Public Heath Wales and Black Lives Matters

Regarding the behaviour of people, I think people in work just because they're in the health profession anyway already and and and this is the health issue, so they knew exactly what to do. They knew exactly what measures to put in place. People just switched overnight and just kind of like geared their thoughts and everything else that they were doing to COVID-19 response. Yeah, so that that that's worked out well, but I think it's been 'cause we are in health and it's a health issue, and people are kind of like maybe used to dealing with illnesses and things that, although not with the pandemic, but with illnesses and things that there are that I health related. Regarding the Black Lives Matter movement, regarding racial injustices, I think that will take a long time, especially in the public service. It’s so entrenched, so subtle, people don't say to your face, it's just embedded in the system that you almost don't see it unless you know wait and unless you can recognise it. And that's a bit frustrating that people even just with everything that's been happening, that I haven't found anybody who have had a conversation with who who said, “oh, Steph, how are you doing? What's going on? How are you feeling? What can we do to help?” in that regard, I think, you know, in the public service, there's a lot of entrenched racism. Yeah. And you kind of like, see it even when you go to meetings and things like that, that they won't say it to you, but they will just kind of like ignore you. Like, “what are you doing here?” And I had to bring this up with the board of directors actually in February before COVID, I was invited to go speak to the board of directors for Public Health Wales. Of my experience, when I first joined Public Health Wales, ‘cause I didn't feel welcome. You know, coming from the third sector, coming from City of Sanctuary, coming from our project where we were promoting welcome, I didn't feel welcome at all and I raised that. So I was invited to go talk to the board of directors of public health. You know that they need to change things. We need to look at apprenticeships and work placements and making interviews and and job vacancies more available to ethnic minorities, to refugees, you know, putting things like volunteering opportunities for asylum seekers, you know, so I want to talk about that and I think it just happened at the right time because just after that, it COVID-19 and know how affecting ethnic minorities and then it was the racial injustice that's come up. So it's just kind of like happened at the right at the right time. You know sometimes I can just blab on, I have so much to say!