Background
Black Country Communities in the Lead (LEAD) is about developing the skills needed for people to live, work, and develop within their geographical or interest community. LEAD has been enabling local people to participate in the decisions that affect them, developing community businesses, social enterprises and taking part in the democratic system. Lead has been identifying new models of working that will feed into the 30 year strategy developed by the Black Country Consortium, inform the LSC Strategic Area Review, develop the Stakeholder Survey and knowledge economy, feed into e-democracy leaving a sustainable social capital that will inform governance.
The partnership includes voluntary, public and private organisations which recognise the importance of working with the community such as Walsall Primary Care Trust and the local colleges.
Aim
The aim of LEAD is to work with communities to generate ideas and businesses from the bottom upwards in order to develop new and sustainable community and social enterprises. Community Animateurs have been playing an important role making vital links between the community and the projects within LEAD.
The aim is also to see how different approaches to business support can help facilitate the establishment of enterprises.
Objectives
- Develop knowledge rich communities empowered to take decisions about their own lives and community through building social capital and supporting the setting up of social enterprises
- Develop a common understanding of how social enterprise can contribute to regeneration of neighbourhoods and support the local labour market through developing 10 social enterprise pilots.
- Develop a common understanding of how social enterprise can contribute to the integration of communities of interest within local communities and the labour market, by sharing good practice
- Develop empowerment, knowledge and skills within communities, developing new ways of encouraging communities to be involved in local, national and European government issues, and social enterprise networks. A main vehicle for this objective is the use of IT. The key objective here is to enable people to be more aware of the governance issues which affect their work and lives, thereby enabling them to access the networks and services they need to carry out the development of social enterprises or self employment.
- Develop a series of training courses targeted at a range of people including ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities, mental health service users and unemployed people. The content focuses on developing the skills needed to form and run social enterprises and improve the quality of jobs available locally.
Target groups
Disadvantaged geographical and interest communities, people with disabilities, BME groups, Asian women, people with mental health problems
