By Richard McKeever
As we reach the end of a very busy year the linksUK team would like to wish you a happy festive season… and all the best for 2009.
Our highlights of 2008 include:
Chain Reaction: The first Chain Reaction event was a huge success! over 1000 people, from 17 countries, at least 250 aged under 21, community organisations from up and down the country and beyond and artists from Brazil, the Philippines, Croatia, Canada, Iceland and Kenya, Social Entreprenuers, bloggers and techies with new tools to try out, business leaders (among others, CEOs from Royal Mail, BBC, IBM, CBI, BITC, Accenture) and a roll call of Ministers – including a visit from the PM.
Keep in touch to find out about Chain Reaction 2009.
Need Not Greed: The Need not Greed campaign was launched in autumn: Cash-in-hand work is a survival mechanism for many people living in poverty. We are campaigning to end a reliance on cash-in-hand work and help people to make the transition into formal work, gradually coming off benefits.
Keep in touch on the Need not Greed Campaign Website
Publications: This year we launched a new series of Community Links publications the first two of our Social Change Series detailed our work on Regeneration and Child Poverty.These booklets are available for free download from our website.
Keep in touch: the series continues in the New Year.
Council on Social Action: We continue to support the work of the Council on Social Action, led by Community Links co-founder David Robinson. Part of our work this year was the publication of five papers reporting on the work of CoSA, including policy advice to government about the power of one-to-one working in “Side by Side“ available for free download.
Keep in touch at the Council for Social Action website.
Community Allowance: We were pleased to see that the latest DWP White Paper specifically references our idea of CREATE the Community Allowance; which enables community organisations to pay people to do work that strengthens their neighbourhood without it affecting any of their benefits. However we want this to be available for anyone on any benefit and we will keep pushing for this change in 2009. Download our proposals.
Keep in touch with developments at the CREATE website
Please contact us with your ideas about how we might work together in 2009.
With very best wishes for a happy holiday from the linksUK team:
Geraldine, Aaron, Laura, Spyro, Marlen, David, Radhika, Maeve, Zoraida, Matthew, Emma, Richard and all of the linksUK volunteers and interns.
