Building Stronger Communities Through Understanding Class

Social class is deep rooted in the UK, its consequences are extensive and complex and often ignored or made to seem normal. The UK is one of the wealthiest nations in the world though it is one of the most unequal countries in Europe.

It wasn’t so long ago that politicians and the media were telling us that class is outdated, where most of us are middle class apart from a few stragglers. It has become more and more difficult for politicians and the media to ignore the ever-increasing gap between the poorest and the wealthiest.  So people are starting to talk about class again, these conversations are important because our class experiences and background not only shape us as individuals, they shape our communities. If we want to create a fairer society, fight for social justice and understand some off the wider social issues such as poverty, Brexit and ecological collapse, I believe we need to understand how social class impacts us personally and collectively.

Getting to know each other through sharing our class stories and backgrounds is a rare thing in our society. It brings up strong emotions. Sure, there can be conflict, though in my experience, difficult conversations expressed and held in a facilitated space can be connecting and transformative.

I believe that if we want to organise more effectively within our communities, workplace and organisations we need to become more skilled in understanding how class impacts us. By doing this we can connect more deeply with each other and find new ways to relate. Class myths and stereotypes are often used by others to divide and conquer by creating mistrust, jealousy and creating stories that tap into fear, unexpressed anger and resentment.

I believe that by reflecting and processing our class background we can gain an awareness, knowledge and language of class dynamics, it’s from this place we can start to change the stories of who we are as a society, we can start to find resilience, strength and solidarity within our histories and not only our class, our race, cultural, gender and other identities. We can find new ways to relate and develop new stories from the grass roots up rather than our communities being defined by those with the political, economic and structural power.

So if you would you like to deal more skilfully with social class and classism in your organisation, social action group, work place and wider community, Wild Wood Facilitation offers a workshop which will draw on the lived experiences of you and other participants in a way that empowers and connects our lives. Our workshops offer an engaging exploration, using interactive exercises, that will support you to develop awareness on social class and classism, on how class impacts our communities, shapes group dynamics and prevents organisations from working more effectively together.

Our workshops are for Individuals, social change groups, community groups, unions, NGO’s or organisation that want to become more class inclusive in a way that supports their values and goals.