In late August a miracle took place in a church hall in Lurnea, just north of Liverpool. Christians and atheists, unionists and Cancer Council volunteers, migrants and fourth-generation Australians, gathered for the same purpose: to lock in a victory for their community and, in doing so, the first victory for the Sydney Alliance.
The gathering was the climax of a campaign by Liverpool members of our city-wide civil society coalition. For the previous five months alliance members in the Fairfield-Liverpool district had listened to residents' concerns about transport. They didn't fixate on billion-dollar projects or tollways or runways. Instead people talked through the kinds of things getting in the way of everyday life in Liverpool.
An issue that bubbled to the top was getting to and from Liverpool's medical centres. A lack of dedicated pick-up and drop-off zones caused a litany of complaints from residents trying to get sick, frail and elderly patients to treatment.
Instead of just whingeing or giving up, residents worked with an alliance organiser to do something about it. They met local council transport experts, planners and the medical centres and came up with a plan for drop-off zones. Then they convened a public meeting for candidates in the coming council elections and asked them to commit to the creation of drop-off zones if they were elected.
The result was textbook community organising. Before the poll, 10 out of 11 sitting councillors said yes to drop-off zones. Excited by their win, community members filled the public gallery at the first council meeting after the election to remind the new councillors of their commitments. It's the kind of result the alliance is looking to replicate across Sydney, to change our suburbs and city for the better.
While the alliance is relatively new to the public arena in Australia, the concept has been around for quite a while. It dates back to 2007, after I wrote a PhD and a book on how to build powerful coalitions. In my research I saw how such coalitions overseas had built huge networks of community leaders and won significant changes on a range of issues, such as affordable housing, living wages, climate change, city safety and transport.
Groups such as London Citizens have been around for more than a decade while the Industrial Areas Foundation in the US harks back to 1940.
I knew a similar kind of organising could work here and started working with like-minded people to bring together the strands of Sydney's civil society.
Today the alliance has more than 50 partner organisations. We train people to work together in their communities to uncover their top concerns, then use their power to make change happen. That's what we did in Liverpool. We're also doing it in St Mary's, Marrickville, Parramatta and a growing list of other places.
Our partners range from the Catholic Archdiocese of ?? to the Cancer Council ??; from the ?? Jewish Board of Deputies to the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association; from the Arab Council of Australia to the Western Sydney Community Forum. We don't ask people to sort out their differences. Instead we work together on what we can agree on – the common good.
Our work is starting to pick up pace. This Sunday our city assembly at Sydney Town Hall will host four public negotiations with key decision makers.
We will be negotiating with Mirvac to provide apprenticeships for young people from the Glebe housing estate at its Harold Park development. We will be asking the NSW Police Force to work with us to improve the relationship between young people, police and the community through a receipt system for stop and search requests.
We will negotiate with the lord mayor, Clover Moore, to improve lighting at Redfern train station. And we will hear from the Granville MP, Tony Issa, on how he will support the alliance to improve and develop the land around Granville station.
Already the alliance is enabling thousands of people to make a difference where they live. As we grow, I hope we can show more widely that if we work together, we can change our suburbs and change our city for the better.
Amanda Tattersall is the founding coalition director of the Sydney Alliance. Its city assembly takes place from 2-4pm at the Sydney Town Hall. More details at www.sydneyalliance.org.au.
No comments:
Post a Comment