Community Regeneration
Our model is constructed around creating a clear link between social and employment issues and the local economy together with individual transformation through a return to learning and to work. Our view is that to create an ability to make positive choices in life demands economic wherewithal. Basically, you have greater freedom to choose if you are independent and independence comes with employment. We provide a range of learning and work based training opportunities to support this transition. We work with a growing range of local, regional and national employer partners who support our model and ethos.
We ourselves are an employer. We take this responsibility very seriously since we understand its significance to both the individual and the community. It is also important to understand that as an organisation we are community grown. Our roots are very firmly established in the East End of Newcastle and our organisation has grown out of a lengthy process of discussion with communities and stakeholders across the area. The membership of our Board of Trustees is further testament to this fact.
Our work, our training and enterprise activities exist to deliver high social impact. We are clear that we want to renew our communities through an increase in employment, in the creation of personal aspiration and hope.
Our own enterprise for the most part has a wholly social focus – the creation of local training opportunities, this links directly to the creation of local employment opportunities which in turn is driven by the delivery of local services. Through this approach we have set out to make our communities more “resilient”, to enable them to resist to a greater degree the forces of economic recession. We believe that what we offer contributes to the creation of such a ‘sponginess’ that allows areas to take a knock but recover more easily. Our model is important in the context of what is known as ‘LM3 – Local Multiplier 3’ understanding how money circulates in the local economy, keeping the pound in a place for longer – for us this relates to local training, local jobs, local spending, local investment that also supports the retention of local jobs.
Our method also seeks to engender a greater degree of social cohesion. We want to strengthen the fabric that holds our communities together. Our model then looks to connect people with the places in which they live through training, work and local service delivery and to connect people with people – this is about the provision of services within communities themselves in a way that further emphasises and stimulates resilience.
Our model strives for a greater recognition of the role of the third sector in the local economy. In part we seek to achieve this through public service delivery and by empowering our communities through skills and enterprise. We argue that this can be effectively achieved through ‘smart’ procurement.
Our model can stimulate local economic regeneration since our broader enterprise and training offer fosters a culture of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurialism whilst at the same time strengthening local accountability.
