Introduction of AWEMA

AWEMA is a company limited by guaranteed as well as a registered charity. It is governed by a Council of Members that are drawn from the five electoral regions of Wales. Additional co-options from the United Kingdom are made by recommendation of other Council Members and the Chief Executive of AWEMA.

AWEMA’s principal objective is to promote equality and diversity for the benefit of the public. This is achieved in a combination of four ways:

i. Develop the capacity and skills of the multi ethnic communities of Wales so that they are better able to participate in society.

ii. Advance education in equality and diversity by producing educational materials.

iii. Raise awareness of all aspects of discrimination in society on the basis of race or ethnic minority status.

iv. Promote racial harmony for the public benefit throughout Britain.

Between 2006 and 2008, AWEMA was spectacularly successful in delivering a diverse range of activities that engaged and empowered the black and minority ethnic communities of Wales. Based on this success, we have made the following four Wales-wide priorities for our work in the next three to five years:

i. Tackling economic inactivity, especially amongst women. We will do this through capacity building, education programmes and the development of social enterprises where the business focus will be on serving the needs of community groups.

ii. Tackling underachievement with young people and raising their skills levels. We will take an innovative approach using dance, drama and the spoken word in SLAM poetry as some of the tools by which young people’s creative potential is unleashed.

iii. Raising and recognising the skills levels of migrant workers. It is our aim to continue to engage with and organise newly arrived economic migrants so that their language and pastoral needs are met soon after their arrival. It is also our aim to ensure that their full potential can be released and that their contribution is valued at both the economic and cultural levels.

iv. Multi-cultural community cohesion and integration. We are working towards securing capital funding to establish our multi-cultural women’s community centre in Cardiff and a multi-cultural community centre in Swansea. Both centres will seek to and engage with all the mainstream service providers to meet the diverse community needs of Wales’ two principal cities.

Additional to our Wales-wide work, AWEMA works with its sister charity Lynk Reach based in London. The main focus of our work with Lynk Reach is to engage young people and help them break down barriers that they face, whilst simultaneously build bridges with young people from different cultural, ethnic and religions backgrounds. Some of the ground breaking work of Lynk Reach, will see AWEMA facilitating creative United Kingdom wide partnerships that will engage over 13,000 young people in the coming three to five years.

AWEMA’s trans-national plans for the next two years involve collaborating with partners in eight European countries embracing thirteen cities. This collaboration will involve collectively tackling the following problems:

i. Adequately recognising the professional qualifications and skills of immigrants

ii. Addressing specific educational needs of immigrant families

iii. Tackling barriers towards integration in identified urban neighbourhoods

iv. Achieving and valuing European citizenship

AWEMA welcomes enquiries from all those that would wish to work in partnership to help bring about equality and human rights for the BME communities in Wales and beyond.

For further information, contact the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Naz Malik on nazmalik@awema.org.uk or phone 01792 475509.

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