Beth Speaking from elstudio on Flickr (click on the picture to go to the original)
Beth Kanter is the social media expert for non profit organisations. Last year I made this promise to pay more attention to her prolific blog output.
Today is her 53rd birthday, and in keeping with a small tradition built up over the last 3 years, she is again using her birthday as an excuse to show how social media and trusted networks can combine to help charities. She is raising funds for her favourite charity, the Sharing Foundation.
Joshua Barwell and Carl Sheward
Carl Sheward and Joshua Barwell are two Junior Volunteer playworkers at Pype Hayes Community Focus. Both 16-years-old, when they are not studying for AS-levels they are spending their free time getting those younger than them involved, doing fun days and activities.
For their effort and heart for the community at such a young age, the Junior Playworker Co-ordinator has nominated them both for the Young Persons Birmingham Local Hearts award. They both agree the work is rewarding, and possibly see themselves forging a career in community work. Here’s their story.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/Grassroots-Carl-Sheward-and-Joshua-Barwell1.mp3[/podcast]
Dolores Pinkney and Kevin Duffy
This is the story of Dolores Pinkney who runs the Dojo project in Handworth. She has been working tirelessly for her community since she moved to Birmingham with her family in the 1960s, and now she has been nominated by Kevin Duffy for Birmingham City Council’s Local Hearts Awards in the active citizen category.
She says her parents were her inspiration – they opened up their home to everyone in the area and it became a focal point of the community. Now with her brother Hector, who works at Handsworth Library, Dolores has continued her parents’ legacy with the Dojo project. It ranges from jogging sessions on Tuesdays & Sundays to securing the lease to build a community play centre on the derelict site of the Hockley flyover.
Dolores says her motivation is “encouraging everyone that we meet, enabling and empowering,” and if someone is there who needs help, she cannot turn them away. Here’s her story.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/Grassroots-Dolores-Pinkney.mp3[/podcast]
Chris Birdsell and Bob Flack
Chris Birdsell isn’t your average pub landlord. Along with running the Varsity pub in Harborne, Chris is chairman of the local “pub watch” which alerts police to incidents on the High Street, he’s on the committee for the Harborne Traders Association, Harborne Village Centre Partnership and on the committee for Harborne Carnival. He’ll know who to put you in touch with, and regularly opens up the pub for community events.
Harborne Village Centre Manager, Bob Flack, nominated Chris in the active citizen category for the Birmingham Local Hearts award, because he recognised the innovation he has for local projects and the ability to drive projects to their end. Chris recently started a local artists evening – allowing those in the community to showcase their work. He said he always has people coming into the pub asking for help, and often he will find ways to help the people help themselves – opening the pub in the evening for them to hold fundraising events and meetings, and putting them in touch with the right people.
Chris has been described as the eyes and ears of the community, and said his motivation has to be the people. Here’s his story.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/Grassroots-Chris-Birdsell-2.mp3[/podcast]
Noorin Ahktar
Noorin Ahktar wants to change Britain. She goes out interviewing the people at the top – leaders of the council, councillors, public service providers and holds them to account in a way accessible to her community. Her aim is to make sure some communities know about the changes being made in public services – she promotes and raises awareness in ethnic communities – she now has a rogramme called ‘Community Time’. She has set up a blog, and uses radio and tv channels to make the short programmes in English, Urdu, Punjabi, and a number of different languages.
Noorin thinks some communities are wrongly perceived as ‘hard to reach’ – she challenges this point of view with her truly innovative and brilliant work. Her inspiration is the fact if people of aware of what is going on around them, they will have the knowledge to be able to do things.
Manjit Singh nominated Noorin for the active citizen award, one of the shortlist categories for Birmingham’s Local Hearts Awards.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/Grassroots-Noorin-Akhtar.mp3[/podcast]
Suzanne Coward and Linda Kelly
When Suzanne Coward’s daughter Sarah, who has learning difficulties, turned 23, she realised she could use direct payment money to set up a cafe, Stepping Stones. Situated in Sutton Coldfield at the United Reform church, the cafe offers a day experience for people with learning difficulties to hang out, socialise and feel enabled to do things which they wouldn’t often get the opportunity to do.
Suzanne saw a gap in the north of the city, where there were no social enterprise services for people with learning difficulties. She wants to encourage healthy living, exercise and creating things which are meaningful for people with learning difficulties. Linda Kelly, Senior Youth and Community Development Worker in Sutton Coldfield, has nominated Suzanne for the active citizen Local Hearts award for the work she has done for children with learning difficulties.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/Grassroots-Suzanne-Coward.mp3[/podcast]
Michael Tye and Eunice McGhie-Belgrave
This is the story of Michael Tye, the man who helped set up Aston Vision Ministries Association in 1984. The organisation aims to reach people in the community, particularly asylum seekers, by helping them with language and social integration. For his relentless work engaging the community through Aston Vision, Michael was nominated by Eunice McGhie-Belgrave for the Birmingham Local Hearts Award, in the active citizen category.
Michael said people who want to give some back to their community do so because they recognise how helping the community will in turn help themselves. He questions those who do community work for self-aggrandisement. He wants to work towards the common good – and is not so keen on being the one in the spotlight. Here he tells us his story.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/Grassroots-Michael-Tye.mp3[/podcast]
Erma Lewis
Six years ago Erma Lewis started the ‘Wheelchair recycling, we can do’ project which refurbishes old and disused wheelchairs for people on NHS waiting lists or for family events and one-offs. This project sprang out of an appeal she ran following storm damage on her one time home island of Jamaica.
As a former nurse, Erma had seen the problem of people being unable to leave hospital for want of a wheelchair. She began to think that if she was able to find and ship old wheelchairs to the Caribbean then perhaps she could also provide them locally. Now the idea is a registered charity and a team of volunteers repair wheelchairs at a workshop in Harborne.
This podcast was recorded just before the Local Hearts Awards in Birmingham in October 2009 – where she was shortlisted in the category of female active Citizen.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/GrassrootsErmaLewis.mp3[/podcast]
Jan Quigley and Barry Toon
Starting community work in the 1960s, Barry Toom has had the chance to see how community work and attitudes towards it has changed through the decades. A tireless worker for the Bournbrook Community Safety Project, as well as the TARA neighbourhood forum, Barry Toon feels like a veteran in community work – and now his years has been acknowledged by being shortlisted for the Lifetime Achievement award, for Birmingham’s Local Hearts Awards, nominated by Jan Quigley.
Barry’s work has revolved around making sure we prepared for an emergency – as part of the Birmingham Resilience Team he has helped to make sure people know what to do in case of man-made and natural disasters. Barry thinks in all decades people will campaign for change – but things aren’t always how they used to be. Here’s his story.
[podcast]http://podnosh.com/files/2009/10/Grassroots-Barry-Toon.mp3[/podcast]
See more photos of our work on flickr
See more photos of our work on flickr
See more photos of our work on flickr
See more photos of our work on flickr
See more photos of our work on flickr
See more photos of our work on flickr
See more photos of our work on flickr
See more photos of our work on flickr
