Month: January 2022

Spotlight on Restorative Justice for All

Spotlight Interview with 4in10 Member RJ4A

• How are you helping to tackle child poverty in London?

The Restorative Justice for All International Institute (RJ4All) is a charitable, user-led NGO with a mission to address poverty and advance community cohesion and human rights.  We redistribute power in a more equal way by delivering social justice and poverty relief projects, educational programmes, intercultural dialogue, internships and high-quality volunteering opportunities to the most marginalised groups of society. Child poverty in London is not only a reality, but also a persistent societal failure. That is why we put emphasis on making a difference by providing local direct services from the RJ4All Rotherhithe Community centre, where we are based. It is not possible to achieve equality and community cohesion, if poverty and disadvantage are not rooted out first.

Since COVID19, we prioritized poverty relief and wellbeing projects, focusing on making a change locally and by prioritizing services for groups who are faced with extra challenges. One of these groups are children and young people in the South East London area where we are based. These local services are provided from the RJ4All Rotherhithe Community Centre, which has become a hub of community empowerment and cohesion. It offers a food-bank, a community fridge, free sport classes, a community library, COVID19 tests and educational workshops to children, young people and professionals. It is also a safe place for anyone who wants to pop in for a coffee, use our facilities or just chat with our interns, volunteers and team.

• Share with our members something positive about your organisation’s achievement or service.

Last year, RJ4All was the recipient of the Best Charity Award from the Southwark Business Awards due to its youth-led COVID-19 poverty relief project “You are not Alone”. During the pandemic, children and young people came together and with the support of the RJ4All Director, Dr. Gavrielides, they set up the project to help their peers who were struggling. The project started with a small grant that RJ4All managed to secure, providing food and PPE to children, young people and their families. It then quickly expanded across London, resulting in generating over 500 volunteer placements, a mental health helpline run by children and young people for children and young people, online courses and a bank of online resources, internships and online fitness classes. The project is now under the auspices of the independent youth-led FRED campaign, hosted by RJ4All. Dr. Gavrielides also received the Southwark Civic Award 2021 as a result.

•   What can other network members learn from you or find out more about through you?

We encourage members to learn more about restorative justice and its underlying value of power sharing. Restorative justice is not just a justice practice. It is an ethos and a methodology for carrying out projects, or even how to lead our lives. We would be happy to introduce members to restorative justice and we encourage them to take our free CPD certified courses by visiting https://rj4all.uk/online/

• What would most help you achieve your goals?

Our mission is to address poverty and advance community cohesion and human rights. We do this by using the power of education, sports and art, as well as the practices and values of restorative justice including power sharing, fairness, equality, dignity and respect. We start locally and thus any support for our community service provision in SE16 London would be much appreciated. Our food bank and community fridge are always in need for stocking up!

• Why did you join 4in10? What do you enjoy about being part of the 4in10 network?

We were very pleased to join the campaign in October (London Challenge Poverty Week), and we very much enjoyed working with the network given that we share similar values and goals. We often operate in silos making our work harder and our impact smaller. By connecting our minds and hearts, we come closer to addressing power abuse and the inequality that impacts on our children.

by Liza Dresner