A guide to community rights

DCLG have recently published 'You've got the power: quick and simple guide to community rights'

 

DCLG says:

  

'People around the country value and love the places they live in.  They want great local public services, to protect the things that make their neighbourhood special and to help their community grow and develop in the right way.  To help build the communities they aspire to, government has given legal powers and new opportunities to preserve what they like and change what they don't like about the city, town or village they live in.  Whether they want to stop the local shop closing, get more homes built, or improve local public services, this quick and simple guide will point you in the right direction.  It also gives just a few examples of the thousands of people, in hundreds of communities, who are already using their rights to make changes for the better where they live.

 

With over a thousand uses in their first year, it's clear that people value their new powers and are using the support available until March 2015. Your organisation and members can make use of and benefit from these new powers too - don't miss out, please share this message as widely as you can.'

 

More info here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/youve-got-the-power-a-quick-and-simple-guide-to-community-rights

 

 

Community activism training resource

As part of the YPFN programme, we have developed a community activism training resource which can be used all at once or in bits as best suits your needs.

Community Activism is a resource for children, young people and adults to use locally to help strengthen community action to help make where we live a better place. It is based on Act by Right which you can also get for free at www.actbyright.org.uk.

Community Activism helps those of us involved in our neighbourhoods to think about the part we play and the values, knowledge and skills to help us work well together and make change happen where we live.

The journey has five suggested places to visit, but lots of opportunity to change the itinerary, do more in some areas and less in others or go to other places not mentioned in this short resource guide.

The journey

1. We start by getting to know each other and representing others.

2. Venturing out, we look around and get to know our community.

3. Landing in new territory, we get ready for action.

4. We then branch out a bit further, discovering new knowledge and skills as we explore how to help make change happen and campaign for change.

5. And all good journeys need a chance to look back, share our experiences, find out what’s changed and what we plan to do next.

 

 

 

Community Activism in Torbay - a short summary of what we did over 2 days

As part of the national Young People Friendly Neighbourhoods programme, we have created a community activism resource to support local communities to indentify concerns and take action to achieve change.

The resource was written by Bill Badham, based on Act by Right (www.actbyright.org.uk). Residents and workers from Torbay helped create the outline and trialled it in April 2012.

This short video describes this new Community Activism resource.

The video tells the story of the journey that residents and workers went on in exploring a simple 5 stage process:

  • Getting to know each other and representing others
  • Getting to know the community
  • Getting ready for action
  • Campaigning for change
  • Finding out what's changed.

The resource is being tweaked to draw on the learning from this first outing and will soon be available free for wider use.

Photos of the two day event are at