Local Welcome’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB)
June 2025
Local Welcome is setting up a lived experience advocate group (LEAG) to represent members of Local Welcome groups who are refugees and people seeking sanctuary across the UK.
Individuals with lived experience contributed to the launch of Local Welcome 10 years ago through the co-design of our cooking and eating ritual, and have been involved since in varying capacities including as trustees, as participants in user research and co-design, and through roles in the team.
However, at this point in time in Local Welcome’s existence, representation is limited. Whilst Local Welcome leaders and members make up two thirds of our current Trustee board, none of our current board members have lived experience of being a refugee or person seeking sanctuary.
In the past year, we’ve attempted to recruit at least one lived-experience trustee, but have been unsuccessful. This has prompted us to reconsider our approach to representation, and to commence work on setting up a lived experience advocate group. Our hope is that this will encourage and facilitate greater uptake and participation of lived-experienced individuals in Local Welcome’s future.
In response to this, Local Welcome is working to:
Identify and learn about the barriers that exist in gaining lived experience representation.
Create a lived experience advocate group who will be involved in decision-making with the team and trustee board. This includes developing an inclusive recruitment process and ensuring that there’s appropriate support and training for LEAG members, and clear criteria for the group’s structure, processes and involvement.
Ensure feedback from the LEAG influences board decisions, and that there’s two-way feedback between the board and group.
Set out a clear route for group members’ future involvement in governance.
Are you a Local Welcome group member with lived experience of being a refugee or person seeking sanctuary? Or, do you know someone who is, and who might be interested in becoming a LEAG member? If so, we’d love to hear from you as we draw together the early stages of this new work: events@local-welcome.org