North Edinburgh Community Festival 2023: Public Meeting on Thursday

Our inaugural festival in May was amazing & the community of North Edinburgh came out in your droves! #northedinfest Now we want to make the festival better!

We need your help to shape next year’s festival. Come to our Public Meeting!

Register here

https://eventbrite.co.uk/e/north-edinburgh-community-festival-open-public-meeting-tickets-469049508707

Rebuilding a fairer Scotland after COVID-19

Expertise and experience wanted to help tackle poverty and inequality

Ideas are being gathered to drive a fairer recovery in the wake of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Organisations and community groups are being asked to share ideas and evidence based on their experiences of responding to the pandemic, and their engagement with people with lived experience of poverty and inequality.

Responses will help inform the work of the Scottish Government’s Advisory Board on Social Renewal, which is tasked with building on the positive policy and practice shifts seen during COVID-19 to tackle disadvantage and poverty, and advance equality and social justice.

Analysis of responses will feed into the board’s discussions, and a report on the outcomes will be published later this year. 

Social Security Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on the health, wealth and emotional wellbeing of our communities is vital to inform our response to and recovery from the pandemic. We also know particular groups have been disproportionately impacted by the crisis.

“That’s why we established the Social Renewal Advisory Board to focus on reducing poverty and disadvantage and advancing equality across a range of issues.

We now want to hear from the many organisations and community groups working on social renewal that will have adapted, changed and repurposed in light of COVID-19. There is significant learning on this to be shared and we want to capture that expertise.

“Our call for ideas and evidence will help us drive forward our ambitions on creating a fairer, more equal society and ensure that the voices of those with lived experience are heard.”

The call for ideas and evidence will run until 16 October.

Find out more about how to take part here

Business is booming for Blackwood Award winner

THE designer of a pioneering spoon which allows people with disabilities to eat without spilling has paid tribute to a leading housing care and housing provider for the honour which propelled his invention into worldwide success. Grant Douglas, who has cerebral palsy, won the Blackwood Design Award in 2015 for his S’up spoon – an innovative design which uses a ‘lid’ to ensure its contents don’t spill. Continue reading Business is booming for Blackwood Award winner

Still time to take part in Drylaw Parish Church survey

How could Drylaw Parish Church be used? The church’s community survey will be closing very soon, so please spare five minutes to fill it in and share your ideas.

Click on this link to be taken to the survey

– https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SQLPPYK

and be entered into a prize draw to win a £25 Marks & Spencer voucher.

The draw will take place shortly after the survey closes.

Do You Have Designs To Help People With Disabilities?

A LEADING housing and care specialist has launched its annual search to find the brightest and best new innovations to help those with disabilities. The Blackwood Design Awards seek to celebrate the brilliant new designs, technologies and adaptations which help people with disabilities to live life to the full. Continue reading Do You Have Designs To Help People With Disabilities?

Annie wins funding for Muirhouse Has Talent project

A young woman from Muirhouse will be the first awardee of from a local ‘community chest’ fund. Anna Cheung will receive £500 to support her ‘Muirhouse Has Got Talent’ music video project. Continue reading Annie wins funding for Muirhouse Has Talent project

Edinburgh bright sparks wanted for ‘big energy ideas’

Edinburgh’s brightest businesses and entrepreneurs have the chance to gain funding and support that could turn their innovative energy idea into a reality, after an accelerator programme opened for 2017 applications this week. Continue reading Edinburgh bright sparks wanted for ‘big energy ideas’