Building a stronger Birmingham together

It’s really about making sure we stop using words and terms such as ‘hard to reach’

Rosie Ginday

pro-actively engage with schools.

It’s important to create well-defined strategies that we can identify as action and create pathways and opportunities that are helpful and meaningful. Senior politicians in the region should find more time to engage directly with these so called hard to reach children and young people because they matter a lot.”

Rosie Ginday MBE, who set up her Miss Macaroon business in the city, said: “It’s about enabling people to make a change, there is no reason why we can’t tackle social disparity. In five years’ time buying from social enterprises will be your point of difference but in ten years’ time if you don’t buy from social enterprises it will be a negative point of difference.

“It’s the same with our people: if we don’t go out into our communities, engage and employ from them then again in ten years’ time that will absolutely be a reason why you lose profitability, market share and as a region we will lose that talent. It’s really about making sure we stop using terms such as ‘hard to reach’ because people aren’t hard to reach, it’s just we are sat in the business district making decisions and they don’t know we are here, why would they? It’s about making sure that we are going out and engaging in a way that makes sense for each community.

“It might be uncomfortable to do that but we have to make the effort because we can’t make a change by doing business as usual.”

Alia Al-Doori, managing director at Pearl Comms, said: “For me, it’s not about qualifications on paper. All of my team have what I call ‘the fire’.

“Although they might not always have the necessary skills we require, they have something within them that means I can teach them and they will give it their all. It’s about finding those people that have the right attitude.”

Professor Kiran Trehan, of the University of Birmingham, said. “If we just took a step back and moved away from a deficit model on leadership diversity to a more inclusive model, than we might create different forms of action. Our passion is great but can also hinder us because our passion doesn’t always translate into concrete actions.

“We are challenged by our passion and our desire to be agents of change and yet we work in infrastructures that also mean we are the custodians of the status quo.

“We have a lot of one off initiates like going into schools, one off activities do not create sustainable change and we wouldn’t do that in any other part of our business. We need to work collectively together on a range of initiatives that leave a long term legacy. We need ask the leaders of tomorrow what they need and shape interventions that are informed by their stories are not just our stories - then we’ll create a catalyst and a collective movement for the change we have all been arguing for.

Pam Sheemer, of Natwest, said: “As a large organisation we need to take ownership of being agents of change. We have taken the entrepreneur tool and used that as an agent of change a in a programme specifically designed for teenage girls called ‘Dream

Bigger’– taking their aspirations and putting it into an entrepreneurial environment and getting them to think about topics such as STEM.

“I think reaching out and telling young people that we are here to help is really powerful.

“Having relatable role models is also key as you can’t be what you can’t see. If you can see someone in the role you aspire to be it straight away gives that fire in the belly moment.”

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