# BAME communities must be at heart of Covid-19 response says Charity So White

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2020/04/07/bame-communities-heart-covid-19-response-charity-so-white/
- Published: 2020-04-07T10:18:45+01:00
- Author: Melanie May

**Covid-19 is disproportionately impacting BAME communities and the sector needs
to take urgent action to avoid further entrenching racial inequalities in our society,
Charity So White has said in a new paper.**

 

 

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[Charity So White’s website](https://charitysowhite.org/) has just launched, with
live position paper [_Racial Injustice in the COVID-19 response_](https://charitysowhite.org/covid19)
published on it yesterday (6 April). The paper calls for charities to put BAME communities
at the heart of their Covid-19 response, and presents five principles for charity
leaders to implement to help guide their response.

 

 

 

The paper also highlights at the key areas where Covid-19 is most impacting BAME
communities, which, over the next week, Charity So White will be focusing on by 
sharing content and stories on to showcase this impact.

 

 

 

The five principles Charity So White highlights to guide the sector’s response are:

 

 

 

 * **Address racial inequalities in the sector** ‘This is not about choosing between
   tackling racial injustice and mitigating the impact of COVID-19. The sector should
   respond with an intersectional approach, taking racial injustices in our society
   into account, in order to be effective.’
 * **Acknowledge who holds power** ‘We hold more power as a sector than we admit.
   It’s time to use that power and to recognise that current models of funding and
   delivery are struggling, while others which don’t meet our standard metrics are
   taking the lead.’
 * **Value lived experience & centre ‘at risk’ communities** ‘Account for the different
   lived experiences of marginalised communities and prioritise coordinated action
   to centre them in delivery and funding.’
 * **Trust the BAME voluntary sector** ‘To best reach those most impacted by the
   crisis, we need to work with organisations closest to them. We urge organisations
   to avoid knee-jerk relief efforts and ensure they have built in the mechanisms
   to work directly with community leaders.’
 * **Recognise & support BAME staff & volunteers** ‘BAME employees will be disproportionately
   impacted by the pandemic as they tend to be more junior or on temporary contracts.
   Senior leadership should account for this, as many employees are at risk of staff
   cuts and hiring freezes.’

 

 

 

The paper includes a [series of recommendations](https://charitysowhite.org/covid19-recommendations),
such as investing in developing culturally sensitive, accessible, and translated
advice and information about services to support BAME people affected by the crisis,
campaigning for the introduction of a national monitoring process to track the use
and impact of Covid-19 emergency measures on BAME communities, and prioritising 
providing advocacy and legal advice for individuals facing redundancy, furlough 
or unlawful action from employers.

 

 

 

Overall, it warns:

 

 

 

> “The world can’t be simplified into ‘BAME’ issues and pandemic issues. We must
> look past the headlines and drill down to the detail. **It is easy in a crisis
> to revert to familiar ways of working, but in doing so we risk not only reinforcing
> existing structures of racial inequality, but further imbedding them. **We ask
> civil society to urgently mobilise and take the lead in centring racial inequalities
> as they support communities most hard hit by this public health crisis.
> It’s unlikely that we will ever return to ‘normal’. **The choices made by us today
> will have a lasting impact for generations to come. **We need to work together,
> openly acknowledging the power and racial imbalances inherent in our sector, and
> seize the opportunity to set a new precedent for the future.”

 

 

 

The full paper can read, as well as downloaded, on the [Charity So White site](https://charitysowhite.org/covid19).

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