Unheard voices: power and purposeful participation
How can excluded groups realise their power?
Contacts
This programme has been about empowering people who have not had control over the decisions affecting their lives.
Although groups can carry the very different identities of, for example, migrants, disabled people, older people, mental health service users and people in poverty, we tried not to label anybody as 'powerless' or 'vulnerable'. Rather, we concentrated on what we all share as 'people' – on the power that groups can have, the power they can share, the power that holds them back and the power that is often hidden and rests with others.
This programme has been directed throughout by people with personal experiences of these identities. The group resisted an easier take on 'unheard voices'. Having your voice heard was not enough. There was a danger that, unless we addressed fundamental issues of power and participation, we would simply get more people involved in consultations and take their knowledge but not share power.
For the past 20 months (June 2011) the programme team have been looking at the fundamental issues of power-sharing. These have included:
- the possibilities of working across labels and identities;
- the shared and different stories owned by people themselves;
- evidence and examples of bringing about change (in our own lives, communities and movements);
- exploring useable and valued approaches to developing and sharing power;
- drawing together learning in ways that can be used and useful.
Some of this work has been grounded in a project on power analysis – providing one lens through which to make sense of power and participation. In addition, we have been working with people in different circumstances, including work between people with learning difficulties and black mental health service users and shared discussions between migrant and indigenous populations.
The plans for 2011 are:
- to hold a bottom-up inquiry drawing together lessons from work to date;
- to help share and disseminate stories of people’s lives and of bringing about real change;
- to develop accessible resources to allow these to be shared and;
- to point to ideas that would be worth developing in the future, such as 'kitchen conversations', 'power analysis' and exploratory approaches to joint working.
