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Equality Matters project

'Equality Matters' is funded by the Falkirk Community Planning Partnership and the project training and development worker is Fiona McKeown. CTDU's Equality Matters project aims to encourage and enable more people from marginalised communities to be involved in community organising and campaigning. It is designed to help communities develop their own voice to participate effectively in community planning.

Learning Network event on 29th August 2006

Supporting community involvement in regeneration

Our next 'Learning Network' event will be held on -

Tuesday, 29th August 2006, from 11.15 a.m. to 2.15 p.m.

in the Falkirk Town Hall (Lesser Hall), Falkirk

There is no charge for the event but we do need to know you are coming!
Contact Fiona or Rosemary at CTDU 01324 832040 or email Fiona or Rosemary

The purpose of CTDU's Learning Network is -

to support and encourage people who are active in community groups in Falkirk's Community Regeneration areas

Network meetings are designed to be sociable gatherings where you can make new friends as well as get information and ideas that will help your community.

The programme for the first event includes:

• an opportunity for community members to talk about what they have been doing;
• an opportunity for other agencies to pass on useful information to community groups;
• lunch and a chance to chat and get to know one another;
• and a participatory workshop "Dealing Creatively with Conflict" faciliated by Liz Law from the Scottish Centre for Non-Violence.
  
  To download an invitation click here.
  There is no charge for the event but we do need to know you are coming!
  

For more information about our Equality Matters project,

see Equality Matters on our projects page,

download our Equality Matters leaflet,

or contact Fiona or Rosemary at CTDU 01324 832040 or email Fiona or Rosemary

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GEORGE REID UNVEILS MOSAIC

A group of students from CTDU were very proud to have George Reid MSP visit our centre's garden on 18th August 2006. Mr Reid came to unveil a very special garden mosaic, which students made themselves with the assistance of Community Artist Tansy Lee Moir. The mosaic illustrates what it is about CTDU that students most value; the values of fair trade, equality, the garden project, and friendship. The mosaic work was funded by the workers on the Forties Bravo Oil Rig who collected the money through their own charity.

Over the last 3 years students have successfully attracted funding to develop our garden from the Falkirk Environment Trust, BP Grangemouth, the Co-op Community Dividend Fund, Forth Valley Food Links, and the workers on Brent Alpha and Forties Bravo Oil Rigs. They have built, planted and maintained raised beds, built drystane dykes and a willow fence and last year, students won the Falkirk Council 'Best Newcomers' prize in the Council's Garden Competition.

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GIANTS in Edinburgh

Disabled People Reaching for Equality
A major photographic exhibition charting the journey of disabled people and their struggle for equality.

There are 12 larger-than-life portraits of disabled and deaf people at its centrepiece. It is not simply about the portraits being big. It is the vision that we, the viewers, have of disabled people once we have seen them as Giants.

Giants explores visually and in words how disabled and deaf people have been medicalised, marginalized and incarcerated.

Giants challenges our perception of disabled people once we start seeing images larger than life encouraging us to accept a larger role for disabled people in society.

Giants was photographed by David Hevey, designed by Helena Roden, produced by Shape, Shapearts and funded by the Disability Rights Commission and supported by the Mayor of London. Giants was commissioned to celebrate the European Year of Disabled People in 2003.

Following the exhibition at the North Edinburgh Arts Centre, Giants is on tour in Edinburgh throughout the festival.

CTDU student association will be visiting the exhibition at Scotland Yard on Saturday, 9th September 2006

Giants is available to be booked by local organisations of disabled people, local authorities and interested groups. For more information on the Giants, or to enquire about bringing this exhibition to your venue call us on 0207 619 6169, Minicom: 0207 619 6161 or email mark@shapearts.org.uk

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Getting heard !

In 2005 CTDU students participated at the Glasgow 'Get Heard' event organised by the Poverty Alliance. Our students also presented their G8 banner.

Following on from the Glasgow 'Get Heard' we were invited to particpate at a 'Get Heard' event in London on 31st January.
This event was organised to bring people experiencing poverty and social exclusion into the government's debate about tackling poverty.

It was attended by Margaret Hodge MP, the Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform (Dept. for Work and Social Pensions) and a number of officials from the Dept. for Education and Skills and Dept for Work and Pensions and people from grassroots communities. The Scottish contingent of 6 participants included our Ann and Fiona.

The event was part of a consultation by the UK Government, and the input of the participants will assist the the government to produce a National Action Plan on social exclusion, which will outline the key problems and approaches to tackling povery and social exclusion.

(Not to be outdone) Lorraine participated at a conference in London on 7th February 2006 which was about people who work and are still living in poverty. The event was attended by UK Government officials who collected evidence to take back to Ministers to bring about change in legislation.

On 8th August 2006 Lorraine and Ann went back down to London for final Getting Heard meeting and launch of the Getting Heard report. They have made new friends at the events from grassroots organisations all over the UK and are planning to keep in touch with them. Ann and Lorraine have also been asked to run a bannermaking workshop at the Poverty Alliance AGM on 29th September 2006.

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Participatory Action Research

CTDU members with a history of mental health problems have funding to progress their Participatory Action Research project. The group worked with research mentor Joette Thomas to design, research and prepare the application for funding and were successful in an application to progress the Participatory Action Research project.

The group put together their own drama, which they called 'Amy's Story', and it's about the new intensive home treatment team service offered to people in the Forth Valley who have mental health problems. The group went' 'on the road' performing 'Amy's Story' and collecting the views of mental health service users. The main questions the group asked were:

• How can professionals (GPs, CPNs, nurses, psychiatrists, volunteers etc) support us better?
  

• What helps us to support ourselves?
  

The responses from people in the Forth Valley were then collated and the findings have informed a banner the group made.

A written report of the research findings and recommendations is also being written.

At the end of the project the group are going to have a conference and invite service users,policy makers and mental health professionals, to share the findings of their research and to discuss the actions that need to be taken to improve services.

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Voluntary Action Fund - Review of our 3 year 'Mentoring and Support' project

It hardly seems possible that our Volunteers Mentoring and Support project, funded by the Voluntary Action Fund, has now come to an end. The project ran for 3 years from 2003 - 2006. During this year, volunteers who took part in the project have been working hard alongside CTDU Associate workers to review and find out in what ways volunteers have benefitted from this project, and also how CTDU can best support volunteers in the Forth Valley in the future, and write a funding application for a new project.

Six volunteers undertook an intensive training programme including:

Listening and note taking skills
Interview techniques and setting interview questions
How to engage with hard to reach groups, group work skills and techniques in facilitating groups
Mapping exercise for real
Using different methods to collect stories and deciding how to show these stories
Report writing, looking at different ways to write a report, deciding on the best way for this group

Volunteers set up meetings with the various community groups/organisations, organised transport for volunteers to visit these groups, prepared questions, decided who will do what - ask questions, take notes or record responses on video and visited 7 community groups/organizations and filmed their interviews 'on location'. Then they researched funders, learned how to plan for funding applications and wrote a funding application. Through the outreach work volunteers made contact with 7 new community groups and organisations that we will work with under Equality Matters. CTDU will provide a practical and comprehensive package of training and development support to ensure that small organisations have the capacity to participate in regeneration and community planning initiatives.

"CTDU: It does what it says on the tin"

The DVD review the volunteers made "CTDU: It does what it says on the tin" is currently being copied. A volunteer has also made a review booklet. Copies are available. Phone 01324 832040, or email Fiona or Rosemary.