Does Change Really Have to Take A Long Time? Dismantling the Narrative of Change Within The Charity Sector by Annie Rockson

Annie Rockson is a poet and writer who  has worked in the charity sector for 11 years. She has five years experience working in co-production and asset based community development .  As a writer she is passionate about shedding a light on stories from underrepresented groups in order to spark debate to bring about social change. As a poet, Annie has performed at venues such as The Mayor of London's Office, The House of Commons and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Her poetry has further been published in the Voices that Shake Anthology, showcased on global platforms such as the Piccadilly Lights and billboards in Berlin and Milan. Notably, her work was also part of the world’s first Instagram poetry exhibition at The National Poetry Library. Coming from a social justice background, her poems are designed to empower and challenge perceptions.

Change /tʃeɪn(d)ʒ/

Why do you close your fists and hide the light?

The one that threads through your palms,

To bloom a new life..

“For this type of change to happen it’s going to take a very long time”

There were those words again.

It always surprises me how much of a visceral response I get when I hear discussions about change in the sector. It is so strong, so instinctive my body physically rejects it.

This reaction is unfortunately triggered by a concept that I struggle to get behind. The idea that meaningful change can only happen after a ‘long time’. To make things worse the period of time required for the change to take place is so vague, so indeterminate that we’re more likely to see another ice age before the change itself ever materialises.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do recognise that some change can genuinely take time but the prevailing narrative within the charity sector feels more like a deflection than a response to authentic attempts to transform the material conditions we live under.

Maybe my response is partly due to growing up in a world where struggle demanded imagination. Where the possibility of a new set of circumstances, a different reality was the hope that fuelled everyday life. Change was not something abstract, it was something that could be achieved, touched, tasted. The hurt and pain of each setback only sparked a new fire of determination, because change was more than just a want, it was a matter of survival.

Or perhaps it’s because I come from a race of people who have had to make ‘lemonade out of lemons’. From our food, to our dance to our very own liberation. Working with little resources. Creating with what we have. Making things work with no possibility in sight. This is what life has been to me.

Not only that, but the possibilities of change, from the interpersonal to social, were always visible. As a young person in social justice groups such as Voices that Shake, I was given creative tools to reimagine new worlds. Mentoring young people across different environments, I witnessed how the right environment acted as a catalyst for change. I spent days in courses on transformation, dedicated to expanding the possibilities of what it means to be a human being. I unlearned societal norms that impacted our psyche and saw the power this opened up as beliefs shifted and prejudices fell away. Transformation was anything but abstract.

It was no surprise, then, that entering a sector dedicated to change, yet encountering people who seemed to doubt that change was actually possible, kind of spun me. Hearing the phrase ‘change takes a long time’ repeated at regular intervals throughout the day, felt more like a form of institutional procrastination. A way to avoid confronting the discomfort of what it meant to act in the here and now.

A perfect way to postpone accountability.

Tying change to indefinite timelines often ends up justifying harmful and oppressive practices. Unfair treatment and lack of progression routes for racialised staff can become drawn out bureaucratic processes, softened by time-ambiguous language such as ‘being on a learning journey’. This ends up creating an insidious practice, where normalising the idea that change takes a long time, allows injustices to go unchecked.

One thing that became increasingly clear to me was how this perspective treated the past as the primary shaper of the future. The known, the familiar, the previously done were heralded more powerful than what we were yet unable to see. Perhaps because holding onto the comforts of what has come before feels safer than stepping out into the unknown. Or maybe within systems that trigger trauma responses, our minds can become more focused on past experiences as our perception of time is disrupted. Whatever the reason, allowing the past to dictate our future can sometimes create conditions for a self -imposed prison, one where we repeat the same patterns over and over again.

In my Ghanaian heritage, the adinkra symbol of the Sankofa bird teaches something different. Yes, it looks back to the past. But not as a means to dictate what is allowed to happen. It looks back to gather the wisdom we need to carry forward into the future. The past becomes a source of guidance rather than a means of constraint, leaving space for imagination and the creation of something new.

Time is not something that can be controlled. Yet western systems often seek to harness it as if it were theirs to command. This reflects a fragile foundation, one rooted in a deep discomfort of uncertainty and the creation of safety through control.

In conversations around change there often seems to be a selective memory on what is possible. History in the sector demonstrates that change can unfold not only over longer periods of time but shorter ones too. We just have to go back a few years to the Covid- 19 pandemic, where it was dubbed as the ‘the great accelerator’ of digitalisation. The shift to remote working and adaptation to Zoom and other digital platforms quickly became the norm. There was no time for a learning journey in order for this to happen as the environment didn’t allow for it.

For me, it has been rare to come across conversations that interrogate the environments we operate in and its power to shape our behaviour. Instead the environments we work in are treated as an ominous, immovable force – something we must adapt to rather than something that can actively be shaped by the organisation. As a result attempts to change behaviour are disconnected from the environmental contexts that heavily influence it.

Another thing I have struggled with, is the way absolute statements are made around this concept, ‘We all know change won’t happen in our lifetime.’ But by whose standards?

When you examine the language of statements such as these, it reveals a quiet superiority, an assumption that the speakers world view is the definitive truth. This works as a subtle tool to establish conformity and marginalise alternative perspectives. Moreover, it reflects the internalisation of a system, whose everyday language can often hide an implicit hierarchy.

When exploring what conditions have been present in social change. I think back to an archiving project I did on the Mangrove 9, a group of Black activists in London who made history by securing formal acknowledgement of institutional racism by the British courts. The project taught me the power of young people, collective action and what’s possible when people refuse to accept the way things are. The group which included mostly young people represented themselves in court and the journey from the protests in 1970 to the historic judgement in 1971 took just over a year.

In Ghana’s fight for independence, The Positive Action Campaign, which consisted of many youth activists, helped mobilise change that challenged colonial authority. This alongside other things such as the alignment of a shared vision, organised leadership, economic and social pressure contributed to Ghana’s independence in roughly seven years’ time.

When looking at some African philosophies around change. Time is not positioned as the key determinant, rather change is something that emerges once the right conditions are present.

Could it be that some of these conversations around change and time in the sector may be creating a self – fulfilling prophecy that keeps us locked in the status quo?

Change does not necessarily require grandiose actions. For me, the futility of the statement ‘change takes a long time’ shows itself the most in times of urgency.

When organisations face threats or risk they can implement sudden changes as a means of protection. This reveals that a culture of urgency is a condition that can indeed accelerate the pace of change, but not necessarily in ways that support equitable transformation. Such conditions can often trigger fight-or-flight responses potentially leading to the reinforcement of existing power structures.

Perhaps it is time to start asking, if change could happen in the here and now what would we actually be doing? And even more crucially, what are the conditions we are currently creating for narratives such as ‘change takes a long time’ to be upheld as the norm in the first place?