Voice4Change England: A tailored approach to reaching London’s under-represented community groups

Voice4Change England’s YourVoteYourVoice project, supported by the Greater London Authority (GLA), was an impartial campaign which ran from August 2023-February 2024, to raise awareness about the changes to the way we vote, brought in by the Elections Act (2022).

Our aim was to raise awareness about the accepted forms of photo Voter ID and to promote political literacy amongst the Black and Minoritised Ethnic (BME) and underrepresented communities in London, to inform people how to register to vote and how to apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate.

To achieve this goal, we created videos on political literacy, delivered in-person and online workshops, held information stalls, designed flyers and banners, launched print and social media campaigns, sent direct emails to 200 London V4CE members and sent newsletters to 1000+ V4CE members.

The V4CE team reached BME groups with different needs using tailored and innovative approaches, including:

• Delivering an online workshop with BSL interpreters.
• Promoting political literacy workshop via a Bengali video advert campaign for a month on ION TV, a London based Bangladeshi TV channel and participating in an exclusive live TV talk show called ION Exclusive, dedicated discussion on our Voter ID campaign took place.
• Delivering face to face workshops to Bangladeshi Mental Health Forum and Enfield Black Community Health Forum.
• Placing a newspaper advertisement in both the LinkIt Advertiser and Midweek Advertiser that reach thousands of Orthodox Jewish households in London.

Our staff designed a tailored Easy Read workshop to meet the needs of one of our beneficiaries, Learning Disability Network London (LDN-London), that has a neurodivergent audience.

In response to LDN London’s request to  share information in bitesize sections, we used quizzes and audience participation to introduce important concepts from registering to vote, to accepted forms of photo Voter ID. Taking a learning-by-doing approach, we introduced role-play participation to make our participants feel comfortable with voting at the polling station and increasing their confidence in voting. The participants practised introducing themselves to the polling clerks, filling in ballot papers and placing their votes in the ballot box.

We also held a stakeholder and networking event to promote political literacy through an interactive workshop with group discussion and feedback. The event was attended by representatives from more than 30 organisations.

The V4CE team facilitated some fruitful discussions. Groups discussed how to increase voter registration and voter engagement in BME and disadvantaged groups.

Our stakeholders brought their unique experiences and backgrounds together to explore a range of innovative ideas, from engaging with youth under the voting age to changing the way we vote.

 

Here are a few key takeaways from the group discussions:

Who to engage

• Young people who are under the voting age so they know when they can and how to take part in democracy, and their parents.
• Religious leaders, as they are trusted voices in faith communities.
• People who do not speak English or have limited access to online services, such as older generations and new migrants

Strategies to empower underrepresented communities

• To have inspiring candidates that represent local communities and can bridge the gap, as many people expressed that they don’t feel represented by political candidates.
• To show real life examples, particularly to younger audiences, of the benefits of voting and the consequences of not voting.
• To provide opportunities for young people to meet politicians across the political spectrum so that their voices can be heard.
• To create multiple language versions of resources for new migrants who do not speak English.
• To offer 1-1 IT support to older generations who have limited access to online services.
• To use simple and positive language.
• To empower young people to become ambassadors for democratic engagement, to inspire others.

Channels of influence

• Faith settings, such as places of worship.
• Secondary schools, colleges or universities/academic institutions, including Pupil Referral Units.
• Cultural media channels, for example media outlets targeting Black and Minoritised ethnic groups.

 

The day turned out to be a huge success thanks to our team’s efforts, and the contributions of all our amazing attendees. We want to say a massive thank you to our funder, the Greater London Authority, for supporting this event as part of our work to raise Londoners’ awareness of their democratic rights. For people who were not able to attend our event, we have prepared an event recap video. We also received lots of positive feedback from attendees. Check out more testimonials on our website.

 

“It’s really useful for me to see and hear about how important it is for the community to vote. But also [for] the most vulnerable people in the community to be able to have their say and how we can reach them. And it’s also educational for me to hear about whether refugees and asylum seekers have the right to vote.”

Aita Lokhat – Zubeda Welcome, charity supporting refugees and asylum seekers

 

“I found today very, very informative. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know anything about needing ID to vote. I didn’t know anything about being able to register if you’re homeless, or actually that you can register from 16, I thought that was 18. So today’s been very informative … and there should be a lot more stuff like this – it’s important.”

Leonard Theobalds, Precious Counselling and Mentoring – Community Interest Company supporting BAME young people in Enfield

 

“I found it really interesting [to hear] about your involvement in the campaign to get people to vote, particularly from BME and marginalised communities. I think it’s a really important agenda. Like you, I feel very passionate about people having autonomy and control and being able to influence … the world around them. [I’m] really excited to see how we could support the campaign.”

Tony Wong, Chief Executive Hackney CVS