The age of girl power
Social housing has few female CEOs, a position at odds with their pioneering role in the sector, as Anita Pati explains
A quick glance around any housing conference audience shows how affordable housing is managed mainly by men. Just 16 per cent of the largest housing associations have female chief executives, according to a 2008 Inside Housing survey. Yet women have played a pioneering role in social housing over the past century — albeit a largely invisible one.
Or so claims the Octavia Foundation, the charitable arm of Octavia Housing. The organisation takes its name from National Trust co-founder Octavia Hill (1838-1912), who made considerable achievements in housing. The foundation argues that in Victorian times Ms Hill came up with a prototype of what we would refer to today as affordable housing.
She charged moderate rents in London’s poverty-stricken neighbourhoods. Any profits she made, she ploughed back into improving living conditions. While some consider her to be right-wing — self-sufficiency was her leitmotif — others believe she laid the foundations for community development today.
Considering women’s influence in housing to be overlooked, the Octavia Foundation engaged 20 young people aged 13 to 24 in its project ‘Hidden Herstories: women of change’. The centrepiece — a documentary film showcasing four female social reformers including Octavia Hill — premiered in London on International Women’s Day, last month (see box left: ‘And… action’). The project has served to meet twin aims: championing women’s roles in housing while providing education, learning and opportunity for young residents.
Besides Ms Hill, the film also featured Amy Ashwood Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which advised immigrants on housing and Claudia Jones, a black activist who launched the West Indian Gazette. The only living featured campaigner is Jayaben Desai, who campaigned for black and Asian trade union rights and who led the 1976 Grunwick strike in west London, credited with raising the profile of women and Asian workers.
Empowering people
Sharing screentime with the four is Baroness Brenda Dean, who was the first female chair of the Housing Corporation between 1997 and 2004. ‘For me, Octavia has been key,’ she says. ‘When I became chair of the Housing Corporation I’d never heard of her so this was a journey for me.’
Baroness Dean says Ms Hill’s principles endure today: ‘Here you have this woman who was so advanced in her thinking but was also seen as right-wing in her thinking — she wanted to empower people to be in control of their own lives. She understood just to provide good and decent housing isn’t enough — it’s about the whole rounded person.’
Yet she admits that the modern housing profession still fails to support women into the higher echelons of management. ‘It’s one of the areas that I don’t think we’ve succeeded in,’ she says. ‘One of the working groups at the Housing Corporation [before it was replaced by the Tenant Services Authority and Homes and Communities Agency in 2008] was how do we get more women into CEO roles in housing associations. Some have come up but I don’t see a major change.’
Baroness Dean says exclusion often begins with the wording on job application forms and how they are subsequently sifted. They frequently ask: What management positions have you held? What are your qualifications? ‘Quite often women have skills that are different to that, [but] that makes them no less a quality manager,’ she said.
The experience boosted the young people involved. Filmmaker Steph Vaz, 22, who is disabled, drew inspiration from activist Claudia Jones, who was sick for much of her life. ‘I related to [Ms Jones] because I’m sick as well and she’s a strong woman and she didn’t let anyone stop her,’ she says in the film.
Educating the public
And there was plenty of learning beyond the film-making skills picked up. ‘My expectations of the film were quite high,’ Dontony Gill-Nasadi, 18, another young film-maker, tells the audience at the film’s premiere. ‘When the idea was first put to me, I was very interested in finding out why these four women had been forgotten by society today.’
The experience has proved inspirational for many participants, including 16-year-old Octavia tenant Zakiya Amlak. ‘Because of my school, I didn’t really learn about this type of stuff,’ she adds.
‘So now in my RE lessons, I can actually teach my teacher about this. I’m hoping we show this to the BBC and we can actually teach them something. I hope this is shown around the world.’ Next stop, the Oscars.
‘And… action’: behind the scenes of the documentary Hidden Herstories
Hidden Herstories is a youth-led documentary film on a quartet of female social reformers. It features archive footage and old photographic stills and came about after the Octavia Foundation asked a group of young people from west London what they thought might provide a good learning and education opportunity for them.
Reena Mukherji, director of the Octavia Foundation, recalls: ‘They told us that media and creative issues would benefit them most.’
The film includes contributions from Labour MP Karen Buck, singer Ms Dynamite, Bend It Like Beckham filmmaker Gurindha Chadha and historian Tristram Hunt.
To recruit the budding filmmakers, some of whom are Octavia Housing tenants, the foundation used word of mouth, newsletters or collaborations with local colleges to drum up interest.
The group was split into four teams, each working on one of the women’s histories. The project took six months, including three months’ full-time work last summer, and evenings and weekends during term time.
Over the next six months there will be at least 30 free public screenings nationwide at churches, libraries, community halls, colleges and cinemas, starting in west London, where Octavia Housing operates.
Film finance
£70,000
Total budget
£50,000
Grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund
£20,000
Staff salaries and time in kind
£10,000
Operational costs, including refreshments and travel expenses
£40,000
Production and running costs, including paying film production companies to oversee the project, creating the DVDs and maintaining the project website
Case study
Moktar Al Atas, 18
Moktar, an Octavia Housing tenant is studying chemistry, maths, English language, literature and film for his final year of A-levels. He is one of 20 young people involved in Hidden Herstories.
He also took part in last year’s Grove Roots project - a similar initiative - after his mother read about it in Octavia Housing’s tenant newsletter. The Octavia Foundation gave him a grant of around £500 with which he bought a computer and film editing suite, and made some drama shorts.
‘The first skills I learnt [from making these films] was how to research,’ he says. ‘Education in schools is very spoon-fed - they tell you where to look for research. For this, we had to research the lives of four women and I didn’t have a clue where to start.’ He says a ‘team effort’ led them to the Institute of Race Relations and HISTORYtalk, a local history group, for source material.
‘The project influenced me to study film [at college],’ he says. ‘I was going to do philosophy but in the film there is a quote from Claudia [Jones] where she says, “Art is the genesis of a nation’s freedom,” and this [film] is a piece of art that shows how free we are to explore people in our past and in our community’s history that will shape us as individuals. She was amazing. ‘
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