Community Power Podcast Series 1 Episode 5: Community leadership in Walsall

Episode 5: Community leadership in Walsall

Chris Allen

Hello and welcome to the Community Power Podcast, a weekly series brought to you by the Community Wealth Fund campaign in partnership with Local Trust. My name is Chris Allen, and in this series, we’re showcasing some incredible projects, focusing in particular on what happens when you give local people the power, the money and the assets to make a difference to their neighbourhoods. With me is series producer Beth Lazenby. Beth, where is my virtual visit to this week? 

Beth Lazenby

So this week, Chris, we’re off to Palfrey in the West Midlands, and we’re going to be chatting to the amazing Imrana. Imrana has been part of our Community Leadership Academy. She runs her own social enterprise, and most recently, she’s been a judge at an event empowering young people to reduce violence in the local area. 

Chris Allen

Thanks, Beth. Indeed, Imrana Niazi is the chair of Palfrey Big Local which is in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the Black Country. And first of all, I asked Imrana, what makes Palfrey such a special place? 

Imrana Niazi

What makes Palfrey really, really special is the people of Palfrey. The kindness, willingness to help others, and just being surrounded with great people is what makes Palfrey really, really special. The majority is Asian and growing with Eastern European. 

Chris Allen

And you’ve been involved from the beginning, I seem to remember? 

Imrana Niazi

Yes, I’ve been part of the Big Local programme right from the start, in 2012 when it was first introduced. Unfortunately, I had lost my father in 2012 to cancer. It was a very short illness. And when my father, when we were getting the right care for my father, the challenges of getting him the right care was very distressing. To know what our patient’s right was, to get the right care for my father was very, very difficult. That led me to enroll into the Big Local programme, wanting to promote good health, the health awareness, where people should go when they require additional help when it comes to their health. That’s what led me to join Big Local. 

Chris Allen

Well, certainly he was an inspiration to you right through your life. But it sounds like his passing also has been an inspiration going on with into Big Local and giving you a determination. Because the road of Palfrey is not always been an easy one to follow. 

Imrana Niazi

No, not at all. So my father, you know, loved by many in the community. Something he always taught us was everybody wants good for themselves, but the good ones are those who want good for others. I think that’s what Big Local means to me, to pass on his legacy of helping others. 

Chris Allen

You’ve also been involved with the Community Leadership Academy. Now, I’ve known you for many, many years, and you seem to have all that community leadership there already. What was the kind of added value of you got out of the academy itself? 

Imrana Niazi

I was part of the pilot programme, and so I had the one-to-one, well before the CLA (Community Leadership Academy) came into force. And it was, it gave me that space of just being myself and being honest and not giving. It was more somebody listening to me. So that was really, it was very timely. 

Chris Allen

And that’s important for people to grasp as well, because when it has the word ​‘academy’ there, it sounds like it’s, you know, it’s a bit scary, to be honest. What you’re saying actually, it’s a really safe place in which you can learn, and you learn often by talking to others and then and sharing ideas. 

Imrana Niazi

Absolutely. So when, when it was introduced, I laughed at the thought of being called a community leader. That’s like, ​“I’m not a community leader. I’m just a volunteer that wants to do good.” I see it as my duty. And when we had joined the Leadership Academy, the team was so fantastic, and being able to be around surrounded with volunteers – because that’s who we are, we’re volunteers – and to share that platform and to share the same experiences was very therapeutic. We used to look forward to going to the CLA Academy. Obviously, it was moved to Zoom due to the pandemic, but it didn’t make a difference. It wasn’t all it had to be done in person, and it was great. 

We used to make a list of things that we wanted to discuss. The Leadership Academy would come to talk to us about the different leadership styles, how to resolve conflicts, which is major in most of our Big Locals. In creating that resilience and inspiring us to believe our own strengths, whereas in community, when you are delivering it is just go, go, go, go. But that pause was the CLA, where we were reflecting. We were saying, ​“How could we do it better? What were the what changes could we have made? What more can we do?” There was just so much support in the CLA itself was just amazing. 

Chris Allen

I think sometimes we take for granted that people are confident people. I probably take you take for granted you’re a confident person. But it sounds like that, that the Academy, actually built up your confidence, as well as providing you some very practical skills that you can use in the Big Local area. 

Imrana Niazi

Absolutely I think I was a good actor, if you thought I was very confident, Chris. With the CLA, that allowed us to put the guard down, to be the real me, and say, ​“Do you know what I really struggled with that”, or ​“Can somebody help me with this? How could I have done this better?” ​“I’m not comfortable with this conversation”, and it was all those things. So it’s then all of a sudden, playing two roles. Being that confident person, the real confident person in the community, but then getting the support through the CLA. 

Chris Allen

I remember the first Big Local Connects, the one that was down in London. I had the privilege of actually sitting at the back of the room, and I was just assigned, just randomly assigned, to your room. But I was so glad I was and I heard all about the ​“I matter” campaign, which I found incredibly moving. Tell us about it. 

Imrana Niazi

The residents were showing great concerns about the crime in the area. The board felt in 2017 that we needed to do more work with our Neighbourhood Policing to see what are the crimes. And what can we do to play our part. In 2017 we did a consultation with our residents. We had meetings with local police officers that came to our attention that, you know, child sexual exploitation was on the increase, drugs, gangs, which caused a lot of conflicts within our board. I think it was seen that we should be holding the police to account on some of those things. And having conversations with the police, we thought the right thing to do was to work with the police and resolve the conflicts or the lack of partnership that we had with them. So in 2017, the board decided we will launch a programme called the ​“I matter Walsall”, and having a clear understanding that what we’re trying to do is create that awareness within our community and signpost how to report crimes. 

Chris Allen

Was that conflict in the board resolved? Or did some people think, ​“No, we shouldn’t be working with the police.” 

Imrana Niazi

Unfortunately, the members who didn’t want to work with the police, they resigned. But it was about the community, and it wasn’t about personal conflicts. 

Chris Allen

So your bravery, in some ways, of listening to the community saying that this is what the community wants, and this is the route we go down, it was a bit of a watershed moment for the partnership itself in terms of how you’re going to work moving forward? 

Imrana Niazi

Absolutely, it was that knowing your resilience, and knowing, you know the Big Local programme is all about the community, so we wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be true if I did decide with the ones who did have the conflict. I went with what the community wanted. And I guess that’s why I was there. I was there representing my community, the community said we need to do more, and doing more means working in partnership with the police. 

Chris Allen

So what did you do? Child sexual exploitation is a big, big matter to take on board. You were going to stir some parts weren’t you, doing that? 

Imrana Niazi

Yeah, so we worked with a survivor from Rotherham and engaged with the schools, and to say that we want to create an awareness programme going into schools, share the unfortunate experience of survivors, to create that awareness and then signpost children, victims, survivors to the relevant support networks. And it was quite fast-paced. And I think working with the police at that time, it was very much meetings, action, meetings. We were very, very fast in how we created that awareness. I think in six months, we created awareness to 6000 children, 1000 community members. And it was done through different methods: having survivors talk to the children, having leaflets to parents, having word searches, going to parents, and community settings. We had a board that had hidden crimes on and then when community activities were taking place, we would say, ​“let’s have a conversation on the crimes.” It was just an interactive way of talking to the community on matters that related to them. 

Chris Allen

And as things came to light in different places, what was the kind of reaction you were getting from parts of the community that you were trying to expose? 

Imrana Niazi

It wasn’t more exposing anyone, it was more supporting everyone and standing up to bullies, standing up to crime. The community itself took on the project really, really well. We had the backing of our residents. We had the backing of our local police. Some of our partners. So we just went from strength to strength. 

Chris Allen

And what about the political backing? 

Imrana Niazi

There was a lot of political pressure on, you know. ​“You’re just a volunteer. You won’t be, you won’t get far.” You know, ​“Join our party, and we’ll push it on our agenda.” And I, I strongly believe that as a community member, I don’t need to be part, I don’t need to be affiliated to any political party to make a difference in my community. And I stand firm on that. And we didn’t, and obviously that caused a bit of upset, but it’s fine, because Big Local gave us that power to do what we want for the community. 

Chris Allen

You know, we’re a few years down the line now, since that started, what’s the kind of longer-term outcomes for the area? 

Imrana Niazi

We took on some other projects such as the Terriers play from Liverpool. They came to Palfrey, and it was showcasing guns, gangs, drugs in a theatre play which was really good. We then did [anti] knife crime pledges, going into schools, talking to children, and what does it mean to them about carrying a knife or knife crime itself. And then had the Walsall Football Club launched that taking over, united against any crime in Palfrey, which was really good. I spoke to the board that, you know, there’s an opportunity to take this on as my own social enterprise. And they were very supportive. They pushed me. And I created games, so readapted commonly played games to create awareness on crime such as child sexual exploitation, child trafficking, drugs, gangs. 

So I do a 90-minutes workshop in primary school because I believe that early intervention is crucial. Secondary level was probably too late. So these very, very colourful, readapted games allowed those children to engage, to talk about the crimes, to identify the crimes, talk about the consequences of the crime, and then, what are the choices from those crimes? What, what should, what should be the right choices? And obviously that’s very hard to educate. What are the right choices, something that children have to experience, but to be made aware that there will always be consequences. So the six games, when they’re played, they’ll have a body in form of a puppet. The Puppet is the one that will tell the story, and that’s just to allow children to discreetly share their own experience, or share what their understanding of the workshop is. 

Chris Allen

Sounds absolutely tremendous, and will have that ongoing impact. And again, the way you’re doing it, with working with children in that kind of very gentle way, that very safe way, will also have those that long-term impact. Now, most recently, you’ve got yourself into another young person’s project, the Lionheart challenge. And that’s more than just your ordinary kind of youth work stuff this, isn’t it? Tell us about it. 

Imrana Niazi

It’s Lionheart challenge thing that’s been going on for 25 years. It’s a national programme. It’s a bit like The Apprentice, social enterprise. 

Chris Allen

People don’t get fired. 

Imrana Niazi

No, nobody gets fired. 

Chris Allen

That’s okay then. 

Imrana Niazi

Nobody gets fired. So we went into schools, five schools, we chose locally, secondary schools, and we set them a task of creating a business plan of a Community Action Project. They were given all the tools to set up their own business, the research, the marketing, the finance, their partners. They had to sell their idea and then present it to the audience, and then they would be awarded on those categories. We thought that it would be all about youth, but there wasn’t. It was all about the community. It was about food banks. It was about supporting carers. It was about digital support for the elderly. And we were a bit surprised with all the empathy that the youth were showing. 

Chris Allen

That shows great insights from them, doesn’t it? And perhaps we patronise young people so often by thinking, ​“Oh, they don’t understand all this stuff”. They may understand it a little bit more than even we do. 

Imrana Niazi

Yeah. I was thinking, ​“Okay, we need to have this more focused on the youth, especially with the crime increasing locally, nationally as well”. We thought, let’s give them another challenge. Invite the two winners from each school to a final and say, ​“Okay, how can you reduce youth violence?” They were outstanding. They were really, really good. The initiatives that came out was even better. So moving forward, what Palfrey Big Local will be doing is having all the initiatives, collating all the data from the Lionheart challenge, and to see which of those initiatives we can bring to life, empower children and to ensure that their voice is heard. 

Chris Allen

Imrana, thank you ever so much. And through you, thank you to those who work with you and having had the privilege of knowing you over the 10 years so far that do feel a bit longer sometimes. Thank you for all the effort and energy you’ve put into Palfrey and the massive difference you’ve made, and if you decide you want to rest at the end of this, I think it’s very well deserved. 

Imrana Niazi

Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for the invite. 

Chris Allen

That is Imrana Niazi, Chair of Palfrey Big Local in Walsall, inspired by her father and determined to make such a difference in her community. Where can we find out more, Beth? 

Beth Lazenby

As always, Chris, you can find out all you need to know in the show notes, including more about the I Matter programme. And also a link to Palfrey Big Local’s website. 

Chris Allen

Thanks, Beth. And we look forward to you joining us next time on the Community Power Podcast, brought to you by the Community Wealth Fund campaign and Local Trust, discovering what happens when you give local people the money power and assets to make a difference to their neighbourhoods.