Description of the problem

  • You have noticed that there has been an increase in harassment, abuse and even some more violent incidents taking place in your community for some time.
  • It seems some of these incidents are related to the victims’ religion, or their ethnicity, or perhaps because they are assumed to be refugees, or even because they are disabled, lesbian or gay, or an older person.
  • This affects the people you support through your organisation and you want to try to do something about it.
  • You cannot change this situation on your own. You think that working with others is the best way to tackle the problem and you want to identify a number of things that you could do to help.

As a member of the social network map, you are able to do the following things:

  • Find out if other organisations, groups and communities in your area, or in other parts of London, have experienced the same problem.
  • Find out which organisations or groups are doing work on this, for example campaigning, and either join their campaign or learn from them or encourage your people to join their campaign.
  • Let others know that this is an important issue for your community that you want to work on with others and exchange ideas with them.
  • Think about launching an awareness raising campaign in the local community and find out about other organisations’ campaign success and learn from them.
  • You could also use your connections to identify people with skills and knowledge, which can help your initiative and ask them to help you.
  • You could also find out about important events, documents or consultations and get support to contribute.
  • The social network map itself would enable you to see if any other RCOs in your area or in other parts of London have the same concerns and are doing work on this.
  • It would help you to find out who has connections to important points of influence in your area and at the London level. Who are the organisations who are most connected and how can they help you in this work?
  • It would also help you find other types of organisation doing work on this, for example disabled people’s groups or faith groups.
  • It could help you join up your campaigning to make a stronger case. You could learn from others about what has worked and what the barriers are.