Aims goals and vision
For folk who are interested in and wish to lead a creative life and who are happy to encourage and share that life with others, regardless of age creed, culture, colour, gender and life choices, that do not infringe on the freedoms of others to do likewise.
Why
The reasons are manifold: The disappearance of working class institutions, clubs, societies, places of learning in our communities in the here and now. The need for development of alternative value systems, that reflect peoples experiences and what they have to offer and useful in tackling oppressive, debt, rents, consumerism, addiction of all sorts, privatisation of social assets, benefit sanctions, propaganda and how we bring young people to the table to be fully involved in real things through what they are interested in.
Where
Much of our work is based in Govan but we are involved in projects all over Glasgow. The project will work with local communities to help create place-based learning processes – that can also be used and shared by other communities as a template for other projects. .
What do participants get out of it
1. Mostly what they put in.
2. A collective learning process that helps folk to help themselves, and points towards things we need to know, about community, communications, environment and self development.
3. Opportunities where we can both learn and teach hands on skills as well as critical thinking and sharing
4. To be involved in something where effort and input is recognised and dedicated to building and enhancing the commons (spaces, relationships, values) and the environment for future generations
So we engage in conversation to promote
Setting up an Action Research projects to find out what folk in the community are thinking about. What are the important issues to them. Getting out and about around Govan centre, schools and other projects to highlight the work of the group and encourage participation.
Setting up learning pods stations. Kitted out with various tools and an events program this will allow us to start forming an explicitly educational element for the project. This will be an open facility that can be booked by groups and individuals to conduct workshops and classes, and as a meeting and information space.
Learning as we go
None of us have all the answers. But together we’ve got a lot of great ideas. We see this project as an opportunity to learn about the common good, about how communities organise, about how they find ways of working together, also about bricks, mortar and architecture and about what makes our communities tick.