The Anti-Tribalism Movement

The Anti-Tribalism Movement isn’t as well-known as our other funders, especially outside London.  They are a non-profit organisation committed to tackling tribalism and promoting fairer and more equitable societies. The ATM’s vision and track record are based on a cohesive and dynamic society where every person’s rights are protected regardless of tribe, clan, gender, or political belief. ATM has a reputation for being fair, visionary, and trustworthy. We have credibility with the wider BAME community (particularly those of East African origin).

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, The ATM worked with the Community Fund to provide grants to frontline organisations that were working to support BAME people through the crisis.

We invested a grant from The ATM to improve access to healthcare for visually impaired women mainly of Somali, Eritrean, Sudanese and Ethiopian extraction living in Birmingham and the Black Country. The project helped them to recover from the impact of Covid-19 on their medium to long term physical and mental health. Some of the Service Users for this project need our help to catch up with the regular NHS care they were receiving before the Covid-19 lockdown. Others needed help to obtain new appointments and referrals to both specialist care and medical imaging (X-Ray, CT and MRI Scans). These are challenging procedures for BSVI people, especially women following the holy tradition of purdah. Our trained volunteers supported and comforted them throughout.

We invested the grant to improve access for BSVI BAME women who live in Birmingham and the Black Country to NHS care and social services provided by Local Authorities. This included physical health (especially medical imaging appointments) and mental health. For example, about 40 of our Service Users women suffer from diabetes which was causing them to lose their sight. With our help, they started attending clinics again because we made the appointments and arrange transport for them to the venues. Our staff and volunteers also helped them to administer their own Insulin and to eat a suitable diet for Halal people with diabetes.

Older Somali, Eritrean, Sudanese and Ethiopian women (normally aged 60+) suffer disproportionately from macular degeneration because of exposure to sand and extremely high temperatures in these countries before they immigrated to Britain. We therefore worked hard to get eye infirmaries to recognize this problem. In some cases, we also convinced eye infirmaries to treat ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ patients who were also developing Macular Degeneration.