Healing community harm: reflections from the sector
This is a blog by our Communications and Campaigns Manager, Keeva Baxter.
Last week, Why me? ran a forum, “Healing Community Harm”, bringing the sector together to discuss how we can use restorative interventions to address the widespread harm caused by the racist and Islamophobic violence in early August.
Attendees spoke of the different ways that the violence affected them and their communities, from violence and hate crimes, to abuse of police, fear and disruption. In convening this meeting, we wanted to offer a platform to discuss how a restorative mindset can help both tackle the harm that has already been caused and prevent it from happening again in the future.
We started by briefly covering what happened and sharing some positive stories of communities coming together to start the journey to recovery. For example, worshippers and religious leaders from a Liverpool mosque met with protestors outside, resulting in deep conversations between the groups and the sharing of food and handshakes. This story demonstrates the power of conversation and emphasises the need to offer dialogue to the other people affected across the country.
Many other positive examples of a restorative attitude arose in the aftermath of the violence, with people coming together to clean the streets, repair buildings, offer food and raise money for those most impacted.
the cleanup, which we heard about – all the local tradesmen rallying around, helping the local mosque that was damaged, rebuilding walls, etc. Those are the positives to take out of this, and people will come to terms with it. John Hayes, victim of the Southport attack
We went on to discuss what actions had been taken by the restorative services represented at the forum, hearing stories of restorative circles, work with anti-radicalisation or refugee groups and direct meetings with young people involved in the violence. Services across the country shared what has worked well in their area, both in tackling the recent violence and previous similar incidents. They also shared ideas for future interventions that they believe could make a difference to their local area. After gathering these testimonies, we are now producing a short guide exploring different restorative options for healing community harm. We will be sharing best practice in the guide, alongside some of the challenges that the group identified in delivering Restorative Justice for these cases.
As one of our forum attendees pointed out, while the violence has stopped, the rhetoric of hate and intolerance has not gone away, with the Government’s announcement of cuts to the winter fuel allowance sparking further anger. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that we tackle the harm while we can, reduce the likelihood of reoffending, help people to see the impact of their actions and build resilient communities.
We hope that this conversation and the resulting guide will be useful as areas continue to heal and work to prevent future instances of hate. By sharing ideas and collaborating, we hope to implement a unified and restorative response, helping more people to recover and move forwards.
We look forward to sharing our progress with you in the coming weeks. If you have any examples of what has worked well for you, or opportunities for further restorative work, please get in touch with Keeva at keeva.baxter@why-me.org.
