('Voices' Menu)

What's new at CTDU?

May 2005!

Make Poverty History

Networking with Pilton, Edinburgh

Management committee meetings

Climate, Justice & the G8

Participatory Video Training for Trainers

Disability Awareness Group training

Participatory Action Research

Bothkennar garden development

Make Poverty History

Over 2 days ( 21st and 25th April 2005)students made a new banner declaring that local and global poverty are neither necessary or inevitable.

A trip to Pilton, Edinburgh

A great day was had by all on Saturday, 23rd April 2005, 9.45 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.

George Lamb, a community worker who works in Pilton is running a programme for disabled people to help them do more campaigning. George was very impressed by all our students when he came to our AGM in November - so he asked CTDU to go to Edinburgh and run a training day for them.

CTDU took with them a copy of AGM video, and students made a presentation. In the afternoon CTDU facilitated 3 participatory campaigning workshops aimed at making products and learning while making them, then using them to speak outl

• Banner Making
• Singing
• Drama
  

At the end of the afternoon, everyone enjoyed a meal/social before heading home at 6.00 p.m.

CTDU's Board of Directors

The next meeting of the committee will be held at Bothkennar Centre for Citizen Education on
Thursday, 7th July 2005 at 1.30 p.m. Welcome to Finlay Currie, who has joined the committee.

Dates of previous meetings;
Friday, 28th January 2005 at 1.30 p.m.
Thursday, 10th March 2005 at 1.30 p.m. Task group meeting at 10.00 a.m.
Thursday, 28th April 2005 at 1.30 p.m.

Climate, Justice and the G8

The Scottish Education and Action for Development (SEAD) group, in partnership with the Trapese Collective, ran an educational roadshow about Climate, Justice and the G8 in Scotland at CTDU on Thursday, 5th May.

Participatory Video Training for Trainers course

Participatory Video is a pioneering tool that empowers individuals and communities to use film in order to share ideas and experiences. With simple techniques and in a short time, people and communities can be trained in basic film-making skills to identify and analyse important issues in their community and/or personal life. Replaying and editing their experiences opens up safe and structured spaces for people to explore these issues. Finally, screening finished works creates space for voices to be heard of people and communities that have previously been misunderstood or ignored.

In April 2005 students took part in a short course to train in the use of filmmaking equipment and then learn methods and techniques for training others, particularly people in marginalised communities. At the end of this training students:

• gained basic filmmaking skills
  
  
• learned the use of PV techniques to train others to use film
  
  
• made a short film using these techniques
  
  
• met many like-minded people committed to working with these methods on projects

PV project in Grangemouth:
Students will be using their new skills to join in with a PV project with communities living around the Grangemouth industrial complex. The project will use PV methods to enable community members to explore their experience of living with the local pollution from the Grangemouth facilities. The project begins with the screening of video letters from a Brazilian community where the pollution from the Grangemouth plants are theoretically being 'soaked up' by planting trees there. However the planting of trees in the Brazilian community is in the form of huge monoculture eucalyptus plantations that are devastating local people's health and livelihoods. Therefore the two communities, separated by distance, language and culture are inextricably linked by global industrial pollution. The Grangemouth participants will then create their own video letters in response the Brazilian films, which students will have the opportunity to facilitate.

'Video Letters from Brazil to Grangemouth' - 2 screenings were held on Monday, 18th April at the Kersiebank Community Project, Old Dundas Street, Oxgangs Road, Grangemouth.

You can still be involved in this exciting new project - for more information contact Fiona or telephone 01324 832040

Dates for forthcoming meetings are:18th and 19th May 2005.

Contacts:
Local co-organiser: Fiona McKeown - email Fiona or telephone on 01324 832040
Trainers: Heidi Bachram at heidi@tni.org or telephone on 01865 240644

The course is run by Heidi Bachram and Ell Southern from the Participatory Action Centre, based in Oxford and co-organised by the Community Training and Development Unit (CTDU).

('Voices' Menu)

Disability Awareness Group - Training

Members of the Disability Awareness Group (DAG) led a session in St Mungo's RC Church hall on 3rd March 2005. Around 35 people participated at the event. DAG showed the 'Wheelchair Challenge' video and led some practical exercises. In the afternoon the Shaw Trust made an interesting presentation about their work.

As a result of the session, Fiona and members of the DAG group are going for an exchange visit with members of the Thistle Foundation in Edinburgh on Thursday, 12th May 2005

Download a full report of the event on 3rd March (Acrobat Reader format) including the case studies and the discussions of the groups by clicking on the link below.

Contact Fiona if you'd like more information.

If you already have Adobe's Acrobat Reader on your computer you can just click the link below to get the report

Click here to download report

But you'll need to download Adobe's Acrobat Reader from the Adobe website if you aren't able to open the report. Just click on the link below.

click here to download Acrobat Reader

Participatory Action Research

CTDU members with a history of mental health problems have funding to progress their Participatory Action Research project.

The group has been working with research mentor Joette Thomas to design the research and prepare the first stages. The research is about the support needs of people returning home from hospital.

The group have just heard that they've been successful in an application to progress the Participatory Action Research project.

So ... come back soon to find out more!

We are very fortunate to be based in the beautiful setting of the RSPB Bothkennar reserve, a peaceful and interesting environment for our members to learn from and enjoy. RSPB are particularly interested in protecting the coastline and birds whose numbers have been falling rapidly. Tree sparrows and yellow hammers frequent our newly developed garden, and grey partridges and skylarks inhabit the fields behind the centre. Many other birds can be seen, particularly in autumn and winter.

Boat feature

Contact
Fiona
if you want to get involved.

Previous online news . . .

Latest newsletter

January to March 2005

Sept 2004 to January 2005

April to Sept 2004