Attending today's Europia Conference in Manchester 'Getting on... ' has inspired me to return to my very neglected blog! Despite the event being a stones throw from hotels that are famous for their high noon tea and cocktail bars frequented by footballers, the occasion was set within a modest building. Unlike many conferences I have attended over the past few years, tea was offered in plastic cups, there were quaver crisps, polish salad and women with their children sat on the carpet accompanied by a full-house of attendees. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but it was enough to get me blogging again - although Europia is now going through a stage of deciding on its future and is likely to take the path of becoming a registered charity, until recently this was the type of group that might have been captured in TSRC's piloted Street Walking mapping project that was set up in search of finding unregistered third sector groups and activities ... (the first of series of planned papers to come out soon). The Conference was very much a launch of Europia - which, at the moment, is a volunteer-led group of young dynamic individuals (many of whom are migrants themselves) who are committed to working on issues that affect European migrants as well as developing projects to encourage 'community engagement' and 'community cohesion'. Despite Europia being a volunteer-led group that is in receipt of little - if any money - they manage to work with individuals and groups across the ten local authorities of Greater Manchester. This is made possible through the efforts, drive and the resourceful young dynamic people who are keeping the group together - most of whom have their own 9-5 jobs.
The morning session offered tasters on the type of work they do and how they network with other agencies to maximise on reaching out to individuals. These were followed by workshops: I attended the community engagement workshop - this, however, gave space for the play-out of politics, with a small 'p', on the long-standing thorny issue on whether targeted services breed discrimination and exclusion. Following on, I attended a workshop on research and I had my own rant (sorry Lisa!!!) on the different use(fulness) of different types of research - another story - but, I did receive the sobering reminder of the importance to communicate findings to those you research, rather than 'parachuting in' and then leaving the scene. Fortunately for TSRC we have a knowledge exchange team to make sure we do this!
There was of course a lot more that I have not captured here - including the support Europia receive from other voluntary organisations such as the Wai Yin Chinese Women Society who have played an important role in providing space and support for them to continue their work: www.waiyin.org.uk/about