Below are some questions but first the context:

Last night I was working on the first of a series of conversations about how Birmingham will feed itself way into the future.  The New Optimists Forum is organised by Kate Cooper who has the very powerful idea of getting groups of scientists from different disciplines and policy makers to think about this thorny problem.  She argues, I think rightly, that getting practical about problems and places helps us understand best what we need to change now.

One of the scientists was Ian Nabney who talked about the opportunities that will come to make better decisions about complex problems when we have more data and more power to crunch and use that data.  Here’s what he said.

It made me ask the question what if we created a new form of planning gain: supermarkets share their data with us rather than build a new badminton court. 

Could knowing what they know about our eating habits help us lead healthier and better lives?

Mark Braggins Tweeted this this morning:

And it also tickled a local MP’s curisosity.  Richard Burden (who’s Northfield constituency may have a few urban “food deserts”, another idea kicked around at last night’s forum)  tweeted this question about half an hour ago:

So here are some questions:

1. Is asking supermarkets to share their data a good form of planning gain?
2. If so in what form would we want it – opendata, depersonalised or maybe full data to be share just with civil servants
3. What would be the arguments against (so we can anticipate) or just how naive is this! ?
4. How would Kate Cooper of the New Optimists go about talking to sainsbury’s about this?
5. Would you rather have a new pavilion at the local park?

Odd what comes out of combining real world conversations with online stuff!

Update

Looks like Adrian Short was thinking about supermarket card data as a public good back in April – scroll to the bottom of this post.

Meet Rinske van Noortwijk and Corian Hugenholtz-Sasse  – they make wishes come true.

– (dead link)

I met them both in Rotterdam, invited through the wonderful Maurice Specht to speak to the Association of Initiative Brokers ( @inimakelaar )  in Holland, organised by Rinske.

Two days before, Tessy Britton and I had been in The Hague speaking to senior civil servants from Dutch central government.  They kept asking us what they could do to help citizens do the simpler things that made sense  in their communities. Scale-ability was constantly on their lips.

I was urging them to be careful.  Stepping back, getting out of the way is one way government can help citizens just get things done.  Find simple ways to give people small amounts of no string attached help was the other – what I call “learn how to slip someone a quiet tenner”.

Militant Optimists and New Radicals

Tessy wanted something more practical.  She wanted government to support the people who have the skills to nurture community, to connect people, to amplify what is possible in communities.  The people David Barrie calls Militant Optimists, the sort of people who appear on the Grassroots Channel and Tessy brings together through Hand Made.

She wants government to recognise and support the people who follow here 12 rules for new radicals. here are the first three compared with older form of community organising:

RULE 1

Alinsky (Old/Conflict): “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.

Britton (New/Collaborate): “Power involves creating spaces where ideas, energy and people are connected together from within all sections of the community and local government to create positive communities” This involves careful facilitation and creating safe spaces where everyone can share their opinions and contribute positively.  There is no enemy in a community.

RULE 2

Alinsky (Old/Conflict): “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

Britton (New/Collaborative): “Always reject ignorance in favour of building skills and knowledge.” There are many new ideas and methods that result in creative solutions that make people and communities stronger.

RULE 3

Alinsky (Old/Conflict): “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

Britton (New/Collaborative): “Whenever possible, instigate dialogue, so that everyone shares the same knowledge base to design solutions.” Look for ways to increase security, trust and responsibility.

Rinske and Corian are just those sort of people: militant optimist, new radicals:

For nearly a decade they have been running Greenwish:

Greenwish means more space for sustainable initiative. We encourage people to implement their sustainable ideas. If people do what they really care about, people are very passionate. It is this force that will really accelerate sustainable development.
Greenwish promotes the interest of government, civil society and business in social initiatives. We want to see more cooperation and more is learned from social initiative.
Greenwish support promoters with advice and contacts. We represent the interests of promoters to policymakers and politicians. Greenwish advises government, civil society and business in what they can do for initiatives and vice versa

Originally they were funded to connect community ideas to the people who can help make those ideas happen.  Sometimes they might connect a citizen to a government programme, sometimes to a private supporter, sometimes to another citizen – often to all three.   Each year these brokers make around 200 things happen that would otherwise have gone by the wayside.  They know people, have ideas, are networked and like finding the easiest ways to get things going.

The First First Followers

They call themselves the first followers – the first people to stand beside someone and say “that’s I good idea, I’m on your side”

“Society is buzzing with ideas”

Listen to them talk about it here:

(dead link)

Key points form the interview are:

• We met many people with good ideas to contribute to the community who need a little bit of help. We ask them waht do you need to make your next step and can we help you.
• We’re interested in what gets people enthusiastic and why they are doing it.
• Government funded for some time, now in transition.
• Value is being known and trusted by people government wants to work with, it is still difficult to find government that works that way.
• It can take patience to make an idea real. Over time enthusiasm builds
• 200 initiatives supported, health, food, energy, participation
• Common currency is passion, it is always a struggle.
• People in places always have ideas – we get ideas easily. “Society is buzzing with ideas.”
• We are the first believers for anyone with a crazy idea to help society
• Looking for new concepts for making our added value clear to the government, Tessy Britton gave me new ideas of how we should make that more clear.  Big Society is a new way for government to stop thinking for citizens, instead allow citizens to think for themselves.
• There are so many ways to make what is happening visible through social media without having to push the information. Ask them to make themselves visible.

See also

https://bigsocietyinrotterdam.wordpress.com/

https://podnosh.com/blog/2011/05/03/grassroots-channel-podcast-willem-guizeman-on-being-there-slow-steady-community-building-in-rotterdam/

https://thrivingtoo.typepad.com/thriving_too/2011/05/for-the-love-of-public-space-guerrila-gardening-and-public-responsibilities.html

https://thrivingtoo.typepad.com/thriving_too/2011/04/big-society-artists-transformation-and-collaboration.html

It’s odd how when you look away your friends seem to go and do some really interesting stuff. I first met Willem Guizeman in 2005 when he was in Birmingham planning some work on the Residents university for the Residents for Regeneration.  Then he was fronting a Europe wide organisation which was working with the EU.

Last month we saw each other again in The Hague,  his home town.  Now Willem is doing something much more modest.

Because he is close to retirement and doesn’t need to earn big money he and his friend Nol are simply spending time in what they call the Stagehuis Schilderswijk – an apartment they rent on a street corner in a poorer and multi racial area of the city.

“It’s a great way to become an old man..”

Listen to what he has to say:

Tessy has written about Willem’s thinking here and hopefully he will write a chapter for a new version of the Hand Made book.  Tessy says:

“As well as doing activities, their presence is clearly having other effects.  I am currently very focused on side-effects – ones that we measure, but also ones that we don’t think to pay much attention to.  It is one of the reasons I am so intent on developing new creative and collaborative methods (see some further discussion on this on Matthew Taylor’s blog), rather than conflict driven ones.  Conflict has a negative wake, often fracturing communities regardless of the results.

I suggest that Willem’s and Nol’s benign presence is creating bridging social capital and a contagious and soothing balm in this neighbourhood.  The position of their building is literally forming a bridge between 2 faiths.  Nick Booth described their presence as ‘taking the tensions away’.  They are certainly changing how the neighbourhood ‘feels’ – their gentle approach to leadership is having an impact – one that emerges slowly from the connections and relationships that their social space has created.”

Grey Man Bald Man.

The locals call Nol Grey Man and Willem Bald Man – a sign of the affection they have garnered by simply Being There.  I want to share some of things I picked up from talking to Willem:

1. Willem and Nol just plan to be in the neighbourhood.  they just want to be there – nothing more.  They are not concerned about funding (they are both ok money-wise) so that means they don’t need to be concerned too much about what funders might want.   For Willem this is the calm culmination of a career spent working in regeneration and community.
2. They build trust through conversation and being helpful.  Their apartment has big windows and a table where people can sit and drink tea together.  They take their time and help when people ask for it.
3. The outcomes are very personal. For Willem seeing two young women from different backgrounds laughing together is an outcome – a success.  Certainly bigger things ahppen – but he doesn’t bank on them happening.

His approach chimes with the one we have learnt to adopt for social media surgeries – encourage people to be patient and have low expectations – high expectations lead to disappointment and a sense of failure.  Being patient and taking your time allows people in a community to get used to your work being there.

Thanks to Maurice Specht for organising our trip over  (we have been many times before) – more stories from Holland to come.

I’m trying to cover as many Big Society sessions on the Conservative Party Fringe as I can get too –  not least looking for any clarity on what it might mean.

The first one was run by The Citizens Advice Bureau:  Big Society on a Small Budget – can more really be done for less. Notes from a Conservative Party Conference session.  The Panel Was Gillian Guy – Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Bureau,  Damian Hinds – MP for East Hampshire,  Therese Coffey – the MP for Suffolk Central and Michelle Smith, Head of UK Consumer and Community Affairs for Barclays UK Retail Bank and Barclays Corporate.

Sifting through my notes there were a number of things that struck me:

Gillian Guy from CAB explained the extent to which they use volunteers

12.5 million people helped on the web.   20,000 volunteers, already represent a good start to the big society. We want public services to be simpler and we want to the voluntary sector and communities to be trusted.

Damian Hinds outlined what he thought are the key elements which will underpin the Big Society…

Language and the mood is important – as a government we need to show that we are turning to the right people for advice.

Programme of devolution to local councils (when you devolve planning to individual councils you can take more interest)

Direct empowerment, right to bid taking over a community facility

Free schools programme, people now know that they could decide to make their own school

Information revolution, open data the web. – there will be enough people in anyone location to hold power to account

Big Society bank to provide extra finance

Encouraging volunteering – government needs to get its employees out doing volunteering.

Therese Coffey – MP for Suffolk Central key thoughts included:

We need to remove the mentality of the civil service culture.

We need to ensure that government does get out of the way.    Some aspects of the equalities act will hamper organisations trying to deliver the big society.

De-complexify government.  Need to provide some finance. Unemployed should be expected to go out and do some work in the voluntary sector.

The National citizens service is over cautious.

The other risk is there is a vacuum at the moment –  can the third sector flesh out some of the vision please – don’t wait for the pilot areas.

Michelle Smith seem to catch the mood of the room when she talked with real passion about how the volunteering done by Barclays staff benefits neighbourhoods and the business and the staff.  For example…

Half of our staff are actively involved in their communities on a regular basis.  We match charitable giving and fund raising and provide time off .  This improves staff retention and  performance, staff who volunteer are A third more likely to be rated A performers than those who don’t.

Worth listening to this interview….

We’ve been holding some social media surgeries in Balsall Heath. So far they’ve been supported by the  Birmingham Social Investment Trust and our hope is that, after our third event on July 7, we’ll be able to carry them on as completely voluntary events. If you’re interested you can sign up here.

One of the projects that has benefited from our this is the Balsall Heath Forum, which is also gives us a venue for the surgeries. The Forum has a website, but we’ve helped it to set up its own WordPress blog. The main force behind this is Nowrah Abdul, who works at the Forum. Nowrah has thrown her energy into creating new pages and blog posts for all the many projects that the forum is involved in. Before the blog came along Nowrah and others were struggling to access and update their original site with ease. Within a few minutes of sitting down we’d started the blog (for free) and shown her the basics of setting up pages and working with posts.

Google Maps

One of the main focuses for the Forum is the resident associations that look after specific neighbourhoods in Balsall Heath. At the last surgery, Nowrah was keen to find out how she could create maps to show the areas the specific associations cover. We spent a bit of time finding out about Google Maps – first creating a Google account and email address for the Forum – so that she could start to map out the boundaries of the various groups.
View Kinver Croft Resident Group in a larger map

You can hear a short interview with Nowrah, below, about how this can help the Forum to tell its own very interesting story.

Other examples

Of course, this is just another example of how a social media surgery is able to offer some very practical help to an organisation. It’s not the only one, either. At our Yardley Social Media Surgery we’ve been able to help the church, St Michael and All Angels, to start its own blog and, more recently, the Friends of Yardley Park. There is enormous pleasure in helping people to tell their own story – and something quite humbling (as a ‘recovering’ journalist) about seeing how it can help to transform their ability to communicate their organisations’ ideals and mission.

Blogging and the Big Society

The Balsall Heath Forum is, of course, an organisation that has had a great deal of attention since the general election back in May – and featured prominently as a model for the Conservative Party’s ideas in the Big Society. The Balsall Heath Forum’s chief executive Dick Atkinson, for example, has been talking to the government about it – as this post from Will Perrin of Talk About Local shows (Dick is sat next to the Deputy Prime Minister on the seating plan).

And then there’s this video by Demos, which features Dick and, firstly, Nowrah.

Balsall Heath is thought to be a prime example of what happens when citizens take control of an area and try to improve it for themselves, so helping the Forum to tell its story and help to communicate with others about how they too can help their neighbourhoods does seem like a rather good idea. Community blogging is a cheap, effective and remarkably simple way of helping that process, which is one of the many reasons we get just a little bit excited about the power of social media surgeries.

Irrespective of your opinion about the Big Society, the idea of community organisations sharing information for the benefit of their work and their communities makes profound sense, because often the questions that organisations face have been faced and solved by others before. Traditionally, the problem is getting to the answers. Blogs – cheap, simple to run and phenomenally easy to communicate and have a relationship with – can do an awful lot of that work and social media surgeries are a way of spreading those skills that’s informal, sensitive to individual’s very different demands and, most importantly, remarkably fun.

It featured academic and activist Simon Baddeley talking about his campaign to prevent homes being built on the Victoria Jubilee allotments, which border Handsworth Park.

Grab your plot

Simon and his neighbours couldn’t stop the housing development, but they did manage to get planning to require the developers to re-instate 80 of the allotments plots.   Simon has fought long and hard to ensure that this commitment is honoured.  Yesterday he claimed his plot.

A few weeks ago Simon also digitised the original documentary, which you can see here:

A healthier approach to Urban Land?

For me the re-opening of the allotments  represents a small symbol of a shifting attitude to land in our cities. At the time the doucmentary was made it felt like land was there for developers and individual profit.  Since then demand for allotments has grown, people are showing off their pride in these places, the Birmingham Open Spaces Forum is nurturing a better relationship between citizens and council.  Parks like Cannon Hill and Handsworth have improved immeasurably and the famous CoCoMad in Cotteridge Park has shown how far open space cements community relations.

As Emma Woolf, of the Friends of Cotteridge Park,  explained in one one of our first Grassroots Channel Podcasts in 2005, conflict over public space can be a catalyst for a community coming together:

Is it time for a more flexible understand of public land?

Martin Field has been making the case for an easy to use map of publicly owned land plots in the city.  He’s made a tiny bit of progress:

We  emailed  a simple google map reference to the relevant officer and within 24 hours we had a response as to the specific ownership. Very good service and free, although you can only determine if the land is owned by the City or not, but still a good start. If the City does not own the land you are directed to the UK Land Registry, which is not a good experience and not free!

Last week I was at the Handsworth Residents Network meeting, which included a detailed discussion about how hard and frustrating it is for community groups to clean up or use eyesore plots.

The council itself has been seeking to streamline the process of transferring assets into the hands of community groups through it’s Community Asset Transfer Development Programme.  (I’ve been involved in recording that programme). Their work includes thinking of broader ways to measure the value of using land, called Valuing Worth.  This is supported by a wide range of other activity – including Growspace, which is taking hold in Ladywood.

These are small things.

I think we are still confused about ways of using urban land and why shouldn’t we be. Cities are confusing places.  But people outside and inside local authorities are finding it easier to collaborate to make better use of land for community benefit.

What else do we need to do during a time of lower public spending, tighter financial restrictions for developers and an ideological/economic battle over where food should be produced?  Update – perhaps all questions you can explore at the Cultures of Birmingham: Open Spaces event from the Chamberlain forum on 24th June at 6.30 at the the Mac in Cannon Hill park

I’ve just got back from  the National Digital Inclusion conference – very, enjoyable.  I was particularly interested in the strand on social housing and digital inclusion which has spun off the work chaired by Helen Milner on just that problem.

At the forefront of  the case that Social Landlords are key to tackling digital inclusion is that 70% of their tenants do not have internet access at home.   It is a figure that appears in the first sentence of the introduction to the  Social Housing Providers Digital Inclusion Action Plan 2010 (pdf):

Research shows 70% of people who live in social housing do not use the internet. That means they’re missing out on all the benefits, opportunities and conveniences computers and the internet can provide – essential public services, instant communication, commercial comparisons and online bargains, job searches and applications.

That figure is sourced to the Office of National Statistics, 2008 and it seems that things are changing quickly. Anabel Palmer of Southern Housing Group and Dylan Martlew of Knowle West Media Centre have both recently done research on internet availability in the home of social housing tenants.  One found 56% of households are connected,  for the other the same figure was 67% with internet access. Listen to them sharing their thoughts on this:

Naturally we would need to check that they are measuring exactly the same but are these numbers an oddity?  There’s no reasons to suppose they are.  Southern Housing Groups 2008 survey found 30% using the net, which matched the national figure then.   Now they find 67% using the net.

It does not mean that there is not important work to be done by social landlords to help close the digital divide (for those who want it closed).   Many of their tenants might benefit from much wider use of digital tools – but have never really been exposed to them, or may have barriers to using them.

But it does show how quickly internet access is being taken up by those who see some sense in using it.

Well, it seems sometimes you get what you wish for. February’s Central Birmingham social media surgery had a really good turnout. Nick decided to make me ‘organiser’ for the night and, perhaps, it would have been best if it had been a quiet night.

But, largely because everyone was so nice and actually knew a lot more about what was going on than I did, it ran very smoothly. A big thanks in particular has to go to the surgeons who did a really good job to juggle the large numbers of people, who often had very different interests.
We had folk in looking for help with everything from Twitter to Google Analytics on the evening – and from lots of different organisations.

Feryal Iqbal, of Friends of the Earth and Localise West Midlands, seemed very happy with the help that she received. Feryal will be working with both the organisations and wanted to learn how she could set up a blog, as she explains in this audio interview.
Feryal interview Social Media Surgery february

It was also great to see Neil Holland, from the Midlands Arts Centre, who wanted to find out a little bit about how to use social media.

Andy Mabbett helped the Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery set up their own WordPress site, which they are already using to publicise their petition to force Birmingham City Council to restore the listed chapels there.

Susi O’Neill, who is a Web 2.0 surgeon in Nottingham, also popped in – and helped Martin Miley, Rick Cokayne and Martin Field of the Birmingham Social Investment Trust. Martin (Miley) and Rick wanted to set up a site for the Civic Centre Residents Association. And, thanks to Susi, they now have their own Posterous site.

Chris Crean, of Friends of the Earth, was keen to see how social media could support the campaigning work he does within the organisation, as he explains here:

Clearly I need to work on lighting for the next surgery. But I’m really hoping we get an equally good turnout again next month, when the surgery will be on March 9 – a Tuesday – from 5.30pm to 7pm. See you then!

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.

I first met Beth almost exactly 3 years ago when she visited Birmingham from her home in Boston, New England. She was  working with David Wilcox to deliver a presentation at a conference for people who provide IT support for charities and the like.  It was a time when social media had not become the generic term it is now. I was mostly thought of as a podcaster, one of the one’s who’s job it was to help with telling the story. So naturally enough I interviewed her for the Grassroots Channel podcast.

Here are 5 things things that I know a number of people have helped me understand, but I can confidently say that Beth Kanter repeatedly showed me these ways:

1. Lead by example. Beth experiments all the time.  Just (F) Do It is ingrained in her personality.  The more I’ve done the same the more confidence it’s given me to keep on going.
2. Don’t hog your content. Share it and move on. You should always build your expertise on the next new thing you’re going to learn, rather than worry about others getting good at one you already know. The faster you share the faster you learn that new thing.
3. Respond. Beth has 305,000 followers on Twitter. She still gets back to you!  How does she manage it?  Discipline.
4. Blogging isn’t a vain thing to do. It can be but, the way Beth does it, it isn’t.  She writes a great deal about the people she meets, she is very generous in describing what she is learning from them. She also puts huge amounts of effort in doing thinking for us and sharing it when it’s incomplete.  These are things Beth (and others) taught me about content.
5. It’s about bringing people together. As David Wilcox said it 3 years ago:    “The other delight at the event was a chance to meet up with fellow UK enthusiasts for social media including Steve Bridger, Miles Maier, Paul Henderson and Nick Booth. We can’t rival Beth’s US fellow social media bloggers yet, but I think a little blog community is emerging here around social media and social network where the focus is nonprofits and civil society. Drop a comment in here if you are interested in linking up – we hope to have a get together fairly soon. Beth suggested we start tagging social media posts with nptechuk … the standard US tag is nptech.”

There is so much more I learn from Beth but these are the basics. That’s why at least once a year I donate something to the Sharing Foundation.  Not because I’m especially connected to the work of the foundation, simply because I’m am especially connected to Beth.

Thanks to Amy and Stacey for encouraging me to write this post.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Starting community work in the 1960s, Barry Toon 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.

Four years ago, after running an Islam and the Environment Week, Maud Grainger decided looking at climate change with faith communities would be a great way to take action. The group Faith and Climate Change was set up by Maud Grainger with help from Keith Budden, who has nominated the group for Birmingham’s Local Hearts Award, in the community group category.

Birmingham has over one million of the population belonging to a faith, and this was too big a group not to help with combating climate change, said Maud. The programme has now been replicated across the UK – looking at climate change in terms of values regardless of faith. Why else would a group a young muslim men from Small Heath meet some old Quakers in Bournville? To look at how they installed solar water heater in the Friends Meeting House. Looking at climate change has brought these communities together. Here, they tell their story.

John Barron is 90 years old and has spent a lifetime working for his community. He has volunteered at St Mary’s Hospice in Sellypark since it opened, and also introduced the Annual Flag Day – a street collection day for the hospice – which he has been running for over 25 years and raised nearly £300,000. He said when you see a need in the community you want to fill it – and once you have a acceptance it is a good idea – you have the determination to see it through.

In 1950 John started taking patients to Lourdes in France, arranged through Birmingham Diocese. He remembers transporting them in old coaches which were previously used for soldiers. He said his motivation is always the patients. He is cherished in his community and for his work, has been nominated by St Mary’s Hospice worker Joanne Proudler for the lifetime achievement award of the Birmingham’s Local Hearts Award. Here’s his story.

Here’s the story of Matthew Ebo, the Handsworth minister whose work for the community until now, has gone unnoticed. Now Matthew has been shortlisted for the active citizen category of Birmingham’s Local Hearts award, nominated by his friend and co-worker, Steven Barratt.

A lot of his work centres around the National Black Boys Can Association, a group for 9-16-year-olds which meets every fortnight to help them with schoolwork and teach them good citizenship. Previously a Special Constable, he also works for the Central and West Victim Support Scheme – helping victims rebuild their lives.

Matthew was inspired by his baptist minister and mother, and he is now the pastor of the Church of God and Prophesy – he said his religious upbringing helped him and without his wife’s support now he could not spend so much time doing voluntary work. Here’s his story.

Jenni Rowley, isn’t your average 20-something woman. She spends her evenings out on the streets in Northfield, trying to prevent Anti Social Behaviour and crime in the area and getting young people involved in  a number of projects. One of these projects is the Beyond Midnight Bus, which parks up in Northfield, kitted out with DVD players, stereo, internet and recording studio and has become a place for young people to hang out and talk about what they want to see in their area.

As a support worker for INVOLVE (while she is not in her day job in property management), a community group in the Northfield area which aims to help get funding for local projects young people want to do. Jenni says working on the streets with young people and local authorities has opened her eyes and given her confidence. She tells us how excited she is to be nominated for the Young Person’s Birmingham’s Local Hearts Award, in the young people category.

Involve is Northfield’s Young Peoples Forum – it was set up in 2005 for 12-19-year-olds to meet monthly.

Involve are given money by local government, which they can then distribute to young people to help them run various activities or projects which they would not otherwise have been able to do. Through this they help young people develop a number of skills such as organisation, teamwork and communication skills. INVOLVE believe they are giving a voice to young people – to get their opinions across to people with power in Northfield and to further that they recently launched their own website: www.involvenorthfield.com (dead link).

In the last three years the group have distributed £75,000 of community chest money and £20,000 of youth opportunity fund to individual young people and groups and projects. They recently started their own radio show and videocasting channel – getting young people to comment and debate on prominent issues such as abuse in a relationship. This podcast was recorded in October 2009, just after they had been shortlisted for Local Hearts Award. It has Nick Booth talking to Karen Cheney, Luke Bowles, Sophie Lynch, Jo – spoz – Esposito and Lauren Synott.

Aimee Coakley first came across the Hawksley “young vols” as a small child.  She watched them working in her neighbourhood in Kings Norton in Birmingham and wanted to be one.

Thanks to that experience she has traveled as far afield as France and India, cleaned streets, helped people keep their gardens tidy and supporting friends and neighbours.  Now she has a job because of her volunteer experience. Hers is just one of dozens of stories which explain why the Hawksley Young Volunteers were shortlisted for a Local Hearts Awards in October 2009.  For more, listen to the podcast below.

Nicole White and Rourke Holmes have been training adults.  They  volunteer with different organisations in the Erdington Constituency of the City of Birmingham to help they appreciate how young people view the world.

The aim is very simple, to improve the relationship between government services and the young people who use them in Erdington.

The Forum began in 2005 when the Erdington Constituency asked a group of young people to set up a consultation in the form of a questionnaire which asked about issues which affect them and their peers. One of the questions was, “Who would you prefer to ask you questions – children, or adults” – and all the children said adults. But it became clear adults lacked knowledge and how to engage with kids in the decision making process.

So the Children’s Forum made a training package for the adults looking at the benefits and barriers of involving children. The Children’s forum then tracked the progress made following the training every six months. They also ran a second training session. Over four years ECCF have reached over 258 adults and 486 children.  This podcast, with Tom Sandars,  was recorded just before the Local Hearts Awards October 2009 – where the group was shortlisted for the award for Young People’s Group.

Electra Soudy and Indu Daji have been nominated for the Community Group Local Hearts Award for the work they have done with BETI, which they set up 10 years ago to empower women and give them training and support.

Indu focuses on muslim and hindu women and Electra with single women and voluntary groups – helping those coming to Britain who may be abused by their relatives and in-laws, assisting their learning of English and giving them the advice and guidance they need to get on the job ladder.

The group aim to liberate women in Birmingham who suffer under their families, feel estranged, or are being forced into arranged marriages. Both women have a background which has led them to this work – Electra ran away from her Greek home because her father was setting up an arranged marriage, and Indu also suffered when she moved to the city, but was given confidence by Electra.

The two women also inspire and motivate each other, and are well-known in the community as people other women can come to for help, shelter and advice. Here’s their story.