This meeting serves as a forum for collaboration and reflection, with attendees reviewing the LLA’s ongoing impact across the city, and identifying future priorities to strengthen the Alliance’s role in supporting inclusive communities. A significant focus of the meeting was on building peace, not only as a concept, but as a practical framework for leadership, wellbeing, and community cohesion.
Key updates were shared by individuals leading strands of the LLA’s work. Tom Shaw highlighted the importance of addressing structural inequalities through inclusive leadership and explained how conflict, when approached constructively, can be a catalyst for positive change and peace. In contrast, when handled destructively, it risks reinforcing patterns of structural violence that deepen division and inequality.
He provided a progress update on the Inclusive Leadership Alliance (ILA), a new initiative that is beginning to take shape. The ILA is focused on creating pathways for more inclusive decision-making and leadership development in the public, private, and third sectors. Find out more about the ILA at www.inclusive-leadership.org.
Lucie Lakin shared the emerging priorities for Peace and Cohesion, drawing from experience of Carr Manor Community School’s own Peace Plan. Lucie’s presentation outlined how the school is responding to today’s complex challenges: from the impact of social media, the climate crisis, artificial intelligence, and global conflict, to rising concerns around mental health, school absence, poverty, and fractured relationships.
The Carr Manor Peace Plan is structured around three key areas: The Modern World, Health and Wellbeing, and Relationships & Partnerships, offering a grounded case study in how peacebuilding can be embedded in everyday institutional life.
Ash Razzaq presented CATCH’s Peace Plan, which promotes peace on multiple levels: peace within ourselves, peace with others, peace for our world, and peace through justice. This holistic model underscored the importance of personal wellbeing, community relationships, environmental responsibility, and social fairness as essential ingredients of lasting peace.
While peace was a central pillar of the meeting, future pathways for the Alliance’s development were explored, with discussions focusing on where collective effort and innovation are most needed. Attendees reaffirmed their shared commitment to collaborative leadership.
The meeting concluded with a renewed sense of purpose, with all partners aligned around a shared ambition to drive forward positive change and embed the LLA’s mission of inclusion, collaboration and ambition across Leeds.
