The Economic Justice Brum Journey
Cathy Brown, Barrow Cadbury Trust’s Head of Economic Justice (Birmingham) writes about the exciting and innovative ideas and solutions which arose from the Economic Justice Brum huddles
My journey with Economic Justice Brum began at the same time as the Huddles began to form in January.
Mine has been a journey of connection, learning and growth, and after listening to our Huddlers talk about their journeys over the last four months, I can see many of the same elements present in the paths they’ve taken.
Seven Huddles formed, and all seven were present and celebrated at the launch event at the end of May. All started from the same point but ended up somewhere quite different.
You might well ask, what’s a Huddle? It’s a small, time limited peer learning group. Or, in human speak, a group of people exploring and enquiring into a topic for a set amount of time.
Our groups were exploring the three pillars of our movement: Personal Empowerment, Building Alternatives, and Challenging Dominant Institutions.
Transformative Economics – designing infrastructures for alternative economic systems in Birmingham neighbourhoods. Our Huddlers adopted the symbol of a dandelion to represent breaking free of existing economic thinking & systems, distributing new ideas and transforming old ground.
SEND Seen – our Huddle exploring how to harness power and redirect wealth to change the SEND system Brum from adversarial, demeaning, failing to be holistic, creative, person-centred, effective, and dignified.
Emergency vs Emergence – this Huddle group read and analysed the book ‘Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown’ – concluding a move away from the individual to the collective is needed, and exploring the skills and actions needed to do that.
A Life Well Lived – exploring care, connection and community in capitalist times. A group appreciating how hard we find it to explore without conclusion, to consider problems without solving, to allow ourselves to simply experience, connect & listen.
46.4% of Birmingham’s children live in poverty. That’s over twice the national average.
The Child Poverty Changemakers Huddle asked the question ‘How do we fix something so fundamentally broken?’ and issued seven ‘asks’ of Birmingham City Council including a play strategy, family-centred housing, and good youth work in the hope that #maybeoneday no child in Birmingham will experience poverty.
Our huddlers explored economic liberation through the lens of creativity and culture and the question “How do you define your personal economy?”. Their definitions included blogs, poetry and illustration.
Mindset Matters – this Huddle was “impactful, empowering, cathartic” “economic justice served family style” – amazing black women leaders looking inside themselves to question, challenge, explore and grow.
Some of the groups will carry on meeting and working together. Some have concrete ideas that the movement can take forward. Some have generated further connections, thoughts, enquiries and possibilities to explore. That’s the nature of a movement. I leave you with the words from our Mindset Matters Huddle: “We are going to take over the world!”
If you are intrigued by the story of our Huddles, and if you are keen to know more about the Economic Justice Brum movement and get involved in building a fairer economy for Birmingham, then please do check out the website, find us on Bluesky or Linked In – come and join us on the journey.
