Tag: Leadership

Bishop of Birmingham stands up for Community Networks – a new podcast on the Grassroots Channel

The Bishop of Birmingham has thrown his weight behind the community networks run by the Birmingham Community Empowerment Network. The programme has just seen it’s funding cut for this year, with not guarantee of funding after September 2007.

Speaking at yesterday’s conference “Thriving In Diversity”, the Rt Reverend David Urquhart said that the work already done to establish networks in Birmingham must not go to waste. He says “The diversity networks are making a real contribution to the decisions that are made (in the city), so that we get a better quality of life for everyone,” adding that if the city is to continue benefiting from the networks “there will need to be some serious commitment from those in power”. To listen to more of the bishop’s comments please click on the play button below.

Yesterday B:cen, in a report called Thriving in Diversity, said that for Diversity and Community networks to continue to benefit Birmingham, the city (through the Birmingham Stategic Partnership) would need to find at least £1.4 million pounds a year.

Disclosure: the Grassroots Channel Podcast has been funded by b:cen since it was established in Autumn 2005. If you have any comments on the podcast then please e mail us.

Are you Powered Up?

Next month in Birmingham is a two day training event to help active citizens wield more power in their communities. Organised by Friends of the Earth “Power Up” will cost you £60 and should help you:

Talk tactics and share strategies with the experts
Meetgovernment agencies and other community support organisations
Get practical tips for shaping your community
Meet like-minded inspirational campaigners
Examine real life local case studies.

It is for:

…anyone involved in community campaigns or site-specific environmental campaigning. You need not be a member of Friends of the Earth to join us, nor do you need to be an expert.

I’ve mentioned Friends of the Earth before for their online efforts (which now also include this local blog) and, so it’s good to see them also extending their efforts at face to face networking and skills sharing.

Hat tip: Involve

technorati tags:

"It takes courage to change…" Social Cohesion in Dudley and Youtube

What does is take to build and nourish social cohesion? I’ve often thought the term itself has been twisted over the past year, from an expression of a neighbourhood at ease with itself to a poor short hand for tackling extremism, including home grown terror of a variety of political, religious and philosophical hues.

Tomorrow four Whitehall advisers will be in Dudley to get a better picture of how the community tackles extremism in the borough. One thing they will see is this short video we’ve produced to try and capture some of the essence of the Dudley approach.

Read more

Digital Challenge: Sunderland wins – Birmingham to share £2m

Congratulations to Sunderland for winning the government’s digital challenge, pocketing £3.5 million to develop a number of community wide digital schemes, including a video conferencing network for voluntary groups in the city, community e-champions (essential in my view to remove the fear and confusion barrier over new technology) and an emphasis on networking and empowering people.

Birmingham’s joint bid with Shropshire still comes away with some recognition. £2 million (an ‘unexpected bonus’ according to Stephen Hilton of the highly energetic Bristol bid) is being made available to a grouping of the 10 finalists in the digital challenge, mainly to allow them to spread what they are learning and encourage wider innovation.

Cllr Paul Tilsley (deputy leader of the council) said the city still has it’s own aspirations:

We are working with schools to develop the concept of ‘Universal Home Access’ which recognises the value that computers have to children’s education. Our partnership with BT is developing a street based Wi-Fi enabled city centre that will enable people with laptops, mobile phones, hand-held computers and devices with Wi-Fi, to access free public and service information from the city centre through the internet.

Like so many of the bids, the one from Birmingham/Shropshire argued for the value of real people on the ground who can share skills and enthusiasm. It’s not just about infrastructure and kit, you need individuals who can encourage people to step over the digital divide in their heads:

based on a model of community champions and brokers that will provide the support at local level to ensure that people can benefit from the digital technologies and understand how they can get the services they need with the confidence to do this.

Our experience on Valentines Day at the Digital Birmingham Marquee in Victoria sqaure was very positive. We were simply offering people a chance to record themselves and have a quick go at some audio editing (listen to some of the results here). Loads of enthusiam and most importantly lots of people telling us – “that’s easy” – which is often the case with technology when you have someone to help.