This much-needed fund will let Jo Cox’s ideas and values shine on - Guardian

This much-needed fund will let Jo Cox’s ideas and values shine on

Alison McGovern

Empowering women and building communities mattered to the brave campaigner. Today’s memorial grants are a fitting tribute

Wed 7 Mar 2018 20.04 AEDT Last modified on Wed 7 Mar 2018 20.07 AEDT

‘Jo Cox demonstrated that hearing women’s voices matters.’ Photograph: BBC/Amos Pictures

Grief doesn’t really leave us, ever. Yes, the death of a person truly loved is an event from which it is possible to carry on. But that is what it is. Carrying on. And as you carry on living, you carry with you the grief. You carry the lack of that loved person, and the hole they left in your supportive web. You carry on wondering about what they might have thought, what they might have said, the actions they may have taken.

I think about my friend Jo Cox a lot. Today, as the Department for International Development announces its Jo Cox memorial grants in support of women’s empowerment and the strengthening of communities to prevent and predict identity-based violence, I hope we take a step forward that she would have liked.

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Any time I mention Syria, I think about Jo. In the year Jo spent in parliament, she put the devastating impact of the Syrian conflict on the agenda in the House of Commons. She never – not for a moment – allowed the government to forget our responsibility to civilians, who have done nothing to propagate war, but who bear the cost. She did not flinch from describing the brutality of Assad’s barrel bombs, nor did she hold back from spelling out the common humanity that we share with Syrian families. Jo had worked with women from Darfur and spent much time in post-conflict Bosnia. As she was no stranger to the impact of war, she used her voice to call for early interventions to try to stop conflicts before they escalate.

Every time I have grasped for the words to explain the grim devastation Syrian civilians face, I have felt Jo’s absence. The truth is, in the past year, it has been far too easy for us all to turn away from that conflict, when we should have been screaming to send help.

As the world has found it easier to ignore the suffering of Syrian civilians, I have thought more about Jo Cox.

I am furiously angry that she is not here to make her own case for the humanitarian principle, now so evidently lacking. It is a horrific truth that life can be so vibrant yet snatched away in a moment. But I know that the lesson of her life is that the only purpose to that anger is to create sufficient force for change. Jo was a practical person, and we must be practical too.

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“More in common”, Jo’s expression of pure humanity from her maiden speech, echoed around the wood panels of the House of Commons chamber as she said them. Since she died those words have been shared around the world, and then returned to the Commons chamber, where they are painted in gold underneath Jo’s coat of arms. At the time, Jo was describing her constituency – Batley and Spen – but since her death, those words have been an inspiration to people everywhere.

Jo demonstrated that hearing women’s voices matters. And in the case of the victims of war, we know that it is women who are most at risk, but also that their voices can be crucial in stopping conflict.

That is why I am glad that the government is creating grants in Jo’s name for women that can help prevent or stabilise conflict. Specifically they will empower women to tackle the complex political, social and economic disadvantages they face, and strengthen the ability of communities to predict and prevent identity-based violence including mass atrocity crimes.

Jo’s name truly lives on. And what’s more, her ideas and values live on

This may be a Conservative government that I will disagree with on almost every issue, but when it comes the value of British aid, they have been a force for good. And I learned from Jo how crucial it is that we work across tribal party lines if the chance for change is available. So, I thank Penny Mordaunt, the international development secretary, along with her predecessor, Priti Patel, for setting up this fund. We are all sisters in this.

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The day Jo was killed in Batley, I was in the House of Commons. As the news filtered through of Jo’s death, MPs and parliamentary staff gathered in the opposition whips office. I saw grim realisation creep up on the faces of all, and hearts break at the thought of who we had lost. Twenty months later, I know those hearts are still broken. Mine is. Life has turned out to be harder and crueller than I wanted it to be.

Despite this, the work, the effort and the campaigning that has gone on in Jo’s name has been a reminder of where love exists in life, too. New friendships – political and otherwise – have been made in her honour. New organisations exist to further the plans she made in life. New projects are well under way, be it in Batley and Spen, on loneliness, on the responsibility to protect, or on the role of women in public life. And in this new Department for International Development initiative, alongside every step to defend decent humanitarian values, Jo’s name truly lives on. And what’s more, her ideas and values live on in it too.

• Alison McGovern is the Labour MP for Wirral South