A NEW programme has launched to address root causes of poverty and inequality in Britain’s Black and minority ethnic communities.

Power to Prosper has been launched by the Runnymede Trust – the UK’s leading race equality think tank and the New Economics Foundation.

The new three-year project aims to address causes problem debt, and to also shift the balance of power in political and economic systems to ensure all communities in the UK can thrive.

With Black and minority ethnic communities unfairly exposed to disproportionate levels of poverty and debt, leading to unprecedented levels of deprivation, housing precarity, food insecurity and fuel poverty, the programme is calling for urgent changes.

The programme’s launch event took place at Lambeth Town Hall in Brixton, and was attended by local community groups and organisations.

Speaking to The Voice, at the launch, Dr Shabna Begum, interim CEO, Runnymede Trust said: “Power to Prosper is really an ambitious project, it is looking to go beyond the individualised solutions to debt and poverty, where we are told that we are the ones to blame for our economic misfortunes.

“It is really to try and surface the systemic issues that underpin the inequalities and hardships that so many of our communities face.

“I think that it is really clear when you look at the fact that Black and minority ethnic groups, certain groups within Black African, Black Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, are much more likely to experience both poverty and problem debt.

“When we look at every single measure, whether we are talking about relative deprivation, relative poverty, destitution, every single measure you will see those groups overrepresented.

“This idea that it is somehow those communities or those families that are to blame, that’s a problem. It’s fiction, it’s a myth, it’s not true, it’s not born out of the data. It’s very much about an economic system that doesn’t work for those communities.

“The project is about surfacing those problems but also beginning to think about where those solutions come from and those solutions will come from within those communities themselves.”

Community building

Dr Begum said it was essential that the programme not only addresses root causes to issues, but finds solutions and also pushes for policy changes – which will subsequently help impacted communities up and down the country for the better.  

She added: “The beauty of this project is who it brings together.

“It brings together the Runnymede Trust, it brings together the New Economics Foundation, it brings together a whole coalition of partners who are representing and are connected to those groups that are most impacted.

“Where you have a programme which does the policy influencing, which looks at which stories get told, whose stories get told, how do they get told, looking at the community wealth building, the asset building, and thinking about our communities not just as communities of deprivation but really addressing the fact that there is so much wealth, experience and knowledge that is there.

“This project is an opportunity activate that and give some life and energy to that, beyond what it is capable of if it was just a community working on its own.”

At the launch event, Nonhlanhla Makuyana, Co-Director of Decolonising Economics, Candice James BEM, Director at Loughborough Community Centre, Muna Yassin MBE, CEO of Rooted Finance and Ugo Ikokwu, Grant Manager at Trust for London, all contributed to an expert panel discussion on how economic disadvantages continue to perpetuate financial inequality within Black and minority ethnic communities.

The panel discussion was chaired by journalist at The Voice, Sinai Fleary.

‘Fairer system’

Power to Prosper is funded by Oak Foundation, which, through its grant-making, supports others to make the world a safer, fairer, and more sustainable place to live.

Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah Chief Executive, New Economics Foundation, said: “We don’t talk enough about the systemic and structural reasons why people find themselves in problem debt.

“Yet, we know that Black and minority ethnic communities, single parent families and households with a disabled member are amongst those hit first and hardest.

“This is because we haven’t done enough to tackle the systemic factors that some communities are being let down by a lack of services, inappropriate services or discrimination.

“NEF is delighted to be working alongside the Runnymede Trust and local communities to come up with practical ways of tackling growing challenges around problem debt.

“As a think tank committed to making the economy fairer and more sustainable, we want to find ways of giving everyone access to the wealth and security they need to live healthy, happy and fulfilling lives.”