A team of Trinity Academy students has returned from the UK final of the Bright Ideas Challenge with their heads held high – the local team of five S3 students won through to the grand final of the nationwide competition and picked up a prize of a further £1000 for their school. Continue reading Utopia: Trinity’s Bright Idea rewarded in national competiton
The Carnegie UK Trust is delighted to share with you its new report, The Practice of Kindness: Learning from the Kindness Innovation Network and North Ayrshire, which explores the practical implementation of kindness in both communities and organisations. Continue reading The Practice of Kindness: new Carnegie Trust UK report
Scottish Community Development Centre and The Poverty Alliance have announced a new support resource for community-led action research, jointly funded by Scottish Government and The National Lottery Community Fund.
The two-year programme will fund six community organisations to develop their own evidence to influence change in their communities – and to take forward actions for improvement. The research evidence generated by the community organisations will be brought together through a new website and used to help shape policy at a national level across Scotland.
Community-led action research is where the community decides on the issue to be researched, designs and carries out the research, and makes use of the results.
This makes community-led action research different from traditional research which tends to be conducted on the community by researchers from outside the community.
A new website, www.knowledgeispower.scot, will bring together the experiences of the six projects, and will highlight how community-led action research can be used across Scotland to support communities to take action on the issues important to them.
In 2018 SCDC and the Poverty Alliance jointly published ‘Knowledge is Power’. This report was the result of series of conversations with community organisations about what is needed to support them to undertake their own research into the issues that affect them, or the opportunities they want to pursue. This work has now come to fruition with the launch of the Knowledge is Power programme.
Maureen McGinn, The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland Chair, said: “People understand what’s needed in their communities, and we believe that when people are in the lead, then communities thrive.
“Community-led action research empowers individuals and groups to generate and use evidence to influence and achieve positive change in their community. That is why I am delighted to see National Lottery funding supporting this project along with funding from the Scottish Government.”
Fiona Garven, Director of SCDC, welcomed the new resource. She said: “We are delighted at this announcement. Community-led action research is about putting communities in control of the generation of evidence needed to support better policy making and better decision making about where resources should be targeted.
“This funding will give communities the opportunity to make their case for the changes they know they need, backed up by their own robust research evidence.”
More information and details on how to apply to be part of the programme will be announced shortly at www.knowledgeispower.scot
Fresh Start Community Picnic
Thursday 11th July from 4 – 7pm
at North Edinburgh Arts
Working with partners across Edinburgh and with volunteer teams, Fresh Start support people previously homeless to ‘make a home’ for themselves in new tenancies. We enable them to resettle in their community, providing volunteering opportunities that offer practical and emotional support, helping them develop life skills, and involving church members and the wider community in our work to end homelessness.
We achieve this by providing essential household goods and decorating services to help people set up home. We also help those who are unemployed gain skills, experience and qualifications that will increase their employability – including gardening, cooking and employability training.
In addition to the practical support we provide, Fresh Start service-users have identified the need for support to help them feel at home in their new community as well as in their new tenancy. They highlighted the advantages that would come from being able to get to know local people, to develop skills and be able to access services and opportunities in a neighbourhood location and be able to get involved in community activities including in evenings and at weekends.
Fresh Start has been based in North Edinburgh for 20 years and we now have the opportunity to take over some currently unused adjacent premises to create a community hub.
Working with other community organisations, we have been looking at ways in which we can bring this space back into community use. We want to create a hub that will work for the whole community ensuring that people new to the area have access to a space where they can meet with local people, develop skills and make a contribution to the community.
To make sure that this becomes a place where people can feel part of, and connected to, their local community we want to know what you would like to see happening in the Hub.
A free evening of talks, live music and hands-on science will showcase research at the University of Edinburgh, on the diverse topics of fertility preservation and urban fires. Continue reading Science on a Summer’s Evening
An organisation with a mission to alleviate loneliness among the older generation is celebrating silver-plated success in the capital. Contact the Elderly, which tackles social isolation through parties providing tea, cake and companionship, has just launched its 25th Edinburgh group. Continue reading Contact the Elderly celebrates Silver Success in Edinburgh
“We can do better, and we will” – Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell
A progress report on child poverty to be published by the Scottish Government today sets out a different path to UK Government austerity. It’s thought that a new Family Income Supplement benefit, which was due to be introduced in 2022, will now be fast-tracked following pleas by Scottish charities. Continue reading Eradicating Child Poverty: Minister to outline next steps
