In response to increasing inequality and the detrimental impact this has on communities, Voluntary Action Leeds and LeedsACTS! held a seminar series to start a public discussion on inequity and sought to tease out some ‘Big Ideas’ that partners across the city could take forward to start to make a difference.

The bi-weekly, online series took place between 9 February and 20 April 2022 and explored six areas of inequity. The seminars were hosted by local tv and radio presenter Peg Alexander and engaged over 150 participants.

Six topics were chosen for discussion to explore how inequity affects that area of work, these were: money; environment and green space; housing; health and well-being; food; education, skills and employment. There were many other topics that could have been included, such as access to the legal system, digital access, banking, transport, and culture – all of which would add an extra dimension to the discussion. However, we decided for this set of seminars to focus on these six topics.

We sought, through input from our contributors, and through the debate with participants, to understand how exclusion from our six areas impacts on our city and on the different people in it. Some conversations began to explore how the distribution of access to Rights is unequal across different groups. However, we know that as we develop this work, our city needs to go further in our understanding of how people’s different characteristics intersect to sustain (or address) inequalities. As we develop our campaign for an Equitable Leeds further over the next two years, part of our focus will be on how we, and our partners, can address the systemic inequities that prevent people from exercising their Rights.

READ THE SUMMARY REPORT HERE

Voluntary Action Leeds