I AM COMMUNITY PROJECT / BLESST CIC

By Malieka Selassie.

I am Community is a community initiative, designed to put the communities voice at the forefront of community reform and community development. The plan is to continually ask members in the community imperative questions about the Black community’s position on key issues, such as youth violence, oversexualisation of children, mental health, lack of safe spaces, community gatekeepers, hyper/toxic masculinity, toxic femininity…….the list is endless.

This will be done in a plethora of ways utilising, social media, online surveys, focus groups, workshops podcasts with the 9 areas of people activity from the Isis Papers as the framework for all of the above.

The 9 areas of people activity are as follows, Entertainment Education, Law, Labour, Economics, Politics, Sex, War and Religion. These categories serve as a basis for exploration and further compartmentalisation.

The vision is that I Am Community will ask these questions and many others as to inform Black Scholars Community Activism, Black Academics, Community Practitioners, Psychotherapists, Counsellors and others working in the field of the community stated needs and solutions.

The long term objective is to eradicate or lessen guessing, pontificating, theorising about the Black community and also bridges the gap between the Black community and Black Academic and other community workers. I am Community sees this as vital to community reform.

I am community would be at the forefront of data collection and solution orientated discussions focused on

engaging with the community to the community first and foremost, this portion of the project will be on going for the entirety of I am community’s existence, as part of the long-term objective to promote a more strategic and systematic approach to community reform and development.

The Ethos

I am community seeks to start a series of overdue but much needed conversations within the Black communities. With 70 years of the Black British experience behind us,the socioeconomical status of Blackness has largely remained the same with the notion that in some areas it has progressively worsened. However this notion is particularly nuanced as inherent biases are also a mitigating factor in our understanding of the Black experience. What cannot be denied is that there is a stagnation in terms of Black community progression globally.

In order to progress we must know things, that is to state we the collective must ask the uncomfortable questions to our Self/Selves and each other for there to a forward motion. Forward motion is change, the community needs to collectively assess what is and is not working, so the community can change, unless the data suggests that the community is content with its current position.

THE COMMUNITY MUST COMMUNICATE.

It is necessary that this communication be grounded in the philosophy of Love, underpinned with Compassion, Grace, Forgiveness and most importantly Trust.

I am community is rooted in radical grassroots politics, with Black self -determination and self -reliance as part of it’s of the foundation, this position may heavily influence the perception of I am Community… however I am community seeks to be an example how radical and liberal organisations can and do collaborate successfully.

I Am Community.

Progress Starts with A Conversation.

#community #unity #blacklove #blackpower #iamcommunity