you can ask the charities you support how they are trusting the people they serve to make decisions about how services are paid for and run.
If you’ve experienced inequality in Camden. And you want to do something about it, your knowledge is invaluable. Get in touch with us if you’d like to join one of our paid opportunities deciding how the money we raise is allocated to local charities.
If you work for a local business. Get volunteering! If you are working from home, then it means you have a skill that you are able to do remotely and we’d love to help you put that skill to good use at a local charity. Along the way you’ll build a bit of that magical community connection we all need right now and you’ll learn a bit more about a brilliant local charity.
If you’ve got an extra 3 minutes. Read the rest of this blog and if you can, chat to someone else about the issues it raises. Chat to us about the issues it raises if you fancy, let’s just get talking about how things are changing so that together we can turn awareness in to action on inequality.
Changes for Young People
Knife violence has caused too much grief and pain in recent years in Camden, but its impacts are not random, there are clear factors that contribute to a young person’s likelihood to be involvement in knife violence. A BMC Public Health Review found these factors to be:
1. Deprivation
2. Access to quality jobs
3. Experience of violence in childhood.
These are circumstances that have become far more likely than in 2002. Childhood poverty rose from 35% to 43% in Camden, a local job centre saw a ten-fold increase in young people signing-on a matter of weeks and calls to domestic abuse lines have increased nationally.
To add to this youth services are facing closures, analysis by Barnardos draws a link between cuts to youth services and rises in knife crime. 2020 was a difficult year for fundraising for youth services, especially smaller ones that are at the heart of communities. Government spending on youth services is at its lowest point for a generation, it seems inevitable that youth services will close, but the generosity of businesses and individuals in 2020 gives us reason to hope this isn’t the case.
2020 has created circumstances that put too many young people at risk of knife violence.
Cuts to youth services are an abstract concept or a newspaper headline. But youth services are family to some young people, in Camden we know youth workers who walk the streets at night looking for young people they are worried about. If those youth worker get made redundant due to reduced fundraising, the headlines change to being about wasted young lives.
Through our Future Changemakers programme we’re continuing to fund youth services that have been chosen by young people. But young people have clearly told us they need jobs as well as youth services. So back to point no.1 above, if your business is in a position to employ a young person, please give us a shout.
Trust
One of the reasons youth services can perform wonders for young people, is that like most charities they are trusted. And the good news is that trust in charities has been slowly creeping up over the last few years (it’s good that it’s slow because evidence shows that quick increases in trust are usually followed by rapid decreases).
Trust is a key ingredient for healthy communities and for charities. Cases of covid in Camden have tended to be lower than in the rest of London, there are multiple reasons for this, but one factor could be the strength of Camden’s charities who have successfully communicated health messages to marginalised groups.
Trust in charities stands at 56%, this could and should be higher, but if you compare it to the 7% of people who trust local government, you can see why trust is so important.
In 2021 we’re really excited to give our first unrestricted grants to charities that are trusted by local people (and chosen by local people). We’re doing this because trust is important, but also because we want charities to have the flexibility they need to respond to rapid change.
Community connection
Before 2020, Londoners with an income below £15,000 were 5x more likely to feel lonely often or all of the time (Source: GLA Survey of Londoners). Loneliness was rife in London, even before we knew what a “lockdown” was.
In 2019, some of the most likely Londoners to “often or always feel lonely” were Londoners with disabilities (18%). But, according the the Office For National Statistics, people with disabilities reported little change in their level of loneliness during lockdown.What happened during lockdown, was not that we all became lonelier, but better-off and non-disabled people awoke to the same level of isolation people with disabilities creating a sense “that we’re all in this together”.
This sudden sense of widespread loneliness was one contributing factor behind the emergence of thousands of mutual aid groups, including at least one group for every ward in Camden. 2020 was not the year that invented mutual aid, it was the year that it became widespread, as many marginalised communities have self-organised via mutual aid groups for decades.
In 2020 more people than ever before have longed to feel a connection to the places they live or work. That’s a very good thing for society and in a place like Camden where people have very different experiences of life, it is a very, very good thing indeed.
Inequality isn’t random
Who you are has a significant impact on your experience of Camden, this has always been true, but Covid has multiplied these inequalities. Our Equality Fund will address inequalities faced by young people and families, women, people of colour, disabled people and care leavers. In Camden these are the people being disproportionately impacted by poverty, isolation, hate and covid. For example, 25% of Disabled Londoners said they were facing redundancy at the end of last year, compared with 17% of London’s general population.
2020 has shone a light on how unfair society is, we learnt that Covid was not a “great equaliser,” it’s instead had a disproportionate impact on people of colour, people with less money (who are also more likely to be people of colour) and disabled people. Now that more people are aware of this, we need to make sure we act to eradicate the inequalities by making sure support gets to projects addressing underlying causes of inequality.
The state of the sector
28 out of 115 London charities providing emergency response said the biggest challenge they are facing at the end of last year is the wellbeing and mental health of their staff. This adds to the pressures of a dramatic reduction in the ways that charities can raise money (no tough mudders or lemonade stalls for a while it would seem). The generosity of business and individuals was incredible in 2020, it meant that homeless people had apartments to stay in during the lockdown, that young people had support from youth services during lockdown, that isolated people could get information and support from charities they trusted.
2020 showed huge generosity of human spirit and sharing what we have. At the end of of last year, one business founder said to us 2020 had shown him that his business needed to have a completely different purpose, it needed to be a part of Camden’s community, not just located in Camden. And there are many more like this, which means there is much to be hopeful for. Lockdown 3 feels miserable, but this time we know what Camden is capable of!