This blog is by Pecan’s Community Engagement Officer Flora and Voices for Southwark member Esther. Flora, Esther and Pecan’s food services team wanted to share the community organising activities they have been working on over the last year.
As a community charity, Pecan offers practical and emotional support to people in Peckham and across Southwark. Pecan and its community food projects are members of Southwark Food Action Alliance. In addition to direct support with food at Southwark Foodbank and Peckham Pantry, Pecan’s community food projects aim to see a Southwark where everyone has enough money to afford the essentials and emergency food is no longer needed. That’s why we’re organising together as a community and campaigning to address structural local issues. Taking an organising approach means that our activities and campaigns are led by and developed with members of our community who have used our foodbank, pantry or have personal experience of financial hardship.
To understand what Pecan’s community organising group is, we will start with a Q&A with Esther about her experiences being part of our community organising group, Voices for Southwark.
Esther, you’ve been part of Pecan’s community organising work since the meetings started in September 2022. Why did you decide to join the Voices for Southwark group discussions?
“As a Southwark resident and member of the local community, I saw the purpose of the campaign and I’m proud to have my voice heard in a particular change in our environment.”
What do you enjoy about being part of Voices for Southwark?
“I enjoy the sharing of ideas. It is not constrained, it’s like freedom of expression. I enjoy the friendliness of the organiser, and the cohesion of the team, and the fact that it’s local.”
Voices for Southwark meet to discuss and address local issues. What improvements could be made to make life in Southwark better?
“We talked about so many changes that we want to see as a group: cleanliness of our borough, affordable transport for all, reducing barriers to getting into employment. For now, we have decided to focus on easily accessible information on local financial support and holistic support combining a range of services.”
Pecan’s Voices for Southwark group was born out of monthly group discussions on local issues in Southwark at Pecan starting in September 2022. Through posters, leaflets and conversations, community members who have used Pecan’s food projects were invited to join the monthly discussion meetings.
The aim was to come together to share our experiences with and thoughts on some of the issues that contribute to financial hardship locally. From our brainstorming and open discussion activities, we narrowed down our list and decided on one issue to focus on for now. This means that the issue we have chosen and our campaign are directly based on the experiences of our Voices for Southwark members.
This is something that’s at the core of our community organising work. Esther explains why participation and organising are important:
“For the services rendered to be effective and productive, the users’ voices have to be heard. Otherwise, it can be a bit pointless. When you’re not listening to the people that you serve, it won’t really have an impact on their lives. It’s the voices of the people that are meant to be heard, but from my own experience, it doesn’t happen most of the time. But we can make a change, and that’s why we’re here.”
Earlier this year, we participated in Southwark Council’s Southwark 2030 programme. Pecan hosted a focus group discussion facilitated by a member of the council’s Community Engagement team. As Voices for Southwark, we joined the discussion and contributed our thoughts for the future of the borough with Southwark Council. It was a lively discussion and great to share a room with a representative from the council, Pecan staff, volunteers and other local residents.
Our plans for the months ahead are to continue our regular meetings and further develop our campaign. We aim to be part of more conversations with local government representatives and other decision-makers to share our plans and ask for a Southwark where everyone can afford the essentials.
To join Voices for Southwark’s campaign or to find out more, please follow Esther’s advice:
“We are a group of volunteers representing Voices for Southwark aiming to bring about change in Southwark. We’ve now decided to focus on the lack of easily accessible information on local financial support. If you want your voice to be heard and your opinion to count, you can join us! We meet once a month at Pecan. Contact Flora via email if you’re interested. The more we are, the more powerful our voice becomes!”
You can read more about Voices for Southwark and read updates about their work in Pecan’s monthly newsletter.