In 2023 we knew we needed to expand the participation team.
Everything was increasing; embedded schools work, large scale programming for young people, weekly activity as well as new frameworks for training and development. We planned with care, launched a callout, held a round of interviews with some lovely people but it wasn’t right, we hadn’t got it right.
We work for necessary change all the time, but the same methods don’t reach everyone. A line at the bottom of an application process saying. ‘we actively encourage applications from….’ is just not enough, we need to be explicit in why we are recruiting people from the Global Majority or any underrepresented community.
Simply this; if you disguise the fact that you are looking for me, I will be invisible when you find me!
On paper it was a great moment to dream big about who this professional reneged[?] could be. In reality we came to the conclusion that they probably didn’t exist not because brilliant people don’t exist but because as organisations we have put too much emphasis on people being 101 things with a cherry on top. Be young enough to be fresh but old enough to have experience, be proficient in admin, leading, delivery, funding, bungee jumping, public speaking and part of the UN, its too much!
We revisited the role, tore it up and started again, clear, concise and came up with a scheme supported by the brilliant Paul Hamlyn foundation. Explicitly Participation Producer from the Global Majority.
We had more people apply, all new people, people who weren’t even on our radar and it was evident that most of them could have applied for the original role.
So why was this call out more ‘successful’?
- People want space to not have to know everything, a scheme lays it on the line that this is about learning and having the space to do that in real life situations whilst being supported.
- Paid, real money, real salary with holiday pay, plus a CPD fund to go and develop areas of growth. We cannot underestimate the privilege of opportunities to experience new things and hear different voices, money makes that happen lets not pretend it doesn’t.
- A chance to lean into different aspects of participation, at the end of the scheme if you come out loving delivering practical sessions but hate producing, it’s not a failure. You may have saved yourself 10 years doing a job you hate, leaving with clarity not confusion is the aim.
- It’s time sensitive, it’s not a role that is on your epitaph ‘ worked at Strike a Light from 2024-2067’, move on, move out, move up go put into practice what you have learnt and develop it in another setting. Have comparisons.
I don’t want to keep feeding into the narrative of having to be excellent. It’s exhausting, restrictive and makes you work in a hyperalert state, nothing feels safe unless you are brilliant. Who wants to carry that weight and why should they? Not enough organisations have the awareness of this for underrepresented people.
We are almost at the end of the two year scheme and have learnt loads but it is without a doubt that schemes like this are needed and are a crucial step in ethically developing the cultural workforce in the UK and in acknowledgement that systemic change does not happen without recalculating the route in which people can get into the sector.
– Charlene Olaleye (Head of Participation)
Strike A Light 