Leeds reimagines community safety

On Saturday 28 September, the Thackray Museum of Medicine became the venue for Leeds's inaugural Community safety: Reimagined event.

More than 50 attendees participated in the day's sessions, which began with a grounding tea ceremony by Matilya Njau, a gardener seeking to challenge the audience's relationship with plants in order to learn more ourselves and the world around us.

This gentle introduction helped to ease us into 'Who is unsafe? Navigating state harm', a session focused on the experiences of people who unprotected at the hands of the state in various ways. Christina Maria Garcia spoke about how asylum seekers are put at risk by the Home Office while escaping persecution from countries on account of identifying as LGBTQIA+. Christina told the audience the problem she encountered as a trans woman of colour was that many support spaces were ‘whitewashed’, leading her to rely on finding and speaking to people like herself to access the support she needed.

Dr Rizwaan Sabir spoke about the psychological effects of his wrongful imprisonment on Islamic terror charges at the hands of the British state, the contrast between trusting the police and having that trust shattered, and the resultant physiological reprogramming of his body due to trauma. Rizwaan said that the realisation that the state will not protect you can have a life-changing effect on an individual, and that harm done to communities in this way – emotionally, mentally, physically – cannot be registered in the criminal justice system. Instead, harm can be addressed within the community and by trusted individuals, provided that the community looks to create its own institutions in order to take back agency. This comes with its own drawbacks, however: Rizwaan said that public support groups and community forums within some Muslim communities are often regarded with fear due to concerns about police surveillance.

Fashion designer Goodness Woodhead provided a moving testimony of escaping an abusive relationship – which the police failed to protect her from – and how creating a sewing group provided her with the sort of safe space she was looking for herself. Goodness spoke about the value of art and creativity to help people to open up and trust each other, and promote community healing.

The afternoon session, 'Reclaiming community safety' saw panellists share strategies for taking back power and protecting our communities. Edwina Thomas – member of an independent police scrutiny group in Leeds – gave advice about the many different ways in which people could take it upon themselves to help their neighbours. Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan invited the audience to imagine what would Harehills feel like if it was a community where you felt safe, happy, heard, and seen, and to note the absence of certain state institutions from their ideal scenario. Journalist Janine Griffiths championed the importance of local community powered media – such as her recently launched East Side Story newspaper – in helping people to tell and share their stories.

Participants then engaged in a power mapping exercise to identify the most effective and influential elements of community safety in their neighbourhoods, before going on to suggest things that they would want to see going forward.

Closing out the day was the session 'Building safety within', led by motivational speaker Miranda Arieh, who asked the audience what it means to have safety within ourselves, and urged attendees to build capacity from within to hold difficult emotions by communicating with the wounded parts of us.

This event plans to be first in a series. Future events will centre on realising the interests of Leeds residents.