By Will Horwitz
Most people recognise that award ceremonies – particularly in the third sector – are at least as much about showcasing a wide variety of excellent work as they are about rewarding one particular individual, project, or organisation. This is certainly the rationale behind the Tackling Poverty Awards that we’re launching today, in collaboration with our partner Church Action on Poverty. They aim to recognise and reward projects that successfully support working age people in poverty.
Alongside Community Links’ core purpose of providing first rate services to people in east London, we share what we learn with other organisations and policy-makers nationally. Since 1989 our Ideas Annuals have collected and published hundreds of examples of successful local projects from around the country. Our Chain Reaction Project continues the work of sharing good project ideas in an online forum.
Through our policy work we have a track record of influencing government and changing the systems and procedures adversely affecting the people we work with .
One of this year’s projects, part of the European Year of Tackling Poverty, is around poverty amongst people of working age. As well as a series of local listening campaigns held around the country, we’re launching the competition to gather together innovative examples of projects working with people experiencing poverty. We believe that people who experience a problem are the experts and often best placed to develop sustainable solutions. We want to provide a platform for people who know best what it is like to live in a struggling community to tell their own story and challenge the myths about how poverty is perceived.
Four projects will be given a video camera to keep, and the chance to make a film about their work. One will win the overall award at a ceremony in November. But as many longlisted projects as possible will be included in a publication celebrating the diversity and importance of work going on around the country. Work that is often localised and unreplicated, but could have a huge impact if copied elsewhere.
So if you know of or run a project that inspires you, please do consider submitting an application.