Above are all the winners and highly commended for the 2009 Birmingham Local Hearts Awards receiving their trophys from the Lord Mayor, Councillor Michael Wilkes. The photos were taken by
Jane Willetts.   In no particular order we have:

Active Citizen, Male:  Mathew Ebo
Active Citizen, Female Suzanne Coward
Young Person, Jenni Rowley
Lifetime Achievement: Barry Toon
Group: BETI
Young Persons Group:  Hawksley Young Volunteers

The Highly Commended in each category are:

Active Citizen -Male
Highly commended

• Chris Birdsell
• Michael Tye

Active Citizen – Female
Highly commended

• Erma Lewis
• Dolores Pinkney
• Noorin Akhtar

Active Citizen – Young Person
Highly commended

• Joshua Barwell
• Carl Sheward

Lifetime Achievement
Highly commended

• Maureen Murphy
• John Barron

Community Group
Highly commended

• Friends of Jasmin Park
• Faith and Climate Change

Young People’s Group
Highly Commended

• Erdington Constituency Childrens Forum (ECCF)
• INVOLVE Northfield

Today sees the launch of www.birminghambeheard.org.uk. It’s a website which allows you to explore the various public consultations that have taken place or are happening in the city.

For the first time, information about what consultations are being planned and have been undertaken, what people have said and what impact their views have had on decision-making in the city will be easily accessible by the public all in one place, with the launch of the Birmingham Be Heard consultation database, www.birminghambeheard.org.uk on Tuesday 27th October. <
Be Heard is a web-based database developed for Be Birmingham, the city’s local strategic partnership, by Birmingham City Council’s corporate policy and performance team. It currently contains over 170 consultations undertaken by Birmingham City Council and other partner organisations and this number is growing all the time.

Here’s a short video which explains the basics of how to use it (oh and here’s the rss feed for those who want to use rss to keep up to date with new consultations as they happen):

Ray Brookes, John McGill, Adam Noon and Sonya Williams

Friends of Jasmin Fields campaigned for a piece of land in their neighbourhood which had been left to rot and attracted fly-tipping. It was full of rubbish, but a group of local people organised a clearing up day, and then gained funding to fence off the area and renovate it and start looking after this small piece of parkland in Brandwood End – now the Jasmin Fields Nature Reserve.

The group have engaged the local school, have had young people volunteering to be a park ranger, and now the area is full of wildlife and is a place for families come to play, walk their dogs and enjoy the area they live in. The group hope they have empowered the local community. For their work, they have now been nominated for the Community Group category of Birmingham’s Local Hearts Award.

Indu Daji and Electra Soudy

Electra Soudy and Indu Daji have been nominated for the Community Group Local Hearts Award for the work they have done with BETI, which they set up 10 years ago to empower women and give them training and support.

Indu focuses on muslim and hindu women and Electra with single women and voluntary groups – helping those coming to Britain who may be abused by their relatives and in-laws, assisting their learning of English and giving them the advice and guidance they need to get on the job ladder.

The group aim to liberate women in Birmingham who suffer under their families, feel estranged, or are being forced into arranged marriages. Both women have a background which has led them to this work – Electra ran away from her Greek home because her father was setting up an arranged marriage, and Indu also suffered when she moved to the city, but was given confidence by Electra.

The two women also inspire and motivate each other, and are well-known in the community as people other women can come to for help, shelter and advice. Here’s their story.

Jenni Rowley, isn’t your average 20-something woman. She spends her evenings out on the streets in Northfield, trying to prevent Anti Social Behaviour and crime in the area and getting young people involved in a number of projects. One of these projects is the Beyond Midnight Bus, which parks up in Northfield, kitted out with DVD players, stereo, internet and recording studio and has become a place for young people to hang out and talk about what they want to see in their area.

As a support worker for INVOLVE (while she is not in her day job in property management), a community group in the Northfield area which aims to help get funding for local projects young people want to do. Jenni says working on the streets with young people and local authorities has opened her eyes and given her confidence. She tells us how excited she is to be nominated for the Young Person’s Birmingham’s Local Hearts Award, in the young people category.

Steven Barratt and Matthew Ebo

Here’s the story of Matthew Ebo, the Handsworth minister whose work for the community until now, has gone unnoticed. Now Matthew has been shortlisted for the active citizen category of Birmingham’s Local Hearts award, nominated by his friend and co-worker, Steven Barratt.

A lot of his work centres around the National Black Boys Can Association, a group for 9-16-year-olds which meets every fornight to help them with schoolwork and teach them good citizenship. Previously a Special Constable, he also works for the Central and West Victim Support Scheme – helping victims rebuild their lives.

Matthew was inspired by his baptist minister and mother, and he is now the pastor of the Church of God and Prophesy – he said his religious upbringing helped him and without his wife’s support now he could not spend so much time doing voluntary work. Here’s his story.

Maud Grainger and Keith Budden

Four years ago, after running an Islam and the Environment Week, Maud Grainger decided looking at climate change with faith communities would be a great way to take action. The group Faith and Climate Change was set up by Maud Grainger with help from Keith Budden, who has nominated the group for Birmingham’s Local Hearts Award, in the community group category.

Birmingham has over one million of the population belonging to a faith, and this was too big a group not to help with combating climate change, said Maud. The programme has now been replicated across the UK – looking at climate change in terms of values regardless of faith. Why else would a group a young muslim men from Small Heath meet some old Quakers in Bournville? To look at how they installed solar water heater in the Friends Meeting House. Looking at climate change has brought these communities together. Here, they tell their story.

Erma Lewis

Six years ago Erma Lewis started the ‘Wheelchair recycling, we can do’ project which refurbishes old and disused wheelchairs for people on NHS waiting lists or for family events and one-offs. This project sprang out of an appeal she ran following storm damage on her one time home island of Jamaica.

As a former nurse, Erma had seen the problem of people being unable to leave hospital for want of a wheelchair. She began to think that if she was able to find and ship old wheelchairs to the Caribbean then perhaps she could also provide them locally. Now the idea is a registered charity and a team of volunteers repair wheelchairs at a workshop in Harborne.

This podcast was recorded just before the Local Hearts Awards in Birmingham in October 2009 – where she was shortlisted in the category of female active Citizen.

Michael Tye and Eunice McGhie-Belgrave

This is the story of Michael Tye, the man who helped set up Aston Vision Ministries Association in 1984, which aims to reach people in the community, help with language and work to integrate asylum seekers into the community. For his relentless work in engaging the community in Aston, he was nominated by Eunice McGhie-Belgrave for the Birmingham Local Hearts Award, in the active citizen category.

Michael said people know communities help them so want to give something back but he questions those who do community work for self-aggrandisement. He wants to work towards the common good – and is not so keen on being the one in the spotlight. Here he tells us his story.

Suzanne Coward and Linda Kelly

When Suzanne Coward’s daughter Sarah, who has learning difficulties, turned 23, she realised she could use direct payment money to set up a cafe, Stepping Stones. Situated in Sutton Coldfield at the United Reform church, the cafe offers a day experience for people with learning difficulties to hang out, socialise and feel enabled to do things which they wouldn’t often get the opportunity to do.

Suzanne saw a gap in the north of the city, where there were no social enterprise services for people with learning difficulties. She wants to encourage healthy living, exercise and creating things which are meaningful for people with learning difficulties. Linda Kelly, Senior Youth and Community Development Worker in Sutton Coldfield, has nominated Suzanne for the active citizen Local Hearts award for the work she has done for children with learning difficulties.