{"id":7398,"date":"2021-05-04T11:34:53","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T10:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/?p=7398"},"modified":"2021-05-04T11:34:53","modified_gmt":"2021-05-04T10:34:53","slug":"building-understanding-in-walsall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/building-understanding-in-walsall\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Understanding\u00a0in Walsall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Jaishree Patel<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Back in the days before lockdown, we had the luxury of having face to face community dialogue sessions with participants across Walsall. It almost feels like a dream now to think\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">it was possible to<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0all participate in a social activity before a session<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">(<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">such as\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">art<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">,\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">yoga<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, or\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">cookery), have the session<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">,<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0and then top it all off with a leisurely lunch together. The participants who took part in our two pilot groups h<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">ad the good fortune of\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">having this experience. One of these groups, recruited from the Department of Work and Pensions, met at\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Ryecroft<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0Community Hub in\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Blakenall<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">, North<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0Walsall.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Over the course of three dialogues, participants from this group, who were from England, Romania and Poland engaged in dialogue sessions exploring\u00a0<span data-contrast=\"auto\">their identities, their heritage, and t<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">heir experiences of living<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0in Walsall. English participants were able to learn about fellow participants\u2019 reasons for and experiences of migrating to Walsall. Likewise, by the end of the third session, all the\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">particip<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">ants had built up enough trust to be able to talk about which areas in Walsall they did and\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">didn\u2019t<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">\u00a0feel welcome in in the context of racial demographics and their communities\u2019 experiences of racism. Participants welcome<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">d the opportunity to ta<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">lk about these sensitive topics as these types of conversations were deemed to be taboo with people fearing judgement for expressing their opinions. Participants were able to empathise with one another\u2019s experiences and the discussion moved on to how most people, regardless of their background, ultimately want a better life for themselves and for their families.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jaishree Patel Back in the days before lockdown, we had the luxury of having face to face community dialogue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":7344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,29],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7411,"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398\/revisions\/7411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithbeliefforum.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}