A Community Reporter film made in Birmingham, by Brummies.
In the summer of 2025 a group of Equality Trust trained Community Reporters conducted interviews to investigate how Brummies in their neighbourhoods and communities felt about their access to Arts, Culture, Entertainment & Recreation in Birmingham and their feelings of inclusion in these spaces. We wanted to understand how socio-economic inequality impacts people's experiences - However what we learnt built a much fuller picture of life in Brum in this moment. This film contains some of those insights from our wonderful interviewee storytellers.
We invite you to use these to reflect on your own experiences and of those in your communities.
Think about: What could be different? Who is missing out? What’s already brilliant? What do you have the power to change?
This film was initially shown as part of a Conversations of Change event held at The Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham in January of 2026. We welcomed in people from across the power spectrum in the city, from Councillors to the kinds of Brummies who start free libraries in their local laundrette just because they see the need for it. We watched the film together and reflected on what we learned.
We were joined by: Kathy Hopkin from the Save Birmingham campaign Dr Pat Rozbicka from Aston University and the Live Music Venue Mapping Project and Ian Francis from Flatpack Festival who all joined us to share their research, knowledge and insights on the cities changing landscape. All while singing about what's great about our brilliant city and the opportunities for change.
Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK and has been one of the hardest hit by both national and local spending cuts, with Birmingham City Council announcing a Section 114 (effective bankruptcy) in September 2023. Before and since, the city has lost many key community assets as well as access to the vital funding that keeps many of our core events alive. Events that build the unity and belonging so many of our story tellers speak about in this film. This film looks at the experiences of many different kinds of Brummie, but there are many more stories out there.
Equality Trust and our Community Reporters Alev, Arash and Jennifer hope that by sharing this with you, you'll get to know the great city of Brum a little better and work with us on what can change to break down barriers and welcome people in.
Community Reporters: Alev, Arash, Jennifer
Story Tellers: Uta, Jess, Anita, Shokofeh, ‘Michael’, Roshanak, Sam, Saeid, ‘Ananya’, Layla, Jaime, Serena, KC, Gloria, Gavin
With thanks to: Dr. Pat Rozbicka - Aston University Kathy Hopkin - Save Birmingham Ian Francis - Flatpack Film Festival Birmingham SED
Senior Project Officer - Charlie McNeill
Film editor: Keiran Fuller
A project from Equality Trust funded as part of the Economic Justice place based programme by The Barrow Cadbury Trust
More information: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/news/conversations-of-change-birmingham
Join the movement in Birmingham - Economic Justice Brum: https://economicjusticebrum.org/
