THE DIFFERENCE MAKERS

My background is in international development. I have over 30 years’ experience working in Africa and Asia, heading up international programmes for leading British NGOs including Oxfam, Water Aid, International Childcare Trust and Marie Stopes International. Every time I returned to my home in Maida Vale, I would see people from those same African and Asian communities living just around the corner from me, in the Church Street area – and yet here they seemed even more disadvantaged, especially the women. They also face discrimination and inequality.

Whenever I’d go to pick up my daughter from her primary school, I would see Bengali, Sudanese and Moroccan mothers congregating in separate groups. I would say to them: “You don’t mix. What’s the problem? You’re all Muslims, but you don’t talk to each other.” I gradually discovered that there’s a lot of suspicion and fear. The more I interacted with them, the more I discovered that most of the problems are to do with broken relationships within the families, between the families, within the communities and between the communities.

That is why in 2005 I founded The Mosaic Community Trust. A mosaic is broken pieces of different shapes, colours, forms and sizes, which come together to form a beautiful image. Our mission is to empower a diversity of socially and economically marginalised and disadvantaged communities and bring them together in that same way.

Introducing the people behind Marylebone’s vital charities and community organisations: Lena Choudary-Salter, founder and CEO of The Mosaic Community Trust

Interview: Jean-Paul Aubin-Parvu

Portraits: Orlando Gili

The problems are the result of deep-rooted deprivation. People are being deprived of opportunities and deprived of access to appropriate, culturally accessible, high-quality services. Policy makers and strategy bodies are often dismissive of social issues, particularly in BAME communities who form the majority in the Church Street and Paddington Green areas. There are all sorts of damaging stereotypes – for example, that culturally they aren’t interested in improving and that their aspirations aren’t very high. That’s simply not true.

Right now, the major problems that directly affect these communities are postcode gangs, drugs, knife crime and county lines. County lines, particularly, target vulnerable households – for example, single mothers with young girls, whose social and economic vulnerability has made them depressed, mentally at high risk. They are full of fear, anxiety and stress, so they can’t think clearly. But nobody is systematically addressing these common problems. The authorities aren’t adequately equipped to respond.

We see young girls being befriended by drug dealers, sexually exploited and used for drug dealing. The police ask for evidence, but it’s difficult to provide. The mothers know this is happening, but because of the risk of stigma and discrimination, parents don’t want to openly acknowledge these problems. We have a lot of communitylevel intelligence, but the mothers say to us: “Please don’t tell this to social services or our child might be taken away.”

The language barrier is another problem. Women who cannot articulate well in English often don’t say what they > want to say, and what they mean. They’re misunderstood and so are misrepresented. Even when they use interpreters, they don’t have confidence that they are being fully heard and understood.

There are many reasons why women who’ve been in this country for many years still don’t speak English. One is that their husbands and their husbands’ families don’t want their wives and daughters to attend English classes, because of the fear that they might become too independent, too emancipated or too westernised.

Another major problem that we deal with is the parenting gap, which is where The Portman Estate is supporting us so strongly. For many of our mothers, there’s a huge gap in the kind of parenting that they know and the kind of parenting that is needed by their children. Their children are born and brought up in this country and so their needs are different, and the mothers who are uneducated, illiterate and can’t speak English, are unable to communicate effectively with them. As a result, a gap opens up in their relationship.

The problem is particularly acute if a school identifies that a child may have learning difficulties. Parents often don’t want to accept that diagnosis, due to the stigma and discrimination within their own community – for example, the idea that God has cursed this woman and that’s why she’s produced such a child. This inhibits our mothers from sharing. Eventually the parents may even remove their child from school and put them into another because they don’t want to accept that the child has any problems.

We receive funding from The Portman Estate to help educate parents about their children’s additional needs. What are they? How do you identify them? What are the signs? Why is early intervention so critical? We are now creating safe platforms, safe spaces, where mothers can come and talk, knowing that everything will remain confidential. We also challenge the mothers who use religion as a barrier to dealing with social issues.

We divide our services and activities into several areas. Mosaic is a rights-based organisation, which means we focus on assets that exist within the communities. We want everyone to recognise that we are dealing with communities that are rich in knowledge, skills and ability. The women want to be valued as individuals who can contribute to their own development. The Mosaic Community Trust empowers them by giving them additional skills and knowledge, enables them through training, workshops and events, and builds their assets in the community so that they can take control over their lives. They can be active partners in finding and developing solutions to the issues that I’ve just identified.

Patient empowerment activities are another key area. People from ethnic minority backgrounds often feel like they don’t get the same access to public health services. Take access to GPs, for example. The majority of our people feel that they’re unable to make face-to-face appointments to see the doctors, and even when they are able to see one, the doctors often don’t know how to communicate with them. So we work very closely with the GP practices and other local NHS health providers. We bring them to the community, holding regular events where GPs, practice managers, nurses and consultants meet with the patients to listen to their concerns. We want to improve access and reduce these health inequalities.

Community engagement is our flagship. We believe that the communities themselves need to actively engage in providing care, support and befriending. The existing public services will never have the resources to be able to meet all the needs of the community. We work in partnership with these service providers and enable communities to actively engage in the provision of care and support for their families and neighbours. This happens through training, through giving people the necessary skills to provide care, knowledge and information. For example, our trained community wellbeing advocates will take care of a patient after they’ve been discharged from hospital, including shopping and cooking for them, even providing therapeutic head massage for pain relief, relaxation and to reduce stress and anxiety. This reduces the burden on the NHS and the council, and improves health and wellbeing.

Creating social awareness is another key area. We have to continually challenge stigma and discrimination within our communities, while also tackling inequality and discrimination among service providers and policy makers. We also focus on crime and safety, especially the protection of young people, making sure that parents are aware of the dangers of drugs and gangs. We bring in external resources from the council and the police, who run regular workshops for the community.

Mosaic is a very small organisation. We can’t provide all the services ourselves, so we value collaborations and partnerships. We bring resources to the community, because otherwise they won’t access them. When we provide services within their own safe space, their own communities, the uptake is so high. We also provide practical support in the form of advice, information, befriending services, signposting, referral services and so on.

The thing I love most about my job is having huge opportunities to inspire, motivate and enable others to engage in community work and make a difference to the lives of deprived communities. I can’t tell you how grateful and privileged I feel that every day I have a new opportunity to make a difference, to tackle a new problem, to bring a new solution and to mobilise a new resource. The Mosaic Community Trust has made a huge difference to these local communities.

THE MOSAIC COMMUNITY TRUST mosaiccommunitytrust.org.uk

“We are dealing with communities that are rich in knowledge, skills and ability. The women want to be valued as individuals who can contribute to their own development.”