What is female community leadership?
Women-led community leadership is not soft. It is not casual. It is not accidental.
- – It is strategic
- – It is skilled
- – It is operationally complex
- – It is financially literate
- – It is emotionally intelligent
- – It is resilient
And yet, it is still too often underestimated.
When I find time to pause and reflect, my thoughts often settle on Educafe and our community. Not on strategy or funding reports, but on the women who hold it all together; my team, our volunteers, friends and other community leaders we work with.
When I sit in our spaces and observe the choreography of care playing out in small, almost imperceptible ways, I know that none of this is accidental. A reassuring glance across the room, someone instinctively stepping in before they’re asked, a teacher protecting a learner’s dignity with a well-timed pause, a warm welcome that dissolves anxiety before it has a chance to take root.
This is leadership in its most natural and powerful form. On International Women’s Day, it feels important to name it.
Educafe – and many other grassroots organisations are sustained by women whose skill and professionalism are woven seamlessly into what they do and are (let’s be honest) consistently overlooked and underpaid. Sometimes, their work is unpaid. Educafe alone has as many as 40 active volunteers delivering high quality support to our local community on a weekly basis. Quick maths based on minimum wage will tell you that’s nearly £60k per year.
Within our team we offer steady, values- led and relational leadership. We hold complexity calmly and make thoughtful decisions that protect both people and purpose. This can be tricky and we have received criticism.
We often have to navigate situations and work with people where experiences trauma, grief and abuse are raw. Emotional intelligence is in high demand when you work in the community.
How we balance the “serious stuff” and “hard skills”
As well as the the ‘soft’ skills, we also pride ourselves on the ‘hard’ skills. Maybe that’s what’s made us successful.
We have operational strength, through carefully managed contracts, systems refined over time, safeguarding measures, budgets balanced and partnerships nurtured with care and precision.
There is professional excellence in our classrooms as well as fun and connection. Educafe learning experiences are infused with dignity, laughter and confidence-building, not just curriculum delivery.
We embrace technology wherever we can and know that we must do so to keep our services going. But we try and shape everything we do with empathy and insight, for example our new App aims to bring the community together to support local services and each other. We want to offer an alternative and positive future for community tech.
Community work led by women can be described as “lovely” or “nice”, words that quietly diminish the rigour, expertise and courage involved. Ambition can be misread as overreach. Vision can be mistaken for idealism. Despite all this, the women of Educafe manage budgets, deliver regulated education, oversee safeguarding, lead partnerships and build systems that hold communities together.
Many bring decades of experience from business, government, industry and education. Their ambition is not about ego; it is about impact. They can see that a positive future for people is possible and they understand what happens if we fail to act.
Lived experience – we’ve been there!
Individually, each woman brings her own history, expertise and character. Collectively, they form something powerful. Many of us are mums, grandparents, step-mums and carers, going through our own life issues.
Our team have lived through migration, separation, parenthood, career changes and grief, all while developing as leaders in business, education and community organising. Our combined experience creates an attentiveness to community need. We listen carefully, we notice important undercurrents and adapt our practices thoughtfully.
On this International Women’s Day, alongside celebration, I want to clearly state;
” When women lead communities, they do not simply run projects;
-They create belonging
-They create resilience
-They create opportunity, and
-They create hope
That work deserves recognition, it deserves respect and it deserves to be properly valued. To the women who hold Educafe — Thank you.
– For your professionalism
– Your courage
– Your quiet strength
– Your generosity of spirit, and
– For the countless small acts that build something far greater than any of us could alone.
I feel incredibly proud to stand alongside you. Educafe was never built by strategy alone, it was built by women who care deeply, think boldly and believe fiercely in people. That is power. “
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