Engaging with community and voluntary groups

1
Engaging with community and voluntary groups

• Chris Church
• Community Environment Associates

2
Community organisations and environmental action

• Most action on conservation and environment is
  done by a network of some 4-5000 local and
  national environmental organisations
• The second major focus for environmental messages
  is individuals (lifestyle change, lobbying etc.)
• Yet there are some 750,000 community and
  voluntary organisations across the UK

3
Who is in the Voluntary and Community Sector
(VCS)?

• Groups range from large to very small
• Wide range of national networks
• The National Association of Councils for
  Voluntary Service link around 250,000 local
  organisations through 295 CVSs
• ACRE, Community Matters, the W.I., etc.
• Faith groups, youth groups, sports, etc etc.
• Little history of active engagement with green
  issues

4
Why bother to try to increase VCS activity?

• The huge potential for much more action
• Overcoming the resistance of many communities to
  engagement with environmental issues
• People in these organisations are more likely to
  trust one another and help each other much
  individual environmental action stops at the
  first blockage

5
The need for community engagement

• Lasting and sustainable change requires action
  on
• Policy
• Infrastructure
• Community engagement and capacity

6
The need for community engagement (2)

• These three are all linked it is difficult to
  deliver change without action on all three.

7
Community engagement Making it work

• Most community organisations are under-resourced
  and over-stretched
• They are working to deliver their core business
• So
• Understand their core purposes (Listen, dont
  preach!)
• Find ways to link your goals and theirs
• Remember that you are on their fringe and can
  only more to their centre if they are really
  interested
• Work with existing networks

8
An example of successful practiceLondon
Sustainability Weeks

• Now running for three years 2 weeks of action
• Over 450 events in June 2005
• 12 core partners, each with a network
• Partners include Social Enterprise London and
  Civic Forum
• Use the identity of London
• Link to existing work and initiatives by many
  including local government
• www.lsw2005.org www.London21.org

9
A new programmeCommunity Action 2020

• A government programme to encourage and support
  community groups and networks to engage in action
  around sustainable development and work to
  protect and improve their environment locally,
  nationally and globally.
• Part of the UK national Sustainable Development
  Strategy

10
A new programmeCommunity Action 2020 (2)

• Seven key themes
• Tackling climate change
• Creating cleaner, safer, greener and healthier
  communities
• Reducing waste and recycling more
• Creating a fairer world
• Planning a better future
• Travelling wisely
• Promoting the concept of sustainable development

11
A new programmeCommunity Action 2020 (3)

• Development work now being done
• 10 workshops
• Individual discussions
• Review of tool-kits, mentoring etc.
• Action plan by December 2005
• Launch in 2006

12
So where would you start?

• Pick the community you live in
• Think of the organisations that exist there
• Pick a project youd like to engage them in
• How would you start?
• What would you need?
• What might be the problems?How would you set
  success targets?