Lessons for "compassionnate caring" Hague

in success of Hackney Centerprise

Emmanuel Amevor	William Hague

Leader of the Opposition William Hague, took a publicised visit months ago to schools and community centres in multi-racial East Harlem, New York City. But he could get some tips for his Tory party's journey back to power from sources a little closer to home - in Hackney where Black and ethnic minorities are a third of the population.

One of the most deprived boroughs of London, Hackney is near the top in almost every index of social disadvantage, from family income to crime.

With undiminished enthusiasm, however, the Centerprise charity, at work in the borough over 25 years, provides vital arts and social services for more than 2000 clients, mainly African and Caribbean people.

Self help
"It's been largely a self-help operation," says Emmanuel Amevor, director of the charity. "We survived the demise of early sponsors such as the Inner London Education Authority, the Greater London Council, and lived through cut backs in local government funding for voluntary services and the arts".

Now, Centerprise case workers advise the waged and unemployed, distressed and disabled on a range of issues - education/literacy, immigrant welfare, mental health, and citizen's rights. Students use the reading centre to expand their skills and regain lost confidence. Funders include the London Arts Board, borough council and area authorities, and private foundations.

The reason for this success, Mr Hague would discover, is wrapped in a phrase that has proven an anathema to the Tories under Margret Thatcher - community participation. Black-led community organisations like Centerprise use local government grants, private finance and voluntary resources to meet their needs their own way. In the process they have redefined the notion of community service to include a profit-loss component.

Centerprise is a "community centre based on commercial enterprise." It evolved from African American Glenn Thompson's vision of tackling "needs and demands unmet by parliamentary politics or by industrial struggles".

Sucess
The results are evident in a profitable bookshop, with fifty per cent Black clientele, says Amevor. It's successful coffee bar and Caribbean style restaurant serve as a "meeting, greeting and eating space ".

Be forewarned, however, Mr Hague. A Hackney visit will be more than a brief photo-call like that staged in East Harlem. Hackney is a major proving ground for Britain's heralded multi-cultural and multi-racial millennium. Local people have some deeply held views that Hague and his Tory colleagues will have to answer.

M. Juliane-Harvey

Tough questions
Race and equality, for example topped the agenda of a Centerprise conference in Hackney Town Hall last year. "I'm worried about raising my sons," says Carole Creary, local liaison officer and mother of 5 children. "I managed to get two on the road to university. But the younger ones are growing up in in environments much more hostile to young black men. We all need to work hard to reach out to young black people...otherwise we will only reap desperate unhappy children in the future," she says.

Velesha Griffith and Vivienne Francis, 17-year old sixth formers at a Leyton school, want more programmes that uplift youth, especially black young women.

Maureen Juliane-Harvey, a housing association officer, fears that the educational system has not changed its former racist and colonialist view of Black people. The mother of four children , including two sons, is convinced that "The national curriculum is damaging to the educational health of my children. I have to be the outreach worker to help my children, but I need help myself. I want to increase my knowledge to help them," says Juliane-Harvey.

These are views the Tory leader should address if he hopes to topple a Labour government which the majority of Black people support.

Unique quality
More than a window on community views, Centerprise's self-help enterprise approach may warm Tory hearts. It offers an example of Mr. Hague's own avowed small-scale idea, the social entrepreneur. Centerprise delivers better social and community services than many larger and official organisations. An estimated 35,000 people benefit from the Centre's services annually, and projects that keep youth off the streets contribute immeasurably to reductions in crime and drug statistics.

In addition, Mr Hague would be impressed by the mixture of tough-minded commercial sense and flexible responses to community hopes and fears that gives Centerprise its unique quality.

Admittedly, there are probably few more unlikely places for Conservatives to start their journey back to power than Hackney. It is the home territory of Labour MP Dianne Abbott, Britain's first Black woman parliamentarian. Yet, the work of Centerprise exemplifies the Tory leader's much-vaunted aim of changing the party image from elitist and uncaring to a "compassionate conservatism" that supports "local initiative and local community".

Centerprise can be reached at
Tel: 0171-254-9632; Fax: 0171-923-1951;
E-mail cnpr@demon.co.uk