Are the Lords listening? Creating connections between people and Parliament - Information Committee Contents


Memorandum by the Fawcett Society

BACKGROUND

  The Fawcett Society is the UK's leading campaign for women's rights. Fawcett runs femocracy, a campaign on ethnic minority women and politics. It works directly with ethnic minority women on their political empowerment to increase the number of ethnic minority women registered to vote and engaged in politics.[9]

Through a series of outreach events delivered in partnership with grassroots ethnic minority women's organisations, femocracy builds ethnic minority women's understanding of politics; awareness of how democracy is organised; and confidence to take part and influence political decision making.

As part of femocracy's outreach programme, Fawcett has been working in partnership with the Parliamentary Outreach programme. Based on this partnership work and our expertise in engaging ethnic minority women in politics, Fawcett would like to make the following submission to the House of Lords Committee "People and Parliament Inquiry".

  The submission highlights some of the key benefits to the Fawcett and Parliament Outreach partnership as an illustration of the strengths of the House of Lords outreach programmes. It also makes recommendations on how the House of Lords, in the context of Parliament, could enhance the effectiveness of its outreach work in reaching and engaging ethnic minority women.

THE VALUE OF HOUSE OF LORDS OUTREACH: FAWCETT AND PARLIAMENT OUTREACH PARTNERSHIP

  Fawcett has been working successfully in partnership with the Parliament Outreach programme since autumn 2008. The partnership has enabled the Parliament Outreach programme to engage with ethnic minority women who are one of the groups most politically marginalised and disengaged from mainstream politics: the outreach team has participated at four "Get Your Voice Heard" events delivered by femocracy in Birmingham and Burnley. It also contributed to "Your Voice", Fawcett's tailored guide to democracy for ethnic minority women.[10]

The partnership has also bolstered Fawcett's outreach programme of work aimed at building awareness of the opportunities ethnic minority women have to influence and engage with UK political institutions.

  It is evident from the Parliament Outreach engagement with femocracy that the House of Lords outreach programmes provide a valued service. The following excerpts from ethnic minority women who attended past femocracy events demonstrate the positive impact the participation of the Parliament Outreach programme has had, not only in promoting engagement in Parliament, but also in Parliament demonstrating a willingness to improve relations with the public:

    "Very informative and interesting; I will now look on the Parliament website and give my opinion on issues. I didn't know of this site before."

    "The workshop was great with a clear explanation of how Parliament works."

    "I'm encouraged to learn that Parliament has taken on the initiative of going out and engaging with the people."

ENHANCING ENGAGEMENT: FEMOCRACY OUTREACH STRATEGY

  Ethnic minority women experience distinct barriers to participating in politics. These include low awareness levels of political processes and limited availability of tailored communications that demonstrate how politics is relevant to their lives. As a result ethnic minority women are underrepresented on the electoral register and are one of the most excluded groups from formal political and decision making processes being less likely to be engaged with mainstream politics than white women and ethnic minority men.

Frequently outreach programmes adopt the "road-show model": a series of large regional events are delivered in a number of locations and participants are invited to attend.

  Fawcett has found that this "one-size-purpose-built" approach to outreach is not effective in engaging ethnic minority women who are marginalised from politics. Inherent to the foundation of this approach is a hidden prerequisite that participants already have a level of interest and engagement in politics and that this will stimulate their registering and attendance at the event. The result is that outreach is limited in its reach with the "usual suspects" outreached to; leaving a wider audience unreached and the outreach programme falling short of its potential impact.

  To address both the barriers to political participation facing ethnic minority women and the risk posed by the "road-show model", femocracy developed a unique approach to delivering its programme of outreach to ethnic minority women based on the PAL approach: partnered events, adapted programmes and local delivery.

  Partnered events: Outreach events are always done in partnership with grassroots ethnic minority women's organisations, which have strong links with individual women. Working with ethnic minority women's organisations to deliver events has a number of advantages:

    —  it builds trust and interest in events;

    —  it allows outreach to be wider reaching; organisations, depending on resources and Fawcett's level of investment as the lead partner, can cascade learning and communications after the event through their extensive networks; and

    —  it develops "snow-ball" outreach whereby new potential partners are identified through existing networks.

  Adapted programmes: The outreach programme, rather than being "one-size-purpose-built", is tailored uniquely to meet the needs of the women that the organisation services. It is developed in partnership with the organisation in order to best address low levels of awareness. This ensures tailored communications are developed. Furthermore it ensures appropriate and relevant activities are delivered that speak to the lives of ethnic minority women and successfully engage them in politics.

  Local delivery: The events are delivered locally in the community, rather than being hosted in principle cities in a region. Travel costs and managing caring responsibilities, mean many women find it difficult to travel across regions to attend events. Local events increase engagement with women, who may be excluded from attending events if extensive travel is required.

  Fawcett's strategy for delivering successful outreach activities has proven that a tailored and intensive approach works best to engaging ethnic minority women in politics.

  To enhance the effectiveness of the House of Lords outreach programmes to marginalised ethnic minority women, we recommend that Fawcett's PAL approach be adopted.

5 June 2009





9   For further information on femocracy visit www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/femocracy Back

10   http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/?PageID=874 Back


 
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