The Justice Together Initiative

As 2024 comes to a close, we reflect with gratitude and pride on the progress made together in what has been an absolute rollercoaster of a year. We want to thank all our funders and grant partners for their commitment to upholding justice. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve achieved together in 2024.

At The Justice Together Initiative, we have refreshed our strategy and theory of change as we approach the first five years of the initiative. Check out my blog explaining what we have learned so far and what's changed: https://lnkd.in/dbPv9SDB

Exciting new role at Justice Together to lead our Influencing work and support our Grant Partners...

We're recruiting! We're looking for a Senior Influencing and Grants Manager to join our small, agile and collaborative team at Justice Together, to support our aim to increase access to justice in the immigration system. This is an exciting new role which offers the opportunity to work with a wide variety of stakeholders to develop and implement Justice Together’s influencing strategy. Find out more: https://lnkd.in/eGXw7hS7

We are looking for a learning partner to support our reflection and understanding around our goal for organisations in the immigration sector to be actively contributing to racial justice. We have up to £15,000 available for this work, and we are looking for either one person or a group of people to carry it out. Please find out more about the work and how to apply here: https://lnkd.in/ezpiwXF9

We have been working with Funders for Race Equality, Migration Exchange (MEX) and Civic Power Fund to develop four priority actions in response to the recent racist and Islamophobic violence on our streets. These actions are designed to harness our combined networks, infrastructure and skills to support Global majority people, Muslims, migrants, refugees and those seeking asylum, and to tackle hate crime and structural racism at this crucial time.    We do not want to address this urgency with short-term response and commitment. We’re asking funders to focus on the following areas: ➡ Emergency support for organisations on the front line to stay safe, particularly ‘by and for’ organisations ➡ Support for people from racialised communities to connect with peers, access well-being support, and centre anti-racism in the wider sector response ➡ Disseminate information on funding needs and collaboration opportunities and convene funders to avoid duplication and strengthen longer term efforts ➡ Solidifying funder commitment by monitoring your funding and ensuring it funds the most vulnerable by completing the racial justice audit. You can find out more about these priorities here: https://lnkd.in/dUBKxJBP

Two weeks ago today - prompted by our grantee partners - we opened an Emergency Action Fund for groups on the frontlines of the racist and Islamophobic violence. Since then, we have made 80 unrestricted grants of £1,000 to groups across the UK. Urgent needs range from: ❗ providing wellbeing support to traumatised staff and communities ❗ venue safety - e.g. installing CCTV; repairing broken glass ❗ personal safety - e.g. a pram for a family seeking asylum who were otherwise unable to leave their accommodation ❗ emergency training around community organising and protest rights ❗ convening young people to work together on joint solutions ❗ and keeping spaces open longer so people have somewhere safe to go. We are very grateful for the partnership of Funders for Race Equality Alliance, The Justice Together Initiative and Migration Exchange (MEX), who coordinated a joined up response and helped us reach as wide a range of groups as possible. We are also grateful to Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Legal Education Foundation and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for fast, trust-based giving that helped ensure these funds were available. But we are clear that the work cannot stop here. As we wrote with our partners last week: we do not want to address this urgency with short-term response and commitment. The groups accessing Emergency Action Fund grants have been raising the alarm about systemic racism, injustice and violence for many years. And the fear, anger and division they face has not gone away. So together, we need to keep agitating for: 💡 Continued structural change within the funding sector, centring racial justice and removing barriers to funding - e.g. supporting frontline groups; providing multi-year grants, unrestricted funding; and cash for emergencies. 💡Allocation of serious, long-term funding for racial justice organising, channeled through the organisations and collaborations already doing this work. 💡Investment in organising strategies to fight hate, nurture love and build the power of place. 💡Investment in community healing and wellbeing, centring the most affected people and supporting the organisations and collaborations already doing this work. 💡Collective action to hold ourselves to account - publicly tracking spending and setting ambitious targets for action. The riots are no longer in the news, but the moment of urgency has not passed. Please stand behind our amazing partners and make the case for lasting change.

We’re pleased to publish our Impact Report for 2023, in which we share some of the amazing work of our grant partners in what has been a very difficult year for all. We also reflect on how our values have enabled us to respond quickly and effectively to the challenges posed by the government’s hostile immigration rhetoric and policies; the cost of living crisis, and to continue to support our grant partners in our common aim of increasing access to justice in the immigration system. You can read the report here - https://lnkd.in/gB95ktun