Empowerment Works is a movement of people and organisations committed to building support for community empowerment in the South West and beyond. For more information please visit the Empowering Communities website.
Monday 29 November 2010
West Howe Community Enterprises
West Howe Community Enterprises was set up by residents in West Howe, Bournemouth to improve communications about the area and make it a better place to live. There's an active group of volunteers who've set up a charity shop called Inspiring Change, amongst many other things. The Empowerment Good Practice programme is enabling the Zebra Collective to work with the group to help them develop and achieve their plans. Last week I facilitated a workshop which enabled the group to clearly define how they will work together as a team. They knew they'd got it right when one participant pointed out that "..if everyone in the world did this, there'd be no more problems!".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sounds like a great project, we could do with one in my home town too! I imagine this is just the kind of project government has in mind when it wants to create the Big Society. However projects like this do need the kind of development support described to make them successful, and I worry that all the funding for this kind of support is not being replaced, leaving exciting initiatives like this vulnerable to floundering.
ReplyDeleteAs one of the volunteers on the West Howe project continuing funding is indeed a problem. We have a bi-monthly newsletter for which printing and distribution costs have to be met. Bournemouth Council have been great in funding the setup costs and lots of training, but no continuing funding, so somehow we have to find advertising or ongoing fundraising or it will die when the funds run out.
ReplyDelete