One of the best parts of the role of community outreach officer for 4in10 is the privilege of being able to visit our extraordinary members and this has led to some truly fantastic experiences.
Whether it is being part of the series of campaign events put together by Southall Community Alliance, watching the presentation of new bleed control kits, donated by anti-knife crime charity Bin Knives, Save Lives or being part of community information events run by Poplar Harca housing association, this job continues to give me the chance to really experience the hard work of our incredible membership and has given me a real sense of hope.
Given this I thought it would be good to write about one of these events to give you a flavour of the experience.
A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit Restorative Justice for All (RJ4All)’s Rotherhithe Community Centre whilst they were doing their Wellbeing Circle.
RJ4All is a charitable international institute with a mission to address power abuse, conflict, and poverty through the use of restorative justice values and practices. The RJ4All Rotherhithe Community Centre serves as a vital hub for community empowerment and social connection at the local level.
As RJ4All’s Community Centre is always doing events, so for me it was originally more the date I was available to go than what activity I was going to be part of, but I was so glad I chose that day!
When I arrived, I was instantly made to feel completely welcome and shown around their centre. This was a very friendly building made up of a few side rooms, an office, a small kitchen and a small meeting room with sofas, tables, chairs and toys for children.
I was the first visitor to join but the session quickly filled up and by the time we were ready to go there were maybe 10 of us (all women). It was only at this point that I was grew to understand the nature of the event.
Our team leader explained to us that the idea was that each week the wellbeing circle explored a thought-provoking topic with the leader posing questions within it. She then apologised as it was her first week – not that you would have known she was brilliant.
I would not say I was cynical about the model – group therapy has been shown to do some amazing things but I was unsure how I would find it with not knowing anyone or indeed anything about the event but any anxieties I had were soon to be proved wrong.
The topic under discussion was ‘forgiveness’. First we were asked to explain in turn what we understood forgiveness to mean and then went on to explore times where we had each grappled with forgiveness.
As we went round the circle the comments of my fellow participants began to really touch something in me and as the evening went on I found myself talking about things and feeling emotions that I would never have thought about. And this, plus being with others while they explored sometimes very personal things profoundly touched me.
I came away from that extraordinary event feeling incredible, refreshed and if possible lighter; like I had been on a big therapy session. I would recommend this experience to anyone!
RJ4All’s Wellbeing Circles promote its overall vision of building the world’s first restorative justice postcode by providing a first line of mental wellness support to the community, strengthening relationships within the area, and fostering community cohesion in SE16.If anyone else would like to learn more about RJ4All you can go to their website here [I’ll include a link when it goes live].