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Noel Pearson seeks ideas from London's East End

Stephen Lunn, Social affairs writer The Australian

10 September 2008 - WHAT do the gritty streets of London's East End and remote indigenous Australia have in common, despite being almost literally poles apart?

The answer is two men willing to tear up the conventional playbook and look beyond politically correct one-size-fits-all government policy to address the raft of social ills plaguing their communities.

Noel Pearson met Britain's Lord Andrew Mawson in Cairns yesterday to discuss ways to improve education, housing, health and employment, and remove racism, in the communities they care so deeply about. It wasn't the first time the two have cross-pollinated ideas.

When Lord Mawson first moved to Bromley-by-Bow as a Uniting Church clergyman in the mid-1980s, he quickly became disillusioned by liberal policies that seemed only to exacerbate urban problems, mainly by allowing new migrants to be concentrated in public housing ghettos. Bangladeshi arrivals were clumped together into an us-and-them situation against the East End locals, generating bitterness and violence when what was needed was a more integrated housing model.

"One of the first things I saw when I moved there was a white East Ender pulling a pregnant Bangladeshi woman by her hair along the street; it was pretty confronting,"
Lord Mawson told The Australian.

He saw a new way, social entrepreneurship, where progress was made by working outside government, encouraging the endeavour, expertise and energy of individuals project by project. Policies "written by politically correct 20-something wonks" achieved little, or worse.

Lord Mawson, author of a new book, The Social Entrepreneur: Making Communities Work, said that was where he and Mr Pearson found common ground over the years.

"We're 12,000 miles apart but we've come to similar conclusions as each other,"
Lord Mawson said.

"I'd rather talk about people's responsibilities than their rights. And I think what Noel and (Pearson's brother) Gerhardt try and do, like me, is deal with real problems faced by people with names and addresses. So often government policy-making doesn't have 'Karen and the kids' in the frame.

"But we social entrepreneurs thrive in that nitty-gritty, where it all gets complicated."

Over time, Lord Mawson, who last year was appointed as a life peer to the House of Lords, has seen his entrepreneurial approach bear fruit. His Bromley-by-Bow Centre is now a one-stop community focal point for healthcare, education, employment and even small-business ventures.

"In Britain I think there has been a reclaiming of an enterprise culture, not just for business but also the social sector," he said. "Social and business entrepreneurs deal with each other now. Noel knows this and that's what he's trying to do here, I think."

He has spent time recently visiting indigenous communities in the Daintree, and offers his prescription for further progress: "Try and find those people with a twinkle in their eye, who can bring an entrepreneurial spirit to making change at a micro level. Help them get some successes, and only then look to replicate that success elsewhere."

Source: The Australian

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