Black and Minority Ethnic Groups
Over 20% of Transformation Fund projects explicitly set out to recruit learners from black and minority ethnic groups (BME), and many more will have included learners from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.
Projects addressed issues that particularly affect people from BME groups through a variety of approaches, including:
- engaging women from BME communities in learning new skills that are not usually made available to them, such as digital skills and DIY skills: Go-Woman Project; DIY Your Future - Women in SET.
- focussing on BME men, breaking down stereotypes - for example stereotypes of black fathers - and opening up opportunities for participation alongside white men in cultural and outdoor activities not usually accessed by BME men: Dads in Demand - The Fatherhood Institute ; Birmingham Opera ; Boiled Cabbage and Tapioca Pudding - SCAWDI
- using learning champions, some of whom could speak local community languages, to engage learners and support learning about health and care issues affecting people in BME communities: Birmingham Arthritis Appeals Trust;Bhalo Ranna; Open Access for Carers - Hackney.
- communicating, sharing and celebrating aspects of the cultural heritage of BME communities: Burmese and Karen Community Reporters;Nottingham Co-Operative Community Action; Stitches into Print
Most of the learning opportunities offered to BME communities in recent years have focused on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and on citizenship education. There have been far fewer opportunities to engage in informal adult and community learning (ACL). These projects have shown that imaginative opportunities for informal ACL can have many benefits for BME communities, including:
- improved health, through healthier eating patterns and lifestyles and better self-management of health conditions;
- improved skills, particularly for women, such as computer skills and DIY skills;
- greater appreciation of the rich mix of cultural heritages and traditional skills in crafts and performing arts that exist among BME communities in our cities;
- improved communication between providers of services and the BME communities they serve, and vice versa;
- improved understanding and social cohesion within diverse communities.
One volunteer working on a project with refugees and asylum seekers remarked: "Working with this group was a huge eye-opener. It dispelled myths about refugees and the stereotypes we get from the media. I'm much more sympathetic now. "
Successful projects with BME groups took a community development approach focusing on:
- using trusted intermediaries to engage learners, particularly people who could speak the same language;
- recognising that discrimination exists, challenging exclusion and building relationships between groups;
- finding out what skills people had, what skills people wanted, what skills they could share and what they could learn from others;
- making learning opportunities accessible, by providing them in familiar venues, with childcare available, and offering single sex learning opportunities if required;
- providing English language support or ESOL learning opportunities when needed;
- building learners' skills and confidence to use a range of communication tools such as digital media (blogs, film) to represent their views to local service providers and decision-makers.
These approaches require partnership working between local BME community organisations, ACL providers, local authorities and other service providers such as health authorities, mental health charities, arts organisations etc. Where members of BME communities are passing on aspects of their cultural heritage and traditional skills to others they are likely to benefit from English language support and training in appropriate communication skills.
The commitment of the Coalition Government to the Big Society will require the involvement of the full range of diverse communities living in the UK. At the moment members of BME communities experience their neighbourhoods differently from others, with twice as many believing that racial or religious harassment is a problem in their area: Citizenship Survey 2009-10 . However, the number who think that they would receive worse treatment than people of other races, by any of the eight public service organisations measured by this survey, is falling.
Web Links
Engaging Black and Minority Ethnic Communities
the NIACE Race into Learning project looks at issues faced by adults from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities experiencing mental health difficulties in accessing, progressing and achieving in learning.
Supporting Access to ICT for BME Groups in Deprived Areas: Approaches to Good Practice
a government research report.
