Expert by Experience: using co-design to amplify voices from marginalised communities
Voices of Colour is a research and community design agency that addresses systemic inequities and provides a platform to amplify the voices of marginalised communities. We’ve been working closely with them as part of our community resource strategy project with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, reaching out to voluntary and community organisations in the area and speaking to the community as we build the strategy.
We spoke to Voices of Colour founder Indy Sira about her work and why it’s so important to address inequality in the co-design process.
Can you tell us about Voices of Colour, and how you came up with the idea for the venture?
We now specifically run programmes that focus on design and research. Our particular focus point is working with marginalised communities who otherwise wouldn’t be involved in this type of work or have their voices and lived experiences heard. We do try to use systems design and look at systemic issues in a more accessible way, where we’re able to communicate things and bring those with lived experience – for example local residents and communities, or grassroots organisations, or organisations that wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to co-design or co-produce certain spaces or policies – together with those who actually can make a difference. For example, partners include local authority bodies like councils, or local health providers within certain areas in the borough, so we have a more localised approach with the work that we do. We started a few years ago and we’ve got to this point after iterating and understanding what our focus would be. So, it's taken a year or two to get to this point. We initially started off running mentoring programmes, so it’s very different from what we’re doing right now.
How did that evolve out of the mentoring, what made you decide to expand your work?
It was very much based on need and the partners we were working with. They wanted more than just the mentoring, but we also realised that the communities we were bringing together had that lived experience and we could, in a sense, consciously co-design a space to be able to facilitate that. And so, we slowly started adapting and realising that this is an area that would have more of an impact based on the communities we’re working with.
Mentoring is great in certain contexts, but I think it was going that one step further and looking at the system as a whole and understanding why there would be a need for a mentoring programme. Where are the gaps in the system? Then we can introduce certain initiatives like this with organisations that haven’t really understood the different challenges from an intersectional perspective from the beginning.
What change do you want to see in the world, and how is Voices of Colour contributing to this?
I think it’s the way that we are reimagining systems right now. I feel there’s still a culture that if something’s broken, just fix it very quickly but if it can’t be fixed, it needs to be redone or rethought. And I think it’s going that extra mile and feeling challenged, being okay and accepting that something didn’t work but that it has to be redone rather than simply putting a little bandage on it and thinking that it will be okay, but eventually the same problem happens again and again. You can apply this to a lot of things.
It must be quite tempting, given where we are and the current cost of living crisis, for organisations to take that approach and just put a sticking plaster onto a problem?
Oh, for sure, given the current funding limitations and also the capacity that certain organisations might have. There’s a lot of training and education that comes as part of that, facilitating and also costing the learning part, it’s not just bringing in more money. The first thing we try to do is understand how organisations need to change their priorities in line with the access they have to funding and reallocate, if they don’t have the capacity to bring in more money right now. But it’s also looking at different pathways. There’s an issue in this sector in that we get used to certain types of funding and don’t go beyond those models and explore alternative routes. A lot of organisations don’t know that they could be commissioned to do a project like this, for example, and we’ve heard from funders that they would commission work that organisations are doing anyway.
What is your approach to co-creation within marginalised communities? What are the most important aspects of this?
What we’ve recently started to do is focus on peer research, so when it comes to co-creation for example, it’s how do we train those who live within that community or have experience of the specific issue and give them the skills – obviously as a paid opportunity – and experience they need in order to then go and do that research and play an integral part in co-designing what that looks like.
At the end of the day, they are connecting with the communities who have been affected, but when it comes to showing an understanding of different languages and cultures, it’s the best way to do it. You’re also reimbursing them for their time so you’re adding value to their knowledge rather than simply extracting it.
For us, it’s been important to think about how we bring people into the process fairly, thinking about what they will feel comfortable with. So, for example, with a programme we’ve been running, we haven’t asked people to come to us, we’ve gone to them in their safe spaces and facilitated with others those co-design sessions, which has been a much better experience for the participants. We need to think about a lot of things when it comes to barriers to participation, there’s a lot of conversation around ‘hard to reach’. I don’t think communities are hard to reach, I think they’ve not been understood well enough.
What are the best ways that public sector or VCS organisations can support or amplify the voices of those from marginalised communities?
What’s important is to start with the intention, so it doesn’t become a tick box activity. It has to start with the right motives, and the aims and the goals: why you want to do this work. You can tell when it’s tokenistic very early on.
In terms of support, reimbursing people for their work so it’s not just extracting information, it’s valuing their knowledge and valuing their experiences. It’s also not something to be rushed, they have to give enough time for it to work. It’s not just a few weeks, it might take a year to do it well.
You also have to be very open minded and okay with being challenged. You’re going to come across things you haven’t thought about or encountered before, and it’s important to remain open minded and not have a fixed outcome in mind.
One of our projects looked at peer research. The researchers had the opportunity to design their own outputs, so it could be something really creative as part of that, rather than us having to define that process, it was open to them what that looked like, what medium it used and how they felt the community was engaging with them and their insights from that work. It was great because they had that ownership; don’t be afraid of letting them have that ownership and define their process, but be able to guide them. Also be aware of power dynamics; yes, you’re there to facilitate but they’re the ones with experience within that community, so you have to check yourself and make sure the power imbalances are not there, and you know when to take a step back and give that space. People notice that and it makes a huge difference, they feel like part of a team and not just a participant.
What are some of the key challenges faced by the communities you work with when it comes to interacting with public services?
Loads! As we work with marginalised communities the biggest thing is accessibility, so, number one, language. Language not just in the typical sense of English being the main language, but also the terminology and the words we’re using. It’s important to make sure everyone is included when any literature is made. We know from our work, for example looking at health inequalities, a lot of the letters that come in, are really important – scanning letters for example – but they come in and they don’t get read, because people can’t read it or access it.
Obviously, accessibility when it comes to ensuring those with disabilities have their needs thought about. I know work is being done around this, but I don’t think it’s enough, or that there’s always an understanding of why it’s important to think of it from the beginning rather than as an add on.
There’s an element of trust, especially with the work we did around Covid-19. We were working with South Asian communities and the mistrust with public health organisations is getting worse; how do you rebuild that? There’s a fear attached to using that service. Attached to trust is making sure that what you’re doing doesn’t come across as tokenistic. There needs to be transparency around the work you’re doing and how you’re going to action it. That comes a lot with researchers: there’s lots of let’s do surveys, let’s do a focus group, let’s do interviews, but then what is going to happen with the data you’ve collected?
What would you say are the most important actions that policymakers, charities or community organisations can take to ensure their work genuinely impacts the communities they serve?
It’s a complicated one, when it comes to impact it’s really understanding what that means to the community. It may mean something very different to them. That plays a huge role with the buy in: what is their role with helping you and how will that impact their livelihoods? There needs to be transparency and accountability when it comes to implementing all this, but if that is there from the beginning and it’s communicated properly and openly, then that’s the best way to go. And I would think about how they define short-term impact versus long-term impact and what that looks like. Both are fine, but how do they complement each other?
Which projects are you most proud of working on during your time with Voices of Colour?
Loads! It’s hard to choose. I’ve really enjoyed working on the Greenwich project, it’s been a great learning experience and our team being able to get out there and speak to so many residents and community organisations, they know you by name now when you walk in, it’s a huge thing. It’s been a realisation of what’s really worked in terms of the different approaches we’ve used as part of this process, especially when it comes to working on the needs analysis.
What’s been nice, the three different organisations [Telescope, Voices of Colour and Flank] have brought their knowledge and experience, and we’ve all played a part in influencing the outcomes.
One of the other projects we’ve been working on has been with the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University. We did a co-bid with them to run a project with South Asian women around the impact of Covid-19 on their health and finances. It’s called the Living Roots project. We were looking at health inequalities and co-designed some solutions into making health spaces in the borough more accessible for South Asian women. We focused on that group to explore the nuances attached to different communities, rather than putting everyone into one group.
The most important thread that runs through our work is how we truly amplify the voices that never get heard and we’ve not decided to do that through a research and design lens. That’s what we hope to do with every project we take on.
