Employment and Skills is the third event in our four-part ‘Building Back Equal’ series. Each event in the series focuses attention on reducing inequalities in the Liverpool City Region, facilitating discussion on how to build back better. Read on to find out how this event will address this challenge.
Insights from our first event in the series helped identify what sectors needed to be prioritised to achieve our community’s goal of sparking real change in the region. Having already completed our second event on Culture and Destination Tourism, our third event will focus on Employment and Skills, bringing together values-led organisations to discuss what more can be done in their sectors and industries to take action, spark change, and ensure a fair recovery from COVID-19.
Why this event is needed
Predictably, COVID-19’s impact across different industries and sectors over the last 18 months has not been even. In fact, the pandemic and multiple lockdowns have exacerbated inequalities at a national, regional, and local level.
Widening inequalities on all three levels have left the region disproportionately vulnerable to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, with diverse groups over-represented in job losses associated with COVID-19.
‘Building Back Equal – Employment and Skills’ will open honest discussions regarding these issues and help find local solutions to a growing challenge.
Who is the event for?
‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills will create the space to discuss these issues and consider how the region can respond to them. The event is open to everyone but will be particularly beneficial if you’re looking to:
Hear from industry leaders within the Liverpool City Region about equality of opportunity
Share your thoughts on how the region can build back equally
Make meaningful cross-sector connections with purpose-driven individuals and organisations
Help inform the Firestarters Building Back Equal Insights report
Become part of a community that’s working together to do good
Who are our guests for ‘Employment and Skills’?
Guest speakers at Employment and Skills include Amanda Follit, Paul Amann, and Tracy Fishwick OBE. Further guests will be announced very soon on our Twitter and Instagram.
How you can take part
Want to have your say in how the Liverpool City Region can build back equality of opportunity? Join us at Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ – Employment and Skills on Thursday 4th November by booking your ticket to the event on Eventbrite.
How can the Liverpool City Region’s culture and tourism sector come together to champion diversity and build back equal?
Building Back Equal…
Culture and Destination Tourism is the second in a four-part series of ‘Building Back Equal’ events focusing on bringing people together to take action, spark change and ensure a fair recovery from COVID 19. Insights from the first event in April 2020 have been used to identify priority sectors for underrepresented groups. Other sectors that the remaining events will focus on include ‘Health and Wellbeing’, and ‘Employment and Skills’
A year in culture…
The cultural sector has always been recognised as being one of the more progressive and diverse; in the past 12 months, many of our cultural organisations have suffered from financial loss and had their futures cast into uncertainty due to covid regulations. This is another element of COVID-19 that has disproportionately affected marginalised groups.
Building on our first Firestarters event
Our last event brought together a diverse range of cross-sector stakeholders to reflect on their experiences and to have input in what steps they felt needed to be taken for the region to build back equal. The discussion highlighted three barriers to building back equal:
Networks – Diverse business owners aren’t locked into the networks they need to be for support and advice that will enable them to grow
Measurement and accountability – Change needs to be positive but also measurable
Diverse voices – More needs to be done to amplify diverse voices in the LCR
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SMART Commitments
Firestarters aims to be different. We started Firestarters because we wanted to establish a peer support network that was driven by action, insights and social change rather than sales and profit. From our first building back equal event that took place in April, measurability and accountability were highlighted as two of the barriers to creating real change. SMART Commitments are our way of addressing this challenge. We will set ourselves three SMART objectives from each event that will help us to manage our progress and our impact and will help us to keep ourselves accountable. The way we define our SMART Commitments are categorised in three ways:
As a business
What commitments can we, Matchstick Creative, make as a business? How can we change our processes? How can we introduce fairer ways of working? How can we improve the impact we have?
As a community
What commitments can we, Firestarters, make as a cross-sector community? What changes can we make? What should our priorities be? What should our agenda be?
As an activist
What commitments can we make as activists? What issues can we raise awareness of? What agenda can we get behind? How can we influence people with our actions?
As a Business
How do we inspire positivity and creativity in young people? How do we inspire them to go on and build on what’s happening now?
Sarah Ogle, Marketing and Communications Director, Everyman Theatre and Playhouse
Problem: How do we inspire the next generation to build on the work that’s already been done?
Response: Matchstick Creative is going to help inspire and support the next generation of young people by supporting the Culture Deck Music Project with a strategy workshop.
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As a Community
How do we actually change, “nothing’s changed”? How do we stop having this continuous pattern? We are now on a loop.
Andrew Ibi, Head of Fashion, LJMU
The main thing that struck me from our conversation is that there are plenty of examples of people who are making changes, but we’re not very good at sharing. We’re not good at optimising some of the resources that we have and the knowledge we have.
Sarah Lovelle, Head of Culture, LCRCA
A few people in the group are like myself – they’ve been around for a while, and we’re conscious that we’ve seen initiatives, and statements and manifestos come and go and nothing much changes.
Kevin McManus, Head of UNESCO City of Music
Problem: We seem to be stuck in a cycle. A lot of the conversations we’re having have already been had. There are some people doing great things, but we’re not very good at sharing it. How do we galvanise these groups into action and collaboration?
Response: We’re going to help improve knowledge sharing by creating a newsletter that sign-posts resources and shares news.
As activists
Problem: A lack of connection between different purpose-driven organisations leads to repeated efforts and repeated work
Response: Reach 1000 people with a feature campaign on 6 LCR activists, Raising awareness of what is already being done around the city regarding activism and social action.
What’s next?
What’s next for Firestarters and Building Back Equal? We’ll provide regular updates on our progress with our SMART Commitments via our social channels (Twitter and Instagram). We also have a further two Building Back Equal events around Health and Wellbeing, and Employment and Skills, the dates for which are still to be confirmed. If you would like to be notified when we have a date then get in touch via email: firestarters@matchstickcreative.co.uk.
For our second Firestarters event, we chose to focus on our region’s tourism and culture sectors to start conversations about how we can build back better and achieve inclusive growth for the sectors. Read on to discover what our Firestarters community discussed at ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture, and what our next steps for the tourism and culture sectors are.
What is Firestarters and ‘Building Back Equal’?
Firestarters is a values-driven community that’s striving to be a force for good in the Liverpool City Region (LCR). Through live events that showcase a diverse range of speakers and audiences, Firestarters aims to build meaningful connections between purpose-driven people and achieve real change. ‘Building Back Equal’ is a four-part event series that focuses on finding solutions to our region’s biggest challenges and building back the LCR in a fair and inclusive way. Destination Tourism and Culture was the second event in the series and gathered the LCR’s cultural organisations in one (virtual) space.
Why Destination Tourism and Culture?
Our first Firestarters event, ‘Building Back Equal’, allowed us to gain more of an insight into the challenges that the LCR is facing. We looked into the most pressing matters that are affecting our city region, and what sectors, in particular, were in need of attention. From here, it was clear to us that our city’s tourism and culture sectors were the highest priority. With this in mind, we designed the second ‘Building Back Equal’ event, Destination Tourism and Culture, to be in direct response to what our region’s culture, creative and tourism sectors need.
Why is ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture so relevant now?
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the LCR has seen huge losses across its tourism and culture sectors with 31,000 jobs having been lost within our region’s tourism sector alone. In a study from the Visitor Economy Team at Growth Platform, it was found in 2019, spending within the LCR’s tourism sector reached £4.98bn. However, due to the COVID-10 restrictions, throughout 2020, income generated from the sector dropped by a massive 58%. This highlights just how severe the situation is and how essential it is that we work together to build back our region’s tourism sector.
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As well as this, there have also been huge challenges for the arts and culture sector as the government has recently announced that it will be going ahead with plans to cut funding to university arts subjects by 50% by this Autumn. This is yet another setback for the arts and culture sector and emphasises the need for community events like Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ if we’re to achieve fair recovery from the pandemic.
What we discussed at Destination Tourism and Culture
‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture brought together 40 of our region’s most influential creative, cultural and tourism organisations to discuss the question of: “How can the LCR’s culture and tourism sectorcome together to champion diversity and build back equal?”.
During the event, we heard from Yaw Owusu (The Playmaker Group, Liverpool International Music Festival, PRS Foundation and LCR Music Board) who ran a Q&A all about the PRS Foundation’s Power Up Programme, as well as starting off some brilliant discussions with the Firestarters community about the tourism and culture sectors. One of the key points that came from Yaw’s Q&A was around the areas that the LCR is both succeeding and failing in, with regards to its tourism and culture sectors. Yaw highlighted Liverpool’s ambition for, and commitment to, creatives and the creative sector as something that really stood out. However, he also spoke about the unique issues that Liverpool experiences as a city.
We are dealing with stuff here that’s very different. Our history means that certain things need to be taken a lot more seriously. But our ambition in terms of culture and tourism and its worth to the city, particularly with music and arts. Not every city has that power coming from a certain sector.
Yaw Owusu, The Playmaker Group, Liverpool International Music Festival, PRS Foundation and LCR Music Board.
After Yaw’s Q&A, we broke off into six smaller groups for more in-depth discussions about how we can build back the culture and tourism sectors. These were led by our incredible guests:
Andrew Ibi, Co-Founder of FACE, Programme Leader at LJMU and Founder of Bold Agency
Claire McColgan, Director of Culture Liverpool
Emma Smith, Artistic Director & CEO of the Liverpool Irish Festival
Kevin McManus, Head of UNESCO City of Music
Sarah Lovell, Head of Culture at the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
Sarah Ogle, Marketing & Communications Director at Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse
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Each of the six groups discussed three key questions around the culture and tourism sectors:
What are the challenges around reducing inequalities as we build back better?
What are the changes you would like to see in your own sector/industry?
What tips and best practices can you share?
What we’ve learned from ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture
The smaller group discussions enabled us to dive deeper and uncover some of the key issues and challenges that the sectors are facing. There were so many amazing points that came from these discussions, but what seemed to be a running theme across all of the groups was the need for:
More arts and culture education for young people in schools
Diverse representation at the top level of organisations
Structural changes within organisations
Making actual change happen, not just talking about making change
A few people in the group are like me they’ve been around for a while, and we’re conscious that we’ve seen initiatives, and statements and manifestos come and go and nothing much changes.
Kevin McManus, Head of UNESCO City of Music
What are the next steps?
If we want to spark change for our region’s culture and destination tourism sectors then it’s all about the next steps. We’ll be sharing some of our top insights as well as putting together plans for what our next steps will look like. Keep an eye out for our next blog post where we’ll be sharing it all!
Want to catch up on all of our Firestarters community discussions from ‘Building Back Equal’ – Destination Tourism and Culture? The full event video is up on YouTube now for you to watch back! To keep up-to-date with all the latest news from the Firestarters community, make sure to follow us at @heyfirestarters on Twitter.
For our first Firestarters event, we wanted to create a space to spark real change in the Liverpool City Region, and approach rebuilding in a more inclusive way following COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. Follow us as we discuss our findings from the event and what we can all learn from ‘Building Back Equal’.
What is Firestarters and why did we start it?
Firestarters is a values-driven networking community focusing on sharing the voices of diverse speakers, exciting live events and relevant content. Firestarters first came about in response to the lack of authentic networking events that brought value to attendees, and set out to create an engaged community of purpose-driven ethical leaders, entrepreneurs and inspired change-makers, who all share the same goal: to actively make a difference to the Liverpool City Region.
Firestarters presents…’Building Back Equal’, the networking event to make purposeful connections with ethical business leaders from the #LiverpoolCityRegion.
Following COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement and the Government’s Race Report for this year, it’s more important than ever to build communities like Firestarters and work towards achieving inclusive growth. But, what is it that makes Firestarters and ‘Building Back Equal’ so relevant at the moment?
Black and Asian Britons in our society today face less prejudice than their parents or grandparents, they may well fare better than those in many other countries. But such comparisons make little difference to the lives of ethnic minority Britons in 2021.
Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future.
This highlights one of the key short fallings from the Government’s Race Report which is the thinking that just because some progress has been made, that enough progress has been made. While it’s important that change has happened, it’s hardly reassuring when there’s still so much that needs to be done.
Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’ event
‘Building Back Equal’ was the first public event for Firestarters, which brought together the Liverpool City Region’s community of change-makers to tackle the question of “How can the Liverpool City Region’s business community come together to champion diversity and build back equal?”. ‘Building Back Equal’ gathered together 40 of the region’s most influential stakeholders, all of whom had the same goal: the desire and capability to help the Liverpool City Region become the change that it wants to see.
Emeka Onuora also gave a keynote speech that highlighted the reasons why more action is needed in the Liverpool City Region to create a plan to approach building back equally. He shared a study from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority which showed that black people in the Liverpool City Region are:
Twice as likely to be born into child poverty
Paid £1.10 an hour less than employees
Paid 10% less after graduating
3 times more likely to be stopped and searched
Twice as likely not to own their own home
It’s statistics like this that prove that there is still so much more to be done, which is why communities like Firestarters are so important to create the space to have necessary conversations.
There has never been a more relevant time for an event like Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’. Here are 10 reasons why this event is needed:
🔥 To shine a light on the existing inequalities not only in the Liverpool City Region but across the UK #Firestarters@heyfirestarters
What we discovered from Firestarters ‘Building Back Equal’
Not only were there key points highlighted during Emy’s speech, but there were also plenty of points that came from our panel discussions, including:
The inequalities that exist in having access to advice, resources and funding as a black business owner
A need for measurable change that can be sustained
The importance of language when speaking about diversity, inclusion and equality
The issues that can come from focusing on competition rather than community
The need for unconscious bias training at the top of all organisations
Some of the challenges we’ve found for black business include not having access to the same advice, support or funding, and not being able to grow and develop.
Emeka Onuora, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority
What’s next for Firestarters?
Firestarters is just beginning and there’s so much more yet to come from its community. Following ‘Building Back Equal’ we’ll be speaking to our community about how we can go about actively making a difference and putting the key findings from our first event into practice. Based on what we’ve learnt from ‘Building Back Equal’, we’ve also set specific short, medium and long term goals that we set out to achieve.
1. Activists (short-term)
Challenge: Amplifying diverse voices in the LCR
Response: We’re going to run a social media campaign amplifying the voices of diverse stakeholders, helping to educate the region on the challenges they face and their experiences. The campaign will last six weeks and will focus on 10 Liverpool City Region stakeholders from diverse backgrounds. A blend of different content will be distributed across Matchstick Creative channels to provide some insights into the experiences of diverse stakeholders in the Liverpool City Region.
Board level
Employer Level
Employee level
Third sector
Public sector
2. Business (medium-term)
Challenge: Change needs to be positive but also measurable
Response: We’re going to set a number of internal SMART objectives around equality and diversity. This will include introducing quotas for our speakers at Firestarters events and tracking the number of diverse businesses we support through Torchlight Talks. We will publish our SMART objectives and provide updates on our progress to encourage more open discussion around these challenges.
3. Community (long-term)
Challenge: Diverse business owners aren’t locked in the business networks they need to be for support and advice that will enable them to grow
Response: The expansion of ‘Building Back Equal’ to include three more events in 2021. The events will focus on building networks for diverse leaders in priority sectors and industries including hospitality and culture, health and well-being, and employment and skills.
We’ll be sharing more information about our findings as well as announcing some exciting things over on Twitter so make sure to follow @heyfirestarters to join in the conversation. If you missed your chance to get involved in our first Firestarters event then don’t worry, you can watch the full ‘Building Back Equal’ event over on YouTube.
