What I've learnt about value and justice through our work placement programme
Tess, our Founder, shares her reflections on what the latest iteration of our work placement programme has taught her about value, justice and the power we all have to invest in change.
Tess, Prisca and Sonia at the Collaborative Future 2021 celebration event
The other day I was telling a fellow founder about our collaborative and inclusive approaches to building transformational work placement programmes centred around underrepresented and undervalued young people. I shared how hard it was to secure funding in spite of the deep change I believed we were creating and how I’d had to take out a £20k loan to foot the additional costs of our programme this year.
They said “well of course why would anyone fund something that is making a loss?”. The word ‘loss’ rang hard in my chest. Growing up in a family where debt and money worries were the norm it’s been emotionally draining for me to have such substantial financial challenges hanging over me these past 6 months. But the word ‘loss’ suggests grief, sadness, failure, or shame. The fact that our team (throughout a pandemic and with no substantial funding) have managed to continuously find energy and money to run a programme where marginalised people can find strength, courage and connections to help them create a vibrant, thriving existence is anything BUT a ‘loss’.
Our programme this year cost around £80,000. It provided 6 months of paid work for 7 young women who were previously unemployed, who in turn provided 2,625 hours of hands-on support and numerous fresh ideas for 19 growing small businesses. The programme has only just officially ended but already Nuriya, Anne-Marie and Tracy have gained full-time employment, while Jane, Shanice and Becky have picked up further self-employed work and Laura has decided to go to university.
But that’s not all. Our coaching, mentoring and wide-ranging events exploring issues from systemic bias to self-confidence have armed these young women with the confidence to know their worth and a community of supporters who believe in their talents. Considering they live in a world that tells them in a million different ways that they are ‘less than’, you cannot put a value on these kinds of outcomes for them personally or for the people they may cross paths with and inspire in the future.
In turn striving to deliver this kind of value and change in a society that's stacked against female leaders has been a therapeutic process for myself and my two teammates. I've discovered a sense of belonging that I've never felt before in my life. Our cohort and our team have opened our eyes to the possibilities of an equitable world of work where compassion and empowerment triumph over competition and extraction. We’ve confronted the harmful narratives we’ve been fed and healed wounds left from our previous toxic situations and workplaces. Transformational change is not a numbers game. It is a deep process that each individual has to feel safe enough to embark on. And that individual change has the power to affect everyone. As we heal ourselves we learn how to help others to recognise their own harmful beliefs and toxic situations, and in turn to heal themselves too.
Testimonial from internship candidate: “I genuinely enjoyed the process - it was innovative and refreshing”
What’s more we’ve proven how to practically build a diverse team where everyone is empowered to thrive. Our transparent recruitment processes have proven time and again that we can attract diverse talent with wide-ranging skills, and create a valuable and transformational experience even for the candidates who were unsuccessful. We’ve shown managers how to trust young people to explore their skills and demonstrate their creative talents and problem-solving. We’ve explored together different routes for prioritising rest and flexibility in the workplace, and understood that looking after our wellbeing is more valuable to everyone than people spinning their wheels and burning out (which has catalysed some exciting decisions for our next programmes where we won’t be clocking days/hours worked for businesses but instead focussing on a better balance of delivering value & sustaining our health). We’ve delivered mutual exchanges of learning and knowledge, which break down power dynamics and give everyone involved countless opportunities for light bulb moments. We’re still learning and there’s still so much capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal conditioning that we need to unpack within ourselves and within the organisations we work with, but we know now that our programme is justice in action. And the value of that is unquantifiable.
The professionalism, commitment and creativity from our cohort of young women and our team through this last 6 months, in spite of the constant challenges that face them, far surpasses anything I've witnessed in the male dominated worlds I've worked in to date. You only have to listen to them speak and see their work to know that it is complete madness that this programme even has to exist.
There are millions of leaders, funders and entrepreneurs with unimaginable power and money who sit and intellectualise systems change, spouting phrases like "hard to reach" and "social mobility". Time and again they fail to invest energy and money into radical change because it's too "risky" or not "financially viable", or in other words is perceived as a “loss”. But justice is the only viable option for the future, and the only risk is that we finally create a world where everyone is valued and free to exist joyfully.
So if you’re ready to invest in building equitable systems, justice, healing and ultimately a better world we’re ready to partner to generate meaningful change in your team, your community and our wider society. Book in for an informal, 15min chat here.