Empowerment Works in Somerset

Empowerment Works made its debut appearance yesterday at ‘The Big Community Development Picnic’, organised by the South West Foundation, and George (the Funding Advisers Forum) at Shipham Village Hall in Somerset. I made a presentation about the campaign to 80 community development workers and funding advisers, outlining the Big Society agenda, suggesting ways of responding to it and highlighting examples of successful empowerment projects. The event was a great opportunity to introduce the campaign, and feedback was very positive. But the mood is grim. With so many organisations and jobs under threat from cuts, how, people want to know, are they meant to bring the Big Society about? Community development skills are essential, but how do we preserve them in the current climate?

Another speaker was Neil Smith, from the Office for Civil Society, who led a discussion on Community Organisers. He was at pains to emphasise that the fact that the government has some new initiatives does not mean that it thinks that what went before was no good, though he knew that this impression is out there. And it’s not making his job any easier. If, as he says, Ministers really are committed to improving the most challenging communities, and Community Organising one of the tools for doing it, they are more radical than some people may think.

Here are a few quotes from Saul Alinsky, the American radical who invented it:
The poor are not poor because they are feckless. They are poor because they are disorganised’.
'Always remember the first rule of power tactics: power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.'
'History is a relay of revolutions.'
'Last guys don't finish nice'.