Community empowerment

Hopelessness stifles a community like a thick fog. It creeps through the streets clouding the doors and windows of all the houses it reaches. When hopelessness starts to consume many houses in a community, the spirit of the people inside them is weakened and they become trapped and fearful, unable to see any alternative before them.

But an alternative is organising right outside – and with it comes hope. Traditionally unions campaign for rights in the workplace, but Unite have brought this support to your door, offering unionised membership locally through Unite Community.

Its projects serve to drive energy back into neighbourhoods, breathing life into people who are immobilised by austerity and re-engaging the dispirited into actively fighting back.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner explains, “It’s about empowering people who are bearing the brunt of a crisis they never created. Giving them a voice, an opportunity to stand up and benefit from the solidarity that can be gained from standing together.”

Unite Community projects are building momentum in every corner of the country, having already won countless campaigns including saving youth centres, protecting local jobs, supporting food banks, opposing the payday lender loan sharks and backing members in their fight against the Bedroom Tax.

“We have over 7,000 inspiring members of our Community initiative and they bring a new vitality and energy that we’ve not seen before in our union for many years” Steve continues.

“These are people who have been failed by a political class that has no understanding of the lifestyles they are expected to live in austerity Britain today.

“As time progresses our industrial membership will engage more with our community campaigns and so we’ll build an army of activists. Unite Community is not an annex; we are an integral part of our union.”

The union support has particularly resonated in Northern Ireland where a Unite Community project has saved lives.

Tragically at the end of last year ten young people were so consumed with despair that the only option they could see was to take their own life.

The Community branch in Belfast responded by offering a training programme that taught people to be able to identify signs of depression and suicide, giving them the tools to protect and support each other and restoring some union to a largely divided city.

Jimmy Kelly, Unite regional secretary for Ireland said of the suicide programme, “I can only imagine the grief that comes into a family after a suicide but we hope that this initiative can help to get them get to the next step in rebuilding their lives.

“These sons and daughters felt they had no hope, no future, and that taking their lives was the only option. It is vital that we can send a message to other young people that they are not alone, there is a collective here and there is always a way forward, and Unite Community is helping to build that for them.”

It is also changing people’s lives. Unite Community members become courageous, bold activists. Inspiring each other to stand up for their families and community, and bring positive change to their hometowns.

By standing together, communities can stand stronger. The success of Unite Community so far has proven that, and its future is certainly full of potential. At its heart, its projects empower people to not be afraid to use their voice and together walk through the fog into the clarity of hope.

Learning – new skills for Belfast members. Photo by Press Eye