A Day in the Life : Caroline Verdant, Community Organiser for Newham Citizens and TELCO

A Day in the Life of:Caroline Verdant, Community Organiser for Newham Citizens and TELCO

I first got involved in community organising through St Antony’s Catholic Primary School, where I worked as a Higher Level Teaching Assistant and Performing Arts Shadow Lead. For the last 27 years, St Antony’s have worked with Citizens East London chapter, TELCO, to campaign for local justice and issues like a real Living Wage. 

I was invited to get involved with Citizens 20 years ago and started attending rallies where I’d see hundreds of people with banners engaging in campaigns and hearing testimonies, which I now see as, lived experiences.

I always had the question in my mind of who were the people I voted for and what was I really voting on? 

Asking myself these questions often left me feeling hopeless, as who is listening to me and why are decisions being made on my behalf and wondering what role I could play in helping my community.

Fast forward to the present day and I’m now the community organiser for Newham Citizens based in East London after being involved as a leader for 5 years. This now enables me to work with other leaders to have their voices heard in the community on the issues that impact them.

The transition from leader to organiser is one of great navigation for me, seeing the mechanics of what goes on behind the curtain and understanding how to almost take a step back as on organiser, as it’s no longer about me, but developing and identifying those leaders, the ordinary person to gain the power that they need to make change. This really excites me because those years of voting and having decisions made for me, I now have the tools to hold those in power to account through the voice of the community.

My day begins with going through my diary and planning the day, which will consist of meetings and more importantly, going into institutions and having 1:1s with leaders and listening to the issues that they face, whether that be Housing, Low Pay, Youth Safety and Health Inequalities - these are the main campaign issues in Newham.

Today, I met with a leader at NewVic, a sixth form college in Newham, who has so much energy for the involvement of young people, inside and outside of the college. Working together with the student union is going to energise my work. Their ideas reflect the world they they live in today and the challenges that they face as young people, they are eager to see change within their institution as well as with the local community and keen to be inclusive with their clubs and societies.  

Despite being in education for a great length of time, this is a new journey for me, one that I’m going to embrace and run with.