Author: LPL

The project was originally set up to address the lack of good quality and safe play areas for children and young people in the East End of Glasgow. However, in response to local need and the desire of local parents to improve this, Playbusters has developed over the last five years since its establishment.

Playbusters is managed by a voluntary Board of Directors consisting of parents from five areas in the East End. The committee have undergone extensive training and this has resulted in publishing of a business plan.

The staff team is comprised of one Project Manager, a part time Support Officer, Sessional Staff, Easy Spanish Tutors and Volunteers.

In addition a small budget is available to buy in some other expert support as and when required. The staff and Board of Directors are highly motivated individuals with the aim of making their community the ‘best it can be’ We continually carry out consultations with the community and use this to develop our service delivery.

Intergenerational Project

This project has been going on for over a year and is being enjoyed by both young people and elderly groups involved. The children are from primary 7 at St Marks and Quarrybrae and elderly people mainly from Pensioners Action Group. So far, we have carried out audio and video workshops, had joint visits to Scotland Street Museum and Peoples Palace. We are now working with young people in Parkhead and Shettleston and the older people in a number of workshops including the use of mobile phones, playing sports together with the Nintendo Wii and we have trying out karaoke together – it has been a lot of FUN! We are currently planning visits for both groups together to the Peoples Palace .we will also be carrying out work in partnership with Parkhead Housing Association working on an environmental programme involving both age groups.
Further work between the generations is being carried out with the “Happy Feet Line Dancers” who are helping out with our club activities at whiterose community centre for 5/12 year olds. We have a strong commitment to bring the generations together through a variety of fun and educational activities.

Playbusters are involved in various projects to meet the needs of different age groups. These have been developed with parents, community groups and other agencies.

Easy Spanish Playbusters takes pride in promoting family learning. We now also provide Primary children and parents/carers sessions in addition to our Primary Spanish Clubs. As our club sessions, these classes are full of fun and adults are encouraged to actively participate in all the class activities. Including our flamenco workshops!
Activate: This is a community development programme aimed at volunteers and community activists in the East End. It offers real opportunities for further education and employment.

Pre fives: We continue to develop services for pre fives and do so through co-ordinated play sessions and support to groups. For further information follow the link at the top of this page.

www.playbusters.org.uk

Author: SFHA

There is innate strength and stability within the housing association sector which can be shared with other partners in the broader social economy.

Housing associations have a wealth of experience, knowledge and business assets to offer partners in the social enterprise sector and there is a clear role for housing associations supporting both existing and emerging new social enterprises.

• taking on a community anchor role – strengthening the social enterprise sector via partnerships for Wider Role, incubating new social enterprises
• being creative contractors – increasing their contracting with social enterprises
• being trusted intermediaries, helping develop the sector by sharing their knowledge, experience and skills.

Download pdf here www.senscot.net/docs/HousingAssociationsandtheSocialEnterpriseSector.pdf

Author: COSLA

We are delighted that for the first time in Scotland, central and local government are making an explicit joint commitment to helping local people to play their full part in making Scotland flourish.

For the Scottish Government and COSLA empowering communities is not jargon, it is a key element of what we are both about. This is an agenda we share with colleagues from across the public, voluntary and community sectors.

A key element of our joint commitment is to be clear about what community empowerment is and why it matters.

We see community empowerment as a process where people work together to make change happen in their communities by having more power and influence over what matters to them. We also each believe in the central representative role of councillors in invigorating local democracy, and we see the process of community empowerment as a key way of complementing this.

In getting to this point we have listened to a wide range of people and we have responded to what we heard. So we are seeking to provide strategic leadership. We are not launching new short term initiatives and we will celebrate the vibrant work that is already being done across the country.

To support this high level commitment, we will also develop an Action Plan in partnership with the community and voluntary sectors over the coming months. Based on feedback we have received to date the broad outline of that plan will cover:

• Highlighting examples of community empowerment;

• Providing direct capacity building investment to community groups;

• Investing in an integrated programme to develop skills, learning and networking in relation to community empowerment and engagement;

• Developing support to help communities own assets;

• Investing in improved support for community capacity building;

• Working with Audit Scotland to agree how to assess progress on empowerment.

Today’s joint commitment is a starting point for a long term journey, and we look forward to continuing to work together and with communities as it develops.

Author: James Henderson (Social Researcher)

James Henderson meets DTAS’s Angus Hardie to find out more about the realities of this ‘community-led’ stuff

You know the kind of feel-good movie where the community wins through? Whether it’s the main plot or sub-plot, either way, they finally, after multiple humiliations, find the strength to unite behind their leader, stick together and in some way face down the bullies: the Magnificent Seven, Brassed Off, Erin Brokovitch come to mind but there’s plenty more. And as we watch we too have become committed to the cause, we see it through, we feel powerful and proud, almost heroic: all is right with the world because community is what’s right with the world.

It’s usually next day that alarm bells start ringing. I mean am I really the sort of person to hold out to the bitter end and come good? There’s family and holidays and mortgages to consider, and maybe I don’t quite care enough. Frankly, either community seems a little too good to be true, or I’m not up to the job … or both.

Not surprising then, with folk like me around, that the natural approach to developing communities these days is very much the public and private sectors taking the lead building and running local services whether schools, leisure, transport or shops. Let the big guys take the strain, the glory and the profit: communities can take a backseat, give their views and let the good times roll … or, alternatively, fight a valiant and time-consuming rearguard action against yet another development plan that doesn’t quite get to the heart of what matters to local people: a golf course, a conference centre, more private housing to pay for the social housing, or a shopping mall, perhaps.

There’s a question nagging at me: what is it that communities can realistically do for themselves? I google and find the Development Trust Association Scotland: strapline, the community-led regeneration network. Sounds promising, and I’m off to the unlikely setting of Edinburgh’s West End, amidst blue-chip companies and agencies, past the daunting towers of the Episcopal Cathedral, to locate the Trust’s basement office and its Director, Angus Hardie, eager in the short time available – he’s off to a national regeneration meeting – to get their message across:

“Community-led regeneration, it’s become empty rhetoric in the heart of municipal Scotland where councils run the cities. It’s a very different story in much of rural Scotland. If you were to go to the Highlands and Islands you have a situation where communities are leading regeneration and a public sector that supports it – Highland and Islands Enterprise and the Councils. It’s a silent revolution.”

Okay, so here at least communities have some control but to what extent?

“The Island of Gigha is in a sense where it’s taken to its logical conclusion. Before an absentee landlord and feudal system but now under community ownership it has turned itself around. The population’s growing, businesses are coming, there are wind turbines.”

And this is a model for urban areas too?

“Yes, for instance, we were talking recently with a housing cooperative in Craigmillar. They’ve got an asset-base, good reserves, are addressing wider needs and this could develop further. The community housing movement, rather than the bigger housing associations, could be the giants of community regeneration. They are starting to get there but they could go so much further.”

We talk about other projects in Glasgow but I can’t help wondering is this for real or more like one of those gooey soft-centre movies with the sickly sweet after taste? Can community organisations manage themselves with budgets stretching into millions? I want to believe in it, that this is a different way of doing things, of communities with real strengths and strong voices, but …

Angus has done the thinking: “There’s no doubt that there is a big issue about capacity and skills. But that is no excuse for the attitude of some council officers who are simply dismissive of the idea that that local people could ever manage anything let alone take control of public assets. The review in England commissioned by Department of Communities and Local Government and led by Barry Quirk found that there are no substantive barriers to asset transfer. There are risks – as in everything – but these can be minimised and the recognised benefits outweigh the risks. Quirk concluded that the barriers are more about organisational culture and mindset in local authorities, particularly those of middle management council officers and some councillors.”

“Years ago I worked in Wester Hailes, we had a very open democratic and transparent set of structures and the community got noticed. What we didn’t have was community assets and that was our mistake. Now the place is a shadow of its former self: quite sad really. The council is firmly back in control. If a community has assets and its own income then it has a chance of being able to do things for themselves. Seems to me Wester Hailes is a case of what might have been. The community were certainly up for it: literally thousands of local people were involved in one way or another – there was such a buzz.”

And so in the end, it’s all about politics: who has the power and resources, and who’s prepared to work to get it. And who is prepared to work for it?

“DTA Scotland is part of the campaign for strong and independent communities, Local People Leading, and we’re building-up a base of support across the sector – community woodlands, community transport, community retail, community energy. That could be 700 community organisations, quite a powerful constituency. And there has been a huge political shift across local authorities : Labour only controls 2 councils now and over 50% of councillors are new to their role . As for the new national administration, they tend to see the third sector as having the potential to make a more significant contribution to the wider economy. While that is part of the agenda I don’t see that as the primary purpose of our work. It is about building more connected and stronger communities where local people are more involved in the issues which affect their day to day lives.”

And if this community coalition can find its way, what’s possible?

“This is about long term change. We need some stability and a bit more of a vision about how things should be, perhaps in ten to fifteen years time. The new Scottish Government seems to be making the right noises. I’m optimistic, but no one should think this is going to be easy.”

A voice calls from the deep, “10 to 11, Angus … your train”, and he’s away to Dundee to make the case once more.

As for me, I’m left, well, sort of encouraged … but, hey, ‘ten to fifteen years’, ‘stability’, ‘making the right noises’. This is not feeling like a great night out at the movies, more gritty realism …

I’ve been missing the point: there’s no glorious journey around some grand crusade that gets the blood-flowing. This is the day-to-day commitment of people in their communities inching their way through the minefields of funding, politics and prejudice to prove beyond reasonable doubt that, despite the inevitable ups and downs, they can do the job as well as anyone else … or better. No sentimental endings, no dramatic failures, just the politics of change.

I sit back on the bus and looking out the window start to day-dream. Part of me, somehow won’t rest up: I can’t help feeling there’s a great film buried in here somewhere, surely. Maybe it’s the now distant buzz of Wester Hailes chasing me, stinging my imagination into looking for a scriptwriter’s ending. I mean, what if there was some serious cash behind this, it could be the makings of a real old barnstorming epic of a movie, couldn’t it?

James Henderson is a social researcher who has worked on participatory research into community care, inclusion, health and well-being, community learning and place-making.

Author: Housing and Regeneration Directorate

‘Community Empowerment’ is now located within Scottish Governments Regeneration team. But ‘localism’ is located within the Third Sector team. Other teams (like Rural Affairs) also speak of ‘empowerment’. It`s still a bit confusing. Here’s a ‘map’ of the Housing and Regeneration Directorate.

Download structure chart here

Author: LPL

Wellhouse Community Trust (WCT) is ready to open the doors on their 3rd community facility – ‘hubSports’ a 4-court games hall will deliver over 15 different sports activities on a weekly basis and compliment the Trusts youth facility (Innerzone) and employment/training facility (the hub) that have been operational for the past 4 years.

The Trust along with Wellhouse Housing Association (WHA) have a determined and driven approach to the improvement of the area and with the commitment of local people the residents are empowered through physical, social and economic regeneration.

Previously run by Glasgow City Council the hubSports (previously named Wellhouse Central) building was flooded and then partly fire damaged and then lay as an eyesore to the area for over 5 years. Only 200 yards from ‘the hub’ a new state of the art building owned by WHA and managed by WCT, hubSports was the next target for both organisations to tackle.

After local community consultation and working groups the plans were drawn up and set into motion. High on the agenda is sustainability for this building by installing geo-thermal systems for heating and a wind-turbine for electricity. hubSports is an environmentally friendly, income generation model that not only supports the improvement of health & wellbeing of residents but any surpluses go back into the other services and activities of the Trust such as drop-in youth nights and elderly social activities.

Pauline Smith, Manager of the Trust said, “All activities of the Trust rely on the ownership of each and every one being taken by the community – the staff are the support mechanisms, the community are the driving force but there is a passion and dedication from both to keep moving forward. hubSports will compliment the services and activities available within ‘the hub’ and ‘innerzone’ and provide even more opportunities for local jobs, training, diversionary activities and physical activity for all the community.

We don’t own the building yet but inline with LPL beliefs we will be tackling the Council on this issue – at the cost of approx £980k to refurbish surely the community should own the building? Wish us luck!”

Pauline Smith, Manager, Wellhouse Community Trust
e-mail: psmith@wellhousect.org.uk

Culag Community Woodland Trust was delighted to be awarded over £227 thousand pounds from the Big Lottery under its Investing in Communities Programme, for an Access Improvement and Training Project on the Little Assynt Estate, near Lochinver.

The project involves upgrading a waymarked walking route on the Estate that connects with other recently completed paths including the award winning All Abilities Path. This new route provides better access to the historic remains of a Pre and Post Clearance settlements and provides access into wilder land and the chance to see golden eagles, black throated divers on a SSSI designated loch, and other rare flora and fauna. It could also provide a much needed asset for the community on which potential outdoor recreation related business could be developed. Local Scottish Natural Heritage area officer Sue Agnew, said “We are delighted that the Trust has received the backing for this path which will see visitors and locals enjoying and learning about our natural heritage in this special area of Scotland. We are sure that many others will now visit the SSSI.”

But perhaps the key to this project lies in the opportunities it will give to the people of the community. Its key aim is to provide training and employment in path building and related rural skills. Over the 2 year construction period, workers will be able complete an SVQ and therefore gain the skills and confidence to do more path and rural skill related work in the area.

The success of the award has been widely praised. Local MP John Thurso who attended the opening of the all-abilities path highlighted the importance of the project for the area. “This new path initiative by CCWT has a wide scope of ambition including tourism, well being, skills training and care for biodiversity,” he said. “It demonstrates that close partnership between several groups in a small community can make a real difference, and I have no doubt that it will prove to be a valuable community asset.”

Over the next few months, the Trust will be trying to secure match funding so that the project can go ahead – hopefully by early summer. With the support of the Lottery already secured, the rest should be easy…!

Author: Radical Economics

I was a teenager in the 1930s (phew! That might put me off the map!). It was a time like ours today. We were troubled spectators watching from the sidelines as far away disasters came closer.

Dictators and invasions on the up and up. Abyssinia, Spain, Czechoslovakia. Back home, massive unemployment in the ‘distressed areas’.

Plus the arms race -a David Low cartoon showing a flock of bewildered sheep confronted by a gaggle of carnivorous beasts emerging from the portals of their conference centre, telling- those sheep: “Sorry, we can’t resolve everything. It’s all because of your aggressive instincts. “

Then, in the 1940s, came the f Blitz. Local government bombed out and ineffective, and people at street level taking over, improvising shelters in church crypts and warehouse basements, fighting fires with stirrup pumps alongside the Auxiliary Fire Services, setting up rest centres in local clubs where people could come up for air –and , a cuppa, and maybe a sing-song – in the lulls between the bombing.

Those local clubs and a sort of survivor’s joie de vivre saved the day. And when the local authorities recovered from their break- down, there was, for a while, a new and better relationship between Us and Them.

Later, working in war-torn Sicily, Italy and China, I witnessed the same process of self-discovery in the face of disaster.

SINCE then, following up in other parts of Europe and in Mrica, the Caribbean and the
USA, there have been opportunities to develop tools –like Planning for Real -which help to bridge communication gaps: home-made 3D models of a key building, or a derelict area, or a housing estate, or the bus routes in a town -coupled with Now Soon Later priority charts -eye-catchers attracting attention wherever people foregather, getting everyone off their butts and clustering around, trying out alternatives with the help of a thumb size ‘option’ cards, gradually sorting out agreement about

What needs doing, Where and When. As to Who can help in the doing -the first step is an informal survey, done by a handful of residents, each going house-to-house with a
skills list, extending from being able to do a skateboard kick-flip to computer technology and accountancy, via cookery, gardening, music-making, joinery and chatting people up to get them involved.

The process has caught on in many parts of the world. The reason people give is that it brings Us and Them -whoever they happen to be -together, literally on the same footing, exploring possibilities and priorities side by side, not confronting each other in a public meeting or across an official’s desk. Our motto: Eyes down, hands on, rubbing shoulders and a lot less Big Mouth. Gradually identifying what we can all agree on, How ‘best to get cracking, and Who else might lend a hand.

A Kenyan village pastor summed it up: “We have discovered that we are sitting on gold -our own human resources to get things done.”

THE SELLING point about the Planning for Real technology developed through the
Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation, and later the Scarman Trust, and parallel approaches linked to net -time banking, BizFizz, Slivers of Time -is that the talk is an informal supplement to ‘hands on’ action.

‘Leadership’, if the notion is needed at all, is shared. The key is joint ownership. A bunch of teenagers taking part in a city-wide Planning for Real, planned and planted a row of saplings boarding a main road.

A year or so later, a van driver inadvertently backed into a young tree and crushed it. The teenagers were ready to massacre him “for damaging OUR tree”.

In another city, long after a successful Planning for Real, the chief executive rang me up out of the blue to say that he was commissioning a bigger project –the transformation of a disused college campus -“because my officers are still talking with residents and all the time both sides are using each other’s first names”.

The joint action planning is a bit like a family party tackling a jigsaw puzzle together. Aunty and the kids working on a few jigsaw pieces. Granny and the uncles sorting out another lot. And then the clusters connect and the: whole picture takes shape. No need for anyone to ‘take the lead’ -and if Granny tries it, she’ll be quietly ignored.

The dangers and opportunities confronting us Now, Soon, Later are part of our everyday lives. Teenagers and granddads in the same leaky boat. Our response so far as been too often hamstrung by our dependence on competing leaders who rely for on words to allay our misgivings.

Words “that are substitutes for action, often a cover-up. Spin masks sleaze. The gun-runners, money- manipulators, forest-destroyers get away with their several kinds of murder whilst our religious, racial and cultural affiliations are seen as obstacles to the combined operations needed to repair the damage.

A French cartoon stays in my kind. Two toddlers, boy and girl, face to face, inspecting what lies within each other’s knickers. And the caption: “Vive la difference!”

Being different, not being separate. And all of us with shared awareness, street crime, dog shit, traffic dangers, drug peddling, alcohol abuse, inadequate play facilities, the needs of the frail and housebound. These are common concerns and could be shared opportunities” to tackle them together.

The facts speak for themselves; no need for doctrinaire statements. And so do the opportunities: bulk buy co-ops, credit unions, multi- cultural festivals, advice centres, gardening clubs, teenager fashion shows, keep-fit classes -you name it.

IT’S LATE in the day. It is crucial to reach across the barriers of race and religion which are creating a new and lethal apartheid. It’s not being nice to each other (that’s incidental). Well-meaning homilies don’t go far enough either. What matters is the fellow- feeling that comes from joint efforts and gets results, with a bit of laughter and chat along the way.

No mission statements, ego-trippers, committee-mongering. Leadership, if it is needed at all, is team leadership, with a canny eye to the needs and opportunities that everyone can agree on, here and now.

Common ground as the base, shared achievement as the spring- board to bigger things. As Tom Paine put it -making Common Sense.

Author: DTA

The forthcoming Community Empowerment White Paper seeks to increase the ability of the individual citizen to influence local decisions, improve local services, take on civic roles, and hold officials and councillors to account.

But as many in government recognise, community empowerment is not achieved simply by people acting as individuals alone. It is also about people who are excluded from power organising themselves, building alliances with others and creating vehicles to bring about positive change.

We are delighted to invite you to an afternoon of high-powered debate and a reception at a stunning new community venue in London’s South Bank on 5 June. The symposium will investigate the role of multi-purpose community anchors, examine the growing momentum behind community asset ownership and community-led social enterprise, and how these relate to community empowerment and explore the implications for community investment and support.

The symposium will bring together over one hundred key people at the heart of these issues including local authorities, government agencies, policy makers, funders and those at the forefront of social change.

Further information about the event is available on the attached programme or visit www.dta.org.uk/symposium.

If you would like to attend please return the attached booking form as soon as possible. There are limited places available and similar events held in previous years have been oversubscribed, therefore early booking is advisable.

Download Programme here

Download Booking Form here

Author: Katrine Bussey

RURAL communities in Scotland were given a huge cash boost yesterday.

A total of £57.7 million is being made available to help “grow” local economies, improve facilities and conserve the environment.

It is the first wave of funds to be released under the £1.6 billion Scotland Rural Development Programme, designed to empower communities at grass-roots level, and is made up of cash from the Scottish Government and the European Union.

The money will be matched at local level with both public and private funds, potentially doubling the amount available to communities.

Richard Lochhead, the environment secretary, said: “This is a massive investment in rural Scotland which will see decisions taken in local areas on how best to support a wide range of grass-roots community projects.”

A total of £38.5million from the funding package will be distributed across all of rural Scotland, while £19.2million will go to the Highlands and Islands.

Sixteen local action groups will administer the cash and Mr Lochhead said: “The fact that all funding decisions are to be taken locally will greatly empower community decision-making.”