Women’s Equality Party Conference Topic Overview: BAME Caucus

The launch of a Women’s Equality Party BAME (black, asian, minority ethnic) caucus was something the Southwark committee was extremely pleased to see on the agenda.

A third of all Southwark residents come from Black ethnic backgrounds and the remaining fifth of the residents from mixed, Asian and multiple other ethnic groups. We have a duty to do what we can to ensure our committee and local membership represents the makeup of our Borough. [Source: Southwark Council]

The caucus was created (and hosted by the wonderful Sellisha Lockyer of our Greenwich sister branch) as an open forum amongst WEP members: a blank canvas in terms of discussion, outputs and actions.

What did the group want to get out of the session?

• Getting women of colour involved in the party
• Identify policies that we want to include to ensure we make it clear that this is a party for all women (and men)
• An obligation on each branch to show what they have done to reach out to women of colour
• Get data on how many people identify as BAME
  • Improve the capabilities of Nationbuilder, where possible to achieve this
  • Identify members and supporters of colour
  • Survey members
• Create a how to pack and potential training for engaging with women of colour

In less than an hour, many voices aired their concerns, aspirations and challenges around the broad and significant subject of BAME women and WEP.

The above desired outcomes are simply the initial outputs from a positive, collaborative and diverse group discussion: very much a starting point, with a commitment to progress this in earnest.

The team involved are now working out key objectives and processes needed to help decide strategies for increasing BAME membership and policy reviews. If you’d like to know more, please get in touch and we can point you in the right direction!