What is Community Voices?
Community Voices is a project currently funded by City of York Council. It is based at the Centre for Applied Human Rights in the University of York Please note that it is currently paused.
Disability rights were the focus for 2021. The aims were to reach out to the marginalised, hidden and ignored voices in the disabled community in York, identify their priorities and needs and support them to advocate for their rights.
York Human Rights City Network is also supporting the development of York Disability Rights Forum as a local disabled people’s organisation upholding disabled people’s human rights. This work is funded by York Independent Living Network.
You can read more about the work of York Human Rights City Network elsewhere on this website. Its 2021 Indicator report including a case study on the Blue Badge issue in York is also now available
Who was our Disability Programmes Co-ordinator?
Until January 2022, Hilary Conroy was the part-time coordinator of the Community Voices project at YHRCN, a human rights activist and strong believer that people should be able to hold power to account, whether that is local government, health and social services, police and criminal justice services, or businesses and organisations. Please see below for some of the projects that Hilary was involved! At the present time, there is no co-ordinator in post and this project is paused. Please contact YHRCN though the contact details listed below.
How to get in touch with York Human Rights City Network
Email:
info@yorkhumanrights.org
Social media:
Phone:
All the projects below have now ended
Dear York
It is a space to express experiences in a way that feels safe to the individual so people are invited to express themselves artistically as well as through language. It is place to call out the humiliation, to explain the struggle, to clarify the emotional toll. It is also very much a space to protest, and I hope that those things being expressed can start conversations in York around how things are being done and how we might do better.
Two Rivers Radio
Vox Pop Project
You are invited to add your voice!
Two Rivers Radio
Completed Work 2021
Deaf Healthcare Forum
Community Voices and Healthwatch worked together to host an online open forum on 11th October 2021 to give those who are deaf and hard of hearing the chance to discuss their experiences in York with representatives from local healthcare providers.
The event was held on zoom and had BSL interpreters and automatic zoom captioning.
Disability and Digital Inclusion Drop In
Community Voices and Changing Lives are teaming up to offer a digital inclusion drop in for disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent people in York. This can cover whatever individual people need in order to get online, keep safe online, brush up on computer skills, do some job searching or work on their CV. The possibilities are endless!
Changing Lives are providing us with space in their Blossom Street office where there is wheelchair access. We have devices to use if you don’t have your own.
Tuesday 24th August 10am-2pm
Digital Inclusion Room (York Drug & Alcohol building), 3 Blossom Street, YO24 1AU
Please get in touch if you have any questions…
Phone Kate: 07566 792 433 or email communityvoices@york.ac.uk
Instagram Live with Tom
Mental Health in a Pandemic
Tom was eager to follow up the previous Instagram Live with another. This time we were talking about mental health at different points in the pandemic, how we manage anxiety and the unknown, and how things getting back to normal have been more difficult than expected.
Watch it now on our Instagram – @VoicesYork
Camerados Public Living Room
As part of the Systems Changers programme with York Multiple Complex Needs Network we conducted an experiment of a Camerados Public Living Room which had comfy sofas, tea and coffee, an art wall, some radical library books and some lovely people. We invited people through the York Press and our social media channels.
The project was run on 7th and 8th July from 12:30pm-5pm at Spark York with support from the Community Furniture Store and the York Radical Library.
The experiment was a great success with people coming from many diverse backgrounds, experiences and lives. As it was indoors, the disabled community felt it was not safe for them to get involved due to the risks from increased cases of Covid in the city. We have decided to carry on having pop-up living rooms, and we are planning the next one outside so that we can ease fears around Covid and hopefully meet more of the disabled community in York.
Healthy Environments Research
with Imperial College London
I acted as a community host for a piece of research being conducted by Imperial College London for the Natural Environment Research Council. I facilitated two zoom workshops with 9 participants from the Community Voices group to find out what a ‘healthy environment’ meant to them and gain their views on where research funding should be focused.
This was a really positive experience and the participants gave great feedback about it. They felt they had learned a lot about areas of environmental research they had little information about before, and felt they had made a real difference by adding their voices to the project.
The researchers are currently pulling together the themes from the workshops and will produce a report which will be linked once it is shared. There will also be some dissemination of the information via Twitter with the hashtag #CareForOurSpace
Instagram Live with Tom
Food Shopping in a Pandemic
Tom from our social group wanted to learn more about how to design posts and increase his confidence on Instagram. He wanted to talk to people about food shopping during the pandemic, so we recorded an Instagram Live on 25/05/2021 talking about just that!
The recording is available on our Instagram page @VoicesYork
Staff Autism Space at
University of York
Lisa from our social group got in touch and wanted to create a space to for staff members to discuss, share and celebrate autism. We discussed how zoom is not always the best way for autistic people to engage with others and we considered that people are more likely to engage via text. The University of York have a Slack workspace so myself and Lisa worked together to create a channel dedicated to autism called the staff-autism-space.
Staff can participate in anyway they like; whether it be simply reading through discussions, posting questions or sharing news and experiences. We have had lots of people get involved. Those who are autistic, those going through adult assessments, and parents of autistic children. It has been a great space for people to share experiences, ask for support and sharing key knowledge.
Previous Years
Hate Crime Report 2019/2020
During 2019/20 we explored people’s perceptions and understanding of hate crime in York.
You can download the Community Voices report – 2020 – hate crime