By Deborah Sagoe (Community Leader)

Citizens UK is an organisation that works in alliance with different communities of different faiths and different parts of London. The organisation’s main focus is to get together with its members and bring change to different communities and to individuals, working towards to end poverty, improve housing and make London safer.

The organisation is on its way to setting up a North London Citizen constitution which my school (Maria Fidelis Convent School) and other churches and communities from the North London area can be a part of. This would be made official on the 30th of March at London Citizen’s big assembly at Friend’s House in Euston.

Because my institution has chosen to be a part of London Citizens, two of us where given the opportunity to attend the 2-Day Training. I went to the training to learn about and gain new leadership skills and learn how to connect with others through a common interest that we all share which is to bring change in our communities. The training process involved group discussions and ‘121’ (one to one) conversations which was about learning how to listen to one another and being able to identify a couple of things that two people may have in common and how this common interest can proceed to one another working side by side to make a change.

This training has helped me learn about myself and learn how to interact, and communicate with others. It has inspired me want to do something to help others like myself to help realise their potential and build their confidence.I have walked away from this training with a plan and it is definitely a plan that can and will be carried out. 

I have always thought that I was destined to bring about some kind of change, and living in a world like the one we live in today, change is something that is definitely hard but not impossible to achieve. I am most definitely glad and fortunate to have come across such an organisation such as Citizens UK whose aim is to make change. Before, I felt stuck and powerless and thought that change is something that I, like many others, was going to talk about, talk about the world how it should be. I have learnt that it takes a ‘121’ to build relationship and eventually a powerful collective of people with the same aims and goals to make changes.