Meet the Mancunian-7.11-Rahiela Koser transcript

Intro

A warm Mancunian welcome to you today. I'm Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe, your host, and it's an honour to share Season 7 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast: social impact stories from Manchester with you. This season is all about celebrating the stories of our local changemakers and the profound social impact they are creating.

Every Tuesday, I shine a spotlight on the incredible individuals weaving the fabric of our community. From grassroots heroes to local legends, their stories are the soul of Manchester. Whether you're tuning in on Apple, Spotify, Google or www.meetthemancunian.co.uk, get ready for a season that showcases the incredible social impact within our community.

Welcome to the 11th episode of Season 7 of the Meet the Mancunian podcast, Social Impact Stories from Manchester. Passionate about supporting the youth, we hear from Rahiela Koser, Community Organiser, Oldham Parent Power, in this episode.

Episode 7.11

[00:01:12] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I'm delighted to introduce my guest Rahiela Kosar, Community Organiser Oldham Parent Power in this episode. Thank you so much, Rahiela, for joining me today.

[00:01:22] Rahiela Koser: Oh, thank you for having me, Deepa

[00:01:25] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: It's a real pleasure.

I'm very interested to know how your passion for supporting the youth started.

[00:01:30] Rahiela Koser: I'm a mom of five children and I'm a teacher by profession, so I'm around young people all the time in home and at work. I'm really passionate about the youth. Obviously, they're our future and they're fun to be around. There's never a dull moment around them. I'm always around young people and I just love it.

[00:01:52] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you. And I like that about surrounded by youth at home and at work.

The Genesis of Rahiela's Involvement with Oldham Parent Power

[00:01:57] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And then, tell us about how you got involved with Oldham Parent Power and the role you play currently as a community organiser as well.

[00:02:04] Rahiela Koser: I got involved in Oldham Parent Power as a parent. I was approached by my child's school asking me if I wanted to be part of this group of parents who come together to talk about, what we can do for young people to help them in their educational journey. So instantly, I was really excited by the prospect and I joined straight away.

From 2019 up until January 2023, I was a parent on this group called Oldham Parent Power. But then in January 2023, I was offered the job, which as community organiser for the same group, which was, which obviously I was thrilled to bits about. So now almost it's coming up to a year where I've been the community organiser for the same group of parents, for Oldham Parent Power.

Understanding Oldham Parent Power's Mission

[00:02:55] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Tell us a little bit about what Oldham Parent Power does and also maybe a little about how your role helps the work of the charity.

[00:03:04] Rahiela Koser: Oldham Parent Power is a group of parents who come together and talk about how we as parents can help our young people in their educational journeys and help them with the obstacles and the barriers that they face. Because here in Oldham, we do have a lot less young people going on to achieve success in higher education than the national level. And that is concerning to most parents here in Oldham.

So we decided to get together and talk about that uncomfortable truth and see what we as parents can do about it. And here in Oldham there's a lot of social and economic deprivation. So we instantly thought there might be a relationship here between economic and social deprivation and low educational achievement, especially in higher education.

That was our goal really to talk about it and take power into our own hands really by getting together, talking about it and seeing what we can do about it. So that's the main aim of Oldham Parent Power.

[00:04:09] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you for sharing that. And you talked about like you said, it's an uncomfortable truth that in a deprived area, less children may go into higher education. That's a really interesting observation.

Rahiela's Role and Activities as a Community Organiser

[00:04:21] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: And as a community organiser, what's your role? How are you contributing to bringing the parents together.

[00:04:28] Rahiela Koser: As the community organiser, I have one to ones with all the group members to keep us all together and connected and see how we're all feeling about the group and about our aims and how we're getting on. And then also we have six weekly meetings in which we discuss our aims and what campaigns we want to go forward with and fight for, how we want to fight for change through our campaigns.

So in between these six weekly meetings, I just keep meeting up with group members to see how they're feeling and how we're moving forward with our campaigns. Within the six weeks, we do meet regularly at Costa as well over a coffee. And we talk about what each of us has done, if we, from the meeting, if we have gone away with an action, then we discuss that in the meeting at Costa as well.

And also in the one to ones, it's about listening to what people are concerned about, and parents like myself are concerned about, and what's affecting them and their children. So listening has got a lot to do with my work, and talking to people and keeping us all connected before the next meeting, which happens around a month to a six week time frame. So that's the main part of my role here.

[00:05:51] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Like you said, deep listening and good communication and bringing the parents together and focused on the campaigns and the work you're trying to do.

Overcoming Challenges in Community Organizing

[00:06:01] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: There must be some challenges you've had to overcome on this journey. Can you talk about a little bit of that?

[00:06:06] Rahiela Koser: One challenge that comes to mind is how some people are different to others, obviously. Some people want to take a leading role and they're very vocal and they're very confident. And they like to take charge.

And then there's other people who are less, less vocal and less wanting to take charge. And take on a role as well. But then they still want to be part of their group. And for me, that was, it was learning to be okay with that because obviously we all as parents are passionate about change and we want to come together to discuss how we can achieve positive change for our young people.

But obviously we've all got our different personalities, so it was just learning that, to some people like to take the lead, other people don't. Some people like to speak, and other people don't. And that's okay within a group, that forms the group dynamics and so that was a challenge and then also is wanting to get a result straight away.

At first, in the beginning, I was a bit impatient. I was thinking, oh, we're fighting for such a change to happen, and it needs to happen within this time frame. But as I've gone on in my role and become more experienced, I've realised that the slower it goes sometimes, that's a strength. To take it slowly and to listen to as many people as possible and their stories. Storytelling is very powerful. And change comes slowly and so that was one of my challenges personally as well, to learn that.

[00:07:34] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: They sound like really great lessons that you've learned through this experience. And I particularly like the one about, big societal changes take time. We can't hurry them. You're shifting the social order in some way and you're creating a new one.

Impactful Achievements of Oldham Parent Power

[00:07:51] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: What impact have you made so far? And here, maybe you want to share some of the experiences of your parents who've been part of the group?

[00:07:59] Rahiela Koser: So the impact so far has been absolutely wonderful for me personally as a part of the group. The biggest thing is that we provide each other with a sense of belonging. Community, which I feel that in the modern age has been lost somewhat.

We're living very individualistic lives, which are very a lot of people are quite lonely. There's not much community feeling left. And so when we come together as parents to talk about, the struggle of parenthood and what our young people are struggling with; we give each other that sense of community and we forge friendships across different cultures who wouldn't, normally sit together and talk and be friends. So that's one of the greatest strengths of Oldham Parent Power, I feel. That our sense of community is achieved across different cultures and cultural divides and friendships are forged.

We've won quite a few campaigns so far. When we first became came together as a group, COVID hit soon after. and we all started home-schooling and it was a massive struggle for all of us. And we were discussing how I've got five children, and I did not have five devices in the house for all of them. And we really struggled with the internet connection as well and a lot of parents were struggling.

So we actually won a campaign to receive laptops from Cambridge University, which was a massive win for all of us, and that was lovely. A lot of parents were suffering from the digital divide, as you call it, and that made life a lot easier for them. It certainly did with me, because one of my children was using my phone to do home learning on.

So when I received this laptop, that freed up my phone for me to, be able to make emergency calls to my parents and people that I was worried about in the community. So that was a massive relief and I know other parents were relieved by that.

As a group, we've realised that mental health is one of the major barriers. Poor mental health support is one of the major barriers that our young people are facing in their educational journeys. And that's why a lot of young people actually drop out of, at some point in their educational journeys and don't pursue higher education as much as in other parts of the country.

So we've teamed up with Oldham Council who are setting up family hubs across the borough, and we're providing a parent voice to them so that they can make these family hubs more accessible. Provide, what us as parents want within these family hubs. So our collective voice, is informing their decisions and the services that they will provide in these family hubs. And we've stressed to them, as other groups have, that mental health support is the most important service that we want within these family hubs.

Recently we were celebrating that as a group, that Oldham Council have taken us very seriously and have appreciated our voice as parents, us coming together and giving them our concerns and informing their decision making by our collective concerns. So that for us has been a big achievement more recently.

And we've also got made alliances with obviously Oldham Council, but also the Oldham Youth Council. They're young people who are part of the council and are in the decision making process. So we've got together with them and we've realised that for them as well, not just us as parents, but they're saying that, yes, mental health is the biggest issue at the minute for young people within education.

And so we're providing each other with support, like a parent voice and a young person's voice. And we're building alliances and that's wonderful to see. So yeah, that's some great wins there for us.

[00:12:03] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you so much for sharing, and they all sound really relevant and impactful because, right from, like you said, supporting each child with a device to help them through the pandemic and home-schooling, which in itself is a challenge to that better spirit of community.

And then you've also talked about the advocacy for mental health with the council and also with the youth council and other guests have shared how important this is for the youth where the youth really struggled with mental health and there's many statistics about that as well. Thank you for sharing that and it's really great to see all the great work you're doing. Please keep it up and hope you can inspire others.

[00:12:46] Rahiela Koser: Thank you.  

Expanding the Reach: How to Get Involved

[00:12:47] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: How can interested people reach out to you and learn more?

[00:12:50] Rahiela Koser: I work for the Brilliant Club, which has about nine chapters currently, I believe, of parent powers across the country. So there's one in East Oxford, for example, and there's one in Peterborough, a group similar to Oldham Parent Power, where Parents come together and basically take action on what concerns them.

So yeah, if you google the Brilliant Club, and specifically the communities team within the Brilliant Club, you can find more information. And then there's, if you go on Twitter, there's Old Parent Power is quite active on Twitter as well. So that's how you can find out more about the work that we do.

Advice for Starting a Similar Movement

[00:13:35] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thanks so much for sharing that Rahiela, and what advice would you have for people looking to start a similar movement in another part of the UK or another part of the world?

[00:13:44] Rahiela Koser: I would say definitely go for it. I think the sense of community that you get is absolutely wonderful. And you get other parents like yourself in a similar situation to yourself who you can offload on because at the end of the day, parenting is extremely challenging at the best of times. And that's what I get from Oldham Parent Power is that I offload on other parents and then they offload on me.

And that makes me feel better because it makes me feel less isolated and it makes. It reminds me that other people, other parents are going through similar challenges that I am. Also, you're taking power into your own hands. You're not just sitting back and waiting for other decision makers to create change.

You're creating change yourself for your own community. So you're taking charge of your own community and taking that responsibility and that challenge on which is very satisfying. As a member of my local community, I feel like I'm making change and contributing back to my community.

So definitely I'd say go for it.

[00:14:50] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: An opportunity now for you to talk about anything I haven't asked you about?

[00:14:53] Rahiela Koser: We're always looking to, we always looking for new parents to join us. We're very welcoming of new parents and it's lovely to see new faces. So we go from school to do launch events and talk about the work that we do and that's how we recruit most of our parents. But anybody is welcome to join.

Our emphasis now is to campaign for better mental health support within schools, colleges and universities. That's what we want to see because we as parents and our young people have identified that as the main factor that affects us in the educational journey.

Hopefully if we improve mental health services with our parent voice and the young person voice combined, then we will see a ripple effect here in Oldham of where more young people will access higher education and their parents will be more informed about the higher educational journey.

Because that's another thing we do in Oldham Parent Power. Our aim is to make every parent that joins us a higher education expert. So that whilst their children are accessing higher education, they themselves have the knowledge to then support their young people in higher education.

So that's our aim for the future. Hopefully we will see a ripple effect of more informed, more empowered parents and more young people accessing higher education and being successful in higher education.

And therefore that gap between Central Oldham and the rest of the country will become narrower. And more young people here in Oldham will, like the rest of the country, will be accessing higher education. So that's what we're looking forward to.

And a lot of what we find as a side effect is that a lot of parents themselves become more in touch with their aspirations. In this learning journey, they realised that, Oh, I could do this course or that course that I've just got the information for through a parent power meeting. And not just my young people, person in my family, but I myself can do it as well.

Rahiela's Personal Journey and Inspirations

[00:17:11] Rahiela Koser: And I'm an example of that, to be honest, when I first joined Oldham Parent Power, I just suddenly realised that I've always wanted to become a teacher, and that inspired me to do my teacher training.

Then, a few years ago when I actually joined Parent Power, I thought, why not me, why not be an example to my children, and take action to change my own life around through education. A lot of parents have been inspired to change their own life around through higher education and that's what we promote really in a nutshell.

[00:17:46] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: That is really powerful as well, right? Because it's also the parents being good role models for their children, showing that they are investing in their future and giving themselves a skill.

I'm like you, was actually trained to be an English teacher. I was in Saudi Arabia. I was in a difficult situation where women have limited rights to work and as a dependent didn't have the right to work. So I thought maybe I should go for this teaching qualification and also more recently I did my MBA then from University of Bradford. Absolutely big believer in lifelong learning.

And that's such a powerful thing in addition to all the work you're doing to help young people get inspired. It's also great that you're inspiring the community itself to invest in themselves.

I now move to the signature questions I ask all my guests and the first one is the Mancunian spirit in a word or a phrase.

[00:18:42] Rahiela Koser: I'd say dedicated.

[00:18:45] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Thank you, that is very true.

Can you share a Mancunian who inspires you and tell us why?

[00:18:50] Rahiela Koser: I'd say my cousin. She works for Manchester NHS in the mental health department and she's very inspiring. She's very passionate about her work. She works really hard. She was the one of the first females in my family to pursue higher education and she inspired me to follow in her footsteps and pursue higher education. And she overcame many obstacles. She's been a great inspiration to me ever since, and she's just a wonderful person.

[00:19:23] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Shout out to your cousin. She's doing some very important work and it's great that she's also inspiring you and other people. I'm sure many other people as well.

[00:19:32] Rahiela Koser: Thank you.

[00:19:33] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far?

[00:19:37] Rahiela Koser: I'd say one of the most important ones is that listening to people's stories is very powerful. And it's key to informing your work. The more listening that you do, I think the more informed the work that you do within the community will be. I didn't realise the power of listening before this role.

And I'm more of a talker and less of a listener. Listening has always been one of my weakest points, whereas I can talk for England. So in this role, I realised that listening is very powerful because then the work that you do becomes more powerful as a result.

[00:20:15] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I think you're so right. When we talk about emotional intelligence, listening and deep listening. without rushing to interrupt the person with your next stream of thought. It's so important and really, like you said, informs your work, informs how you engage with the community, how you support the community, and sometimes even hidden needs which one may not have anticipated, but comes out through that deep listening.

[00:20:41] Rahiela Koser: Definitely.

[00:20:42] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

[00:20:45] Rahiela Koser: I think I'd want to be able to fly, maybe, even though I'm terrified of heights. So I don't know how I would cope with it. But I just love travelling and I love experiencing different cultures around the world. And that's what, one of the things I love about being an Oldhammer and being, living in Oldham is that, there's so many diverse cultures here. And there's so many diverse stories to hear about.

 I love traveling. I love experiencing different cultures. And the fact that it's so expensive and with my five children, I rarely get to go abroad. So if I could fly, then that would make that passion of mine more accessible to me. But then again, I'm terrified of heights. I don't know how that would work.

[00:21:32] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I think that's a very popular one in my guess. Many of them choose that, but many different reasons. Some people for travel, some people to save on a commute, and many other reasons why people like to fly, but that's really good.

Concluding Thoughts and Heartwarming Stories

[00:21:46] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: Is there a funny or a heart-warming story you want to share with listeners to end the podcast?

[00:21:52] Rahiela Koser: I think what's heart-warming for me is, I was born and bred here in Oldham. I've lived here all my life, so I've seen the problems that Oldham has faced and some really dark times for example, back in 2001, I think it was, there are Oldham riots that happened where, communities felt that they weren't listened to by the police and there was a lot of tensions.

So I watched that through my bedroom window as a 19, 20 year old back then. I was actually at uni at the time. Then, and now 20 years on, seeing, different people in my group, especially, as well as other groups in my group, Parent Power, different people from different communities sitting together and sharing what we have in common, which is far greater than what divides us as human beings.

And, offloading on each other and just having a laugh and saying, talking about how, teenagers are such hard work and so challenging, and for me, that's the most heart-warming thing, and that's why I love my work. I absolutely adore my work because that's what I see. The community cohesion aspect of it for me is the most important and most heart-warming,

[00:23:10] Deepa Thomas-Sutcliffe: I think it's so powerful what you just said because there's more things we have in common at the basic level or the human level than the things that are different. We may have different cultures and different backgrounds and different ages and, the things you have in common in your case, like you talked about your passion for the community or that, passion for giving young children a better future. Those things are really the things that bring us together. So it's such a powerful thing. Thank you for sharing that.

Thank you, Rahiela. This has been really nice. And I know it's been a fairly cold day that we are talking on. So it's nice to have a bit of a heart-warming story to end the podcast on. Thank you for your time.

[00:23:49] Rahiela Koser: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed it. I've really enjoyed speaking to you. Thank you.

Outro

Rahiela, I really enjoyed learning about supporting the youth today. Next week on Tuesday, 2nd April 2024, the season finale, I speak to Susie Hughes about animal welfare. The Meet the Mancunian podcast will then take a break and return in the summer with a whole new season of guests.

Dear listener, I hope you were inspired by today's episode and it sparks your passion to make change happen wherever you live and work. I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our community for your support and feedback. Your stories inspire this podcast.

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Keep thriving, keep connecting, and remember the power of change lies within us.