Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Coming round

This blog was in a coma for five days - medical report from Typepad still awaited - so for once I will succumb to the temptation just to offer quick links to some good stuff going on.

What works in enabling cross-community interactions? Perspectives on good policy and practice. This is a paper by Andrew Orton for CLG as part of their work on meaningful interaction. It matters because it's about small-scale community activity and informal connections gradually getting some of the policy attention that is needed.

Dancing with Down syndrome - Hildy Gottlieb links to a striking video to remind us to keep pushing back at the Culture of Can’t.

The Eden Project has launched (more quietly than expected; one suspects there is some tense politics in the background) The Big Lunch - street parties everywhere on 19 July.

'The day after the Big Lunch, people will walk down their street and know someone in most windows.'

Paul Evans shows there's even benefit in a human being of the right calibre travelling to Miami, by coming back with knowledge about Mixed ink, which looks like a sweet way of stimulating civic involvement.

Helen Milner and colleagues have set up a blog on digital engagement (which I applaud) with an invitation to write yet another manifesto (which I don't). Manifestos (manifesti?) have a role, but it's usually to do with the process of structuring action around pricniples and surely we've come further than that. Maybe we should (a) dig out the three or four previous manifesto attempts in this country and be familiar with them, together with the recommendations of the shelf-and-a-half or reports that got generated (unh, mea culpa); and (b) assess what impact they had.

Julian Dobson quite rightly calls for more thought about the over-excited bashing of public sector language ('jargon'). The Local Government Association have got all lathered on this; or rather, I suspect, in New Labour style they are following some assumptions of popular media fancy. Reminded me of my wee challenge to the Plain English Mafia.

25 Mar 2009 09:37:17 | Citizenship and democracy, Cohesion and diversity, Governance and participation, Information and communication, Neighbourhood relations, Social capital, Social exclusion, Social policy

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Guerrillas against greed The Telegraph reported the other day on a variant of NIMBYism which may have gained strength from the recession: Protesters daubed "No More 2nd Homes", "Greed" and "Go Away" on buildings in a picturesque village where many of the properties are empty for large parts of the year. It comes amid growing concern in some parts of the countryside that wealthy city workers are pricing locals out of the housing market and turning communities into "ghost villages" by buying up homes that they visit rarely. Gosh, who'd have thought it? One resident commented: "People were angry when we lost a craft shop and a cafe because we knew it would be turned into houses. And we knew they were not going to be affordable houses for young local people." At last, the gentle English are getting fed up with vulgar greed, and they can be a tenacious and persistent lot when they get momentum. Should be fun. I can't help thinking that the politicians who have been ignoring the arguments for so long must carry some of the blame if things turn nasty - and not just those who somehow are allowed to benefit from dubious development deals. Another Paper has some pics. Previously: Second homes.
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Perceptions Here's Junior, who told me about braille nail painting and sign language on T-shirts. Junior grew up in a violent home and was going nowhere, which in his case meant 26 years in and out of prison. He's passionate about finding practical ways of integrating able-bodied and disabled perspectives, which is how he got into sign-painting, T-shirt design and nail painting with a focus on different languages, alphabets and fonts (including Moon). He showed me some of his designs, including a T-shirt for Deaf Rave. I've never met such a passionate educationalist outside the education system (however broadly defined). Talking about the various phases of his life (but not his own disability) - "All of it is education," he said. "You jump from one education to the next." And later - "Homelessness has been such an education for me. It's the people that you meet." And on managing a football team of people with various disabilities: "Every aspect of it was educational." We talked at length about the importance of identifying patterns in our surroundings and in behaviours, and then knowing how to deal with what we learn. Junior is finding ways of using clothing and fashion to help young people understand the impact of their behaviour and to explore issues of exclusion. Braille nail painting is just one small, curious component in his thinking about how we can present conversation pieces to each other, and start learning. When Junior gets a website organised, I'll post about it here.

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