109 delegates from 15 member institutions attended our annual Delegates Assembly at Church of Christ the Cornerstone on Tuesday 5th February 2019. Three campaigns were approved with goals as follows:
Refugees Welcome for more Refugee Welcome Schools and Community Sponsorship – led by MK Deanery, St. Paul’s Catholic School, St. George’s Church:
Fair Work to make zero hours contracts and recruitment processes fairer – led by Trubys Garden Tea Room, St. Augustine’s Catholic Church, Congolese Community:
Police & Primaries Together to increase children’s positive perception of The Police in the community – led by Jubilee Wood Primary School and Southwood Primary School
These campaigns will be the focus of our Accountability Assembly with power-holders on Thursday 25th April 2019.
In January Fraser Sones (pictured right), a sixth form student at Stantonbury International, joined other students from Stantonbury and The Radcliffe School in a new Anger to Action training course run by Citizens:mk with funding from MK Community Foundation.
When prompted to think about what made him angry about unfairness in his community, Fraser said it was the lack of conversation between students in the sixth form. “I want there to be more meaningful conversations,” he said, “and I’m worried that this isn’t happening due to a lack of social skills relating to greater risk of mental health problems.”
With help from Citizens:mk’s Community Organiser, Fraser conducted research to show that many Stantonbury students had a low number of conversations which students outside their immediate friendship groups…and decided to take action.
He organised a series of meeting with power holders within the Stantonbury Sixth Form, primarily the teachers and managers, for permission to advertise and run a half-hour session of conversation circles. This involved pairs of students talking to one another in a carousel of five-minute conversations about topics they were interested in, including current stresses and future plans.
On the day, 22 students participated and 20 completed evaluation questionnaires which showed:
46% increase in ‘I feel self-confident’
41% increase in ‘I relate well to my fellow students’
30% increase in ‘I have a positive attitude to life’.
Not a bad set of data from just 30 minutes of activity!
Some of the participants’ comments afterwards were:
“Incredibly useful, I was able to talk to people I don’t usually talk with and form new relationships”
“This has really improved my social anxiety slight(ly) and has worked on how socially awkward I am.”
“I never realised how happy I was to meet other people, people were ready to open up”
“I met people I’ve wanted to talk to before but were too shy or felt that it would’ve been weird.”
Fraser is in discussion with the power-holders among Stantonbury International staff about which direction to take next with this exciting initiative.
To make change, we need power. We are interested in relational power. We develop relational power by sharing self-interest through 121 meetings with followers, peer leaders and power holders. We build a broad-based alliance, ready to make change through a process of research, action and evaluation.
...see more of the Argument in next newsletter - or contact our Community Organiser, tel 07962 838685, if you can't wait!
