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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
12 February 2021
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This week, we sat down with Rich Flowerdew for #CloreSocialFellowFriday. Rich is a Clore Social Fellow from our 2020 Leading Beyond Lockdown Programme. He is the Head of Strategy at Scouts Cymru, and is passionate about fostering leadership development in young people.
Can you give us a little bit of background information about your organisation and the topic that you’d like to talk about?
Scouting has been around since 1907, so we're a well established organisation working with 52 million young people around the world. The organisation’s mission has always been about helping young people develop social action for themselves, and to go out and be active citizens in the future. I support the Scouts here in Wales, where we’ve got 292 groups, and the glorious countryside lends itself nicely to outdoor adventure.
Today, I really wanted to focus on how we need to support young people with leadership and development opportunities from an early age. I keep coming back to the quote that “leaders are made not born.” Now more than ever, leadership is what employers and further education providers are looking for, so if we help young people to develop great leadership skills from an early age, why not? Within scouting, that could be as Cubs, who are eight to ten year olds, or even as Beavers, who are six to eight year olds. Ultimately, supporting young people to develop these skills can only benefit wider society in the social sector, as well as the private and public sectors – these are our future leaders in our communities, industries, organisations and countries.
What are some of the ways that your organisation has been able to create those leadership opportunities?
Seven of our 21 adult trustees are 18 to 25, so we've got young people at the heart of the organisation. We also have youth commissioners, who play their part and help with decision making. One thing that we’re always mindful of is that we don’t want to include young people in a tokenistic way, which we have seen in some other organisations. That tokenism can turn off a lot of young people On the other hand, if you genuinely support and involve them so they use and practise their skills, they often end up giving something back to the organisation as well. For example, we see that 40% of our current volunteers joined the movement as youth members. So, if you put that investment into young people, they come back to support the next generation of leaders.
At the moment, a group of our youth commissioners and our youth trustees are developing a program called Grow to Lead. The programme focuses on supporting young people to develop leadership skills and wider skills for life earlier, because why e wait until the middle of our career to start learning leadership skills, In scouting, we start much earlier Even though it’s still in early stages, we've already seen positive outcomes, including young people developing ideas around how to recruit more volunteers, how to make the organisation more accessible to Welsh speakers, and how to bring in and attract new young people. The most powerful thing about Grow to Lead is that it was developed by young people, for young people and it’s led by young people.
Do you feel like your experience with Clore Social Leadership fits into this movement of providing leadership opportunities for young people?
The Leading Beyond Lockdown course has definitely helped me as an individual leader, and has also helped the organisation look to the future. For me, the programme generated a lot of excitement, and the young people around me have picked up on that infectiousness, so it really does trickle down.
So far, the Grow to Lead pilot has been really successful, and now we’re looking at how we can enhance it. The Clore Social framework has been really instrumental in that development. One thing that we really like is that it starts with leadership of self first, and then moves outward to the support that the individual needs to be a better leader. We’re looking at building that philosophy into our program as well.
Why does fostering leadership skills in young people feel especially important at the moment?
I listened to the webinar that you hosted with Henry Timms a couple of weeks ago on the idea of New Power. From that talk, what really sunk in was that the traditional power structures are focused on trying to get back to where we were and floundering. On the other hand, you've got young people who have revolutionary ideas, are empowered, and are interested in society. Now more than ever, we need new ideas, and we can't just go back to the way we were. With COVID, we've had this opportunity to pause, reflect, improve and plan how we come out of this as a better, giving more opportunities to young people to develop great skills for life, more inclusive, and more prepared organisation with a strong and sustainable future.
There's a really nice quote from Baden Powell, who's the founder of scouting. He said “try and leave this world a little better than you found it.” I believe that if we empowered young people today, they will pay it forward and go on to empower other young people in the future. This is about helping ourselves, each other and people in our communities. We shouldn't be precious about holding onto our power because they'll be looking after us one day. And if we've prepared them from a caring and structured society, then hopefully they'll look after us as well.
You can find Rich on twitter @scoutsrich, and Scouts Cymru on twitter @ScoutsCymru
If you would like to be featured for a #CloreSocialFellowFriday, send us an email at info@cloresocialleadership.org.uk.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
05 February 2021
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We sat down with Penelope D'Souza for #CloreSocialFellowFriday. Penelope is a Clore Social Fellow from our 2020 Emerging Leader: Women and Girls’ Sector programme. She is the founder of Stimulus, an organisation that offers coaching, consulting and other resources to empower everyday women, especially those from ethnic minorities and marginalised backgrounds.
Can you give us a little bit of background information about your organisation and your role?
I started Stimulus in August of 2020, while I was on the Clore Social Emerging Leaders: Women and Girls’ Sector programme. At the time, I was working for a women's charity. However, I started to realise that I wanted to start an organisation that really focused on the social difference I wanted to make. I decided that if I want to really put all of my effort into making a change, then I had to start my own company.
I chose the word Stimulus because that's how I see the mission of the organisation. I want to stimulate change within people and within organisations, but the real focus is on women, especially from ethnic minorities and marginalised backgrounds. Because that’s my own life experience, and I want to use my experience to shorten women's journeys to that realisation of what they are capable of. I’m 45, and it took me 45 years to get to this point, so if I can reduce that for other women, and they can live fuller lives because of it and experience accomplishments that they deserve, that would be amazing.
What are some projects you’re working on at the moment?
I’ve been doing a lot of work around identity. If you don't know who you are, you can spend a lot of time on that process of self-actualisation and self-realisation. I think that women from cultures where women are brought up in a traditional way, and especially second- or third-generation immigrants, can have trouble fitting into the frame of the workplace, and they face unique challenges that white women or men from ethnic minority backgrounds don’t.
I've run a values-based series of workshops with young women from ethnic minorities, called Show Up for Yourself, and there are two parts to it. The first part is called ‘Who am I,’ because it’s important to look at yourself and ask who you are and what you want, and then using that information as a moral compass for every decision that you make. For example, I’ve worked with a couple of young women who are finishing uni and are not sure which jobs to apply for, and we’ve gone through their values and the values of various companies, and made sure that they are aligned. The second part is called ‘Reclaiming Your Power,’ which is just looking at the things they can control and change in the workplace, and how to influence that space, rather than getting overwhelmed with all the noise that's going on.
Often, these women don’t see themselves as decision makers or as people who take a lead. So how are they going to suddenly say, ‘oh, yeah, I want to be on the board’? They're never going to come forward, so that middle management pool that senior executives can dip into is always going to be small. People often talk about how there are not enough BAME women in senior executive roles, but there won’t be unless you’re nurturing them from the front line, at the start of their career. If you don't nurture them, then that's where they'll stay, and people will constantly say we don't have the skill set.
Were there any ‘aha’ moments, when you realised that you really needed to start your own company?
Yes, I think that it was during the coaching sessions of my Clore Social journey. I was born in India, and had a really challenging childhood. Also, I feel that just being a woman in India can be quite confining. I survived that, but for a very long time I just felt very restless, because I always wanted to find my purpose. I was always asking the question why did you survive and not someone else, and what are you going to do with it? So, when I got onto the Clore Social programme, it was almost like, right, this is the conversation I've been waiting to have my whole life. My coach asked me about my identity, my core values, and all of those things you don't think about if you're just caught up in day to day life. Then through those conversations, I started asking some more questions: Who do I want to be? What do I want to do? What's my legacy? For me, legacy is really important, because I think it would be a shame if women in the future still came up against the same challenges that we are talking about today.
Penelope is running a leadership programme for women from ethnic minorities in Northern England from March 24th to March to 26th (COVID permitting). Please get in touch with her at penelope@stimulus.ltd if you would like more information.
You can find Penelope on Twitter @PenelopeSays2, and Stimulus @Your_Stimulus
If you would like to be featured for a #CloreSocialFellowFriday, send us an email at info@cloresocialleadership.org.uk.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
29 January 2021
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We sat down with Eilidh Stringer, a 2019 Emerging Leader fellow, for #CloreFellowFriday. Eilidh is a Development Manager Working with Together Leicester to develop Leicester’s Homelessness Charter.
Can you give us a little bit of background information about your organisation?
The Leicester Homlessness Charter was launched in 2018 because there were lots and lots of different groups, as there are in every city, working towards ending homelessness. The system was working well, and people were working together, but there was quite a lot of duplication. We often had new groups popping up who wanted to do something, but actually, they weren’t always using the most helpful approaches. For example, there were lots of groups handing out sleeping bags in the city centre, which was a really well meaning and understandable response to seeing people sleeping rough. However, there were already groups who were providing practical support.
The Charter was launched really as a way to galvanize all of that well meaning effort and passion, and try and point it in a more strategic direction. There have always been the same sort of groups around the table, but the idea of the Charter was to really go out as wide as possible, and speak to businesses, members of the public, and just anyone who wanted to get involved.
How does your role fit into the organisation?
We had a successful launch in 2018, but the Charter itself didn't really have any specific resource, so it relied on people working for other organisations to find the time to contribute. People definitely did contribute and put a lot of effort into it, however, quite early on, it was apparent that we were going to need to apply for some funding to push some things forward. So when we received national lottery funding last year, my role came up. Initially, it's a six-month development post, and the idea is to try and raise the profile of the Charter a bit further, reconnect with some of the organisations that signed up in the first place, and bring some more partners on board who aren't already involved.
What are some specific projects the Charter is working on?
One of the things we’ve done is support a diverted giving scheme called Give Leicester. We get loads of queries saying ‘what can we do if we see somebody rough sleeping and, and we don't necessarily want to give them cash.’ So the Charter, led by Charter members BID Leicester and Leicester City Council, helped set up around 15 contactless donation points in the city. It raised £27,000 in its first year, and has been pretty successful.
And then the other thing that we feel is missing is lived experience representation. There isn't really a group in Leicester that people with lived experience can come together and share their insights in a way that meaningfully feeds back to organisations. The idea is that the Charter would have a lived experience panel that different organisations could approach and consult with when new services are being designed. We've looked quite closely at the Manchester Charter, and what they've done really well is bringing in the lived experience. That's something we'd really like to do as well.
The theme of collaboration has been a real driving force at Clore Social Leadership this year. Can you tell us a little more about your experience with collaboration?
It’s definitely not always been easy. I mean, back at the start, there were some quite frayed relationships between different groups. And there still are, I'm sure, but there's now a kind of shared ethos for what needs to happen. And in the city, working together just gives us a bit of strength. If certain activities pop up, and we feel that they aren't helping towards that goal, it just gives us a framework to be able to talk to people and try and bring them on board with what's happening. I think what’s helped people come along with it is that people feel that they're part of this bigger shared effort. When the different specialised charities work together it almost means that each one can be more focused on what they're delivering, because somebody else is picking up the other part of the puzzle.
Has your experience with Clore Social Leadership had an impact on your career so far? If so, how?
It definitely has, and I think for me, a lot of it is around my confidence and belief in myself, and just having that time to focus on that. Moving into the Charter where I’m technically the only employee means that I am very much at the forefront of it. I think that without the experience with Clore Social, I perhaps wouldn't have felt able to take that on. It has given me the confidence to move into a new role and take a leap out of my comfort zone.There’s also the network that the programme has given me. I'm still in touch with lots of people that were on the development programme, and it just gives you that backing to know that you can do it, and that you can go for things that you feel passionate about.
You can find Eilidh on twitter @stringereilidh, and Leicester’s Homlessness Charter @HomelessCharter
If you would like to be featured for a #CloreFellowFriday, send us an email at info@cloresocialleadership.org.uk
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