NEWS - CSC Director Honoured for Outstanding Community Engagement with UK Muslim Communities
One of our directors, Mark Ereira-Guyer, has received a community service award in the community engagement category from the Muslim Community Association - he accepted his award on behalf of Civil Society Consulting CIC last night, Wednesday 9th July at a Gala Dinner held in Ilford (which is in fact Mark’s birth place!).
The awards are organised by the Muslim Community Association with support from the Muslim Council of Britain, UK Islamic Mission and the Islam Channel. The awards honour those people and organisations who help improve the lives of Muslims in the UK. Each nomination for an award is reviewed by an indendent panel of judges, who recognised Mark’s outstanding contributions in supporting and engaging Mulsim communities - much of this recent work has emerged from Civil Society Consulting CIC’s social cohesion work including 32 Steps to Togetherness and programmes designed to support Muslim-led CSOs such as 'Kinder Communities', and latterly ’Nurturing Grassroots’. Mark will also receive a cheque of £2,000 towards a nominated charity - he has selected in this instance Oasis which is a community space in the heart of Cardiff, which gives a warm welcome to around 2,500 people seeking sanctuary (asylum seekers and refugees) per year across South Wales. It empowers them to reach their aspirations for themselves and their families by providing wide ranging support.
Commenting on receiving the award, Mark says:
“I am delighted to receive this award on behalf of everything we have been doing across the country in recent years.
Love for all humanity and all living things is the life force of my faith as a Christian, it’s why I get up in the morning. We all have a unique role to play in seeking to make the world the best version of itself. I want to see in the world a creative wellbeing and flourishing for all. It’s vital to stand up and be counted when you see inequality, suffering and intolerance. As humans we have our dark barbarism side, we must overcome that.
Of course, on behalf of the work I do on a day to day basis with my hardworking and dedicated colleagues at CSC I am delighted to accept this award for community engagement. We have as our central mission the goal of promoting social solidarity and togetherness in all our wonderfully diverse communities here in the U.K. We ensure that Muslim-led CSOs and their faith-inspired leaders are given the tools to serve their communities and make a difference, often in some of the poorest neighbourhoods. There have been some outstanding successes, and the foundations are being laid for even more success. Inclusion means we all feel safe, valued and it is important in these troubling times that people facing religious hatred and intolerance, have organisations and people that have their backs, to which they can turn and be met with warmth and generosity. As I always say to anyone who cares to listen, we all come from out of the Rift valley. We have shared identities, but we are One Humanity.
We wish to further unite all CSOs against anti-Muslim hatred and the mounting racism we see against all people of colour, refugees, migrants and now other white - Portuguese or Romanian - for example working class migrant communities such as we see in some of the smaller towns of England. Increasingly we have seen hostile narratives towards Muslim women and men being normalised, with anti-Muslim hatred taking roots in the heart of our public discourse, continually fuelled by a far right that keeps gaining ground. We do all we can to stand up to this toxic climate of hate. In fact, we have recently supported a work colleague who whilst providing training to refugees in Cardiff was a victim of anti-Muslim hate crime, following months of prevarication and less than efficient practices by the Police and local authority we have now pushed them along to take action - the case is now with the CPS to make a decision about charging the perpetrator for hate crime. Our colleague (Amara) has been compelled to make a complaint about the Police. She requested that I become involved as she felt as a young Muslim woman her case was not being properly attended to and seriously addressed. In addition, with colleagues in the room, we have made an application to the MHCLG to run a project as part of their Combatting Hatred Against Muslims grant programme, we await the outcome.
We will continue to embrace all Muslim communities with the warmth of our hearts and remain ambitious in our desire to generate new collaborations and partnerships to make this great country of ours more successful for all of its citizens and communities."
