If at first you don't succeed ......

By Eliud Matindi
Capacity-building and Strategic Development Officer
WHEM Group

As an employee of a voluntary organisation which has extensive links and partnerships with other voluntary groups and local public authorities, I have, on numerous occasions been tempted to either ‘give up’ or, at least, ‘remove all evidence that I ever tried’! However, the optimist in me has persisted and ‘tried again’ and, every now and again, I am pleasantly surprised when my ideas and suggestions are taken on board!

My job, as a Capacity-building and Strategic Development officer for Welwyn Hatfield Ethnic Minority (WHEM) Group, involves working and maintaining relationships with colleagues from other voluntary organisations as well as from the public sector. As we are a small charity (one full-time member of staff i.e. myself and one other colleague who works 10 hours per week!) the only way we can have the most impact for the benefit of our beneficiaries is by working in partnership with like-minded people and organisations. I should like to think that, as any good manager, our key to success is to achieve it through others, (with credit, of course!)

Current and recent partnership projects that I have been involved in include:

a working group that was looking into the setting up of a county-wide Equalities Council. The Project Manager, Faizal Hakim (Faz), has now been recruited to put the project’s proposal into effect;

• the county-wide community cohesion strategy working group (my good friend, Karen, succinctly sets out what this is all about in the August blog)
• representing our group on various boards and working-groups of the Welwyn Hatfield Alliance, the Local Strategic Partnership for Welwyn Hatfield. This has, for example, included working with the local Children and Young People Partnership to inform the borough’s Children and Young People’s Plan for 2009 – 11. I have also been working with local voluntary and community sector colleagues to produce a voluntary and community sector strategy for our borough.
• In the four years that I have been employed by WHEM Group, albeit in different capacities, (my previous role was Development Officer for Hertfordshire Black and Minority Ethnic Partnership) working with others to achieve common objectives has been a key feature. Partnerships, whether in the work-place or out of work, have their ups and downs. In my experience, the upside is when you meet with like-minded people who are equally passionate and motivated to try out new ideas, sometimes in the face of significant odds.

My philosophy in life is that ‘fortune favours the brave’. I also believe in taking reasonable risks to try new things as this is the only way to find out if something works or not. Having said that, I have to constantly remind myself that my approach may not necessarily be shared by others. I therefore know that I may have to make allowance for others in order to keep the partnership on an even keel! The upshot of this need to be flexible is the potential to be frustrated when things don’t move as fast as one would have liked! This is not always easy for someone in my position, especially when dealing with public sector colleagues. With the very limited resources that my organisation has, I have to justify, both to myself as well as to my trustees, that working in partnership is worthwhile to the organisation and our beneficiaries.

Whilst the prospect for ‘jam tomorrow’ is always appealing, I have to be able to show how my involvement in the various partnerships is beneficial to our group in a more tangible and visible way. I am pleased to say that, every now and then, I can point to concrete positive outcomes which have come about as a result of my involvement. An example of this is a recent commission from the local Children Trust Partnership for our group to carry out some consultation with local minority ethnic young people for the area’s Children and Young People’s Plan 2009 – 11. I can only hope that these tangible gains, however small they may seem, continue as they enable myself and other colleagues from the voluntary and community sector to keep our trustees on board when we are involved in partnership projects!

http://www.whemgroup.org.uk/
Email: whemgroup@btconnect.com