We know that individuals, families, and communities have been affected in many different ways by the coronavirus lockdown.  And we know that issues of social justice have been highlighted or exacerbated by what’s going on at the moment.  It has deepened existing inequalities and stressors, and it’s also led to a realisation and appreciation of previously under-valued roles and experiences.

That’s why TCC is running a listening campaign amongst our member groups – to find out what’s happening and what community organising can do to make positive changes.

We’re asking leaders to talk to three or more people within member groups (or from outside a member group, if you think they’ll have a particular story to tell) and to have a conversation focused around the three questions below.  We’re trying to pull out what social justice issues there are, and what we can work on.  These questions are just suggestions, please do adapt them, use your own, and include any of the follow up questions to ease the person into expanding their answers or telling more of their story.

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For safeguarding reasons, if you'd like to speak to a young person you know, please do get permission from their parent/carer first.  TCC young leaders taking part in the listening campaign should speak to our youth and community organiser first.   

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To start

Depending how much they already know about TCC, you could explain a little bit about TCC, what we do, and your involvement through your member group.

Key points to explain

• We’re asking these questions to find out how the situation is affecting people in the local area, to help us decide what issues to campaign on and ask decision makers to change.  It’s not about providing any direct support.  

• Notes on the things you talk about will be passed on to TCC, but they will be totally anonymous and you won’t pass on any personal details.

• We’re not asking about how COVID-19 specifically has affected people – i.e. we don’t want to know if people in the community have had it, we want to know what the overall impact of the current situation has been on people.

• You could perhaps start by describing any experiences you’ve had, the things you’ve been worried about, or what’s made you angry, to set the conversation in a social justice light.

If you’d like, you can use the form below to collect the information and it will come straight to TCC staff.  Make sure you leave out any personal information or specific details.  If you don’t want to use the form you can just phone us to talk through what you’ve found, send us an email, or just let us know at the next Strategy meeting.  We’d like to have the results of these conversations ready to discuss by the 1st July Strategy meeting, and we’ll review how it’s all going at the 3rd June meeting.

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Questions to ask

• Have you experienced any particular difficulties during this time?  This could be something ongoing from beforehand or a new issue. E.g. access to local services (GPs, prescriptions etc), free school meals, housing, mental health, employment.

• What about amongst your family, friends, and local community?  What have you heard about how they’ve been affected? 

• Is there anything you wish would change in our communities or within our society, as a result of this crisis? 

Follow up questions could be

• Have things changed for you as a result of lockdown/the coronavirus?  How? 

• Has anything particularly shocked you about the current situation? 

• Has there been anything you’ve appreciated about lockdown and that you wish would continue afterwards?

• What are your main concerns right now?  

• Who do you think will be most affected? 

• If everything went back to normal, but the virus was still going on, would you go outside? 

• What affect do you think this pandemic will have on the world? 

• When the virus ends, will the world be different?  

• Is there anything you have learnt from lockdown that you would like to continue afterwards? 

• Are there any issues that you feel are being ignored at the moment due to the current circumstances, that are still important and need to be brought to attention? 

To finish

We’d also like to use this as an opportunity to invite people to be involved with working on the issues they identify, so at the end of the conversation, please:

• Explain that TCC works to improve things for people in North East Wales (and if they’re from a member group they’re really welcome to be part of that).   

• Ask if we could be in touch in a few months’ time to follow up – this could either be you phoning them back or a TCC member of staff calling them. 

• If they are happy for a member of staff to call them make it very clear that you will pass on their phone number to us, and check they are happy with this. 

• If they’re from a member group, ask them if they want to join our mailing list to be invited to our meetings.  If yes take their email address (or postal address) and make it very clear that you will pass this onto us, and check they are happy with this.   

• Let them know about the 25th anniversary (1st October, Theatr Clwyd, 7pm) – we’ll be taking our agenda for action to the First Minister and it would be great to have them there.

• We’d like to collect some information about their age, they area they live, whether they belong to a faith group etc.  If they are happy to share this, please collect this information – again this is anonymous and is only to help check we are talking to as many communities as possible.  You do not have to ask for this information at all, and the person you’re speaking to doesn’t have to have it recorded if they don’t want to.

If anyone wants to contact TCC directly let them know they can email leadorganiser@tcc-wales.org.uk or phone Sam on 07392324936 or Kay on 07403854137.