WISH South East Summer Newsletter

Another successful event for WISH South East

On Wednesday last week, WISH South East held our first online event.

As we currently face challenging and uncertain times, we know the safety, wellbeing and mental health of our members is a top priority. In light of current events across the world, in addition to the pandemic, we felt a session offering personal reflections at how sharing our lived experiences can help us and shape a better future for the days to come. 

We were lucky to be able to invite two sector leaders to be ‘in conversation’ about these issues:

Anne-Britt Karunaratne aka ABK, Executive Director of Housing & Customer Services from MOAT.

ABK started by telling us some stories of her journey within the sector and how she, as a women, has been made to feel in the past. 

Now she doesn’t shy away from prejudice and one thing she has learnt from this experience is to always be herself. Sometimes we thrive when we can be ourselves, not when we try to fit in!

Joining ABK, was Aileen Evans, CEO Grand Union Housing, and current President of the Chartered Institute Of Housing.

Aileen took us through how she and her organisation is working against prejudice and touched on creating good focus on mental health in the workplace, through sharing her own experiences, and using her current post as CIH president to focus on building better workplaces which support good mental health.

Aileen’s great tip was to look for a “me shaped hole” in the organisation where you work, or find that hole in the organisation you want to work.

COIVD-19 has created a strange new world, and now more than ever there is a need to look after and look out each other and we can achieve this by being supportive, listening and being open and aware to what others may be going through.

We are pleased to say that more than 60 people attended, we only wish the event could’ve been longer!

A BIG WISH South East thank you to all our members who attended this inspiring session! We would love to hear your feedback, if you attended, please give us your feedback on the SurveyMonkey form which has been emailed to you. Any comments you wish to say to our speakers will be passed on.

If you couldn’t attend this session, then how do you contact us?

If you have any questions regarding our next events or are interested in becoming a member, please reach out our Board members below.

Rebecca Wilcox

Board member and Membership manager WISH South East.

If you have a connection who is interested in joining our organisation, please contact Rebecca Wilcox our membership manager. [email protected]

Lauren Chivers

Board member and Events Manager WISH South East.

If you would be interested in Hosting or being a speaker at an event, please contact [email protected]

Victoria Archer

Board member and marketing manager WISH South East

Victoria manages all of our marketing and communication, please feel free to reach out if you are interested working collaboratiovely with WISH South east or for our Corporate members wanted advertisment. [email protected]

Meet the team…