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Workshop C
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Workshop A |
Workshop B |
Workshop C |
Workshop D
Workshop C - Session 1
Frances Homewood is co-ordinator of the Cicero Project.. I m the national co-ordinator of a new and we believe very exciting and innovative project called CICERO. Robert is a participant on that project. I feel what we are doing in this project is trying to put into practice some of the principles that are being talked about particularly by Paul Belanger yesterday, and also Tom Collins this morning. CICERO is a very practical project of citizenship learning, citizenship education, being organised at a very local and regional community level. It stands for Community Initiative in Citizenship Education Regionally Organised. The aim of the project is to raise awareness of and to develop citizenship at a community level within a European context. The project at the moment is basically a network of groups who are learning about communities, learning about social action and learning about what it means to be part of Europe. The origins of the project were a small grant that we got in 1996 in the European Year of Lifelong Learning, in which we ran a pilot project to take 42 people from different areas of social exclusion, unemployed people, to Brussels for a 5 day study visit to experience at first hand the people making policies, the people giving money - how they operate, how they think - and to create a real dialogue between people at a community level and people in power. It was an incredibly dynamic and exciting experience for all of us involved. Out of that came a commitment from the groups involved that they did not want to just leave it there; they they wanted to continue to meet, they wanted to continue to learn from each other and to learn more and more about Europe. High Unemployment Areas On the basis of that they employed me part-time to try and get some of this money that we had been seeking. We have now started, just this year, 1998, a very innovative learning programme which includes these particular groups from different areas which are all areas of high unemployment, poverty, all the kind of indicators of social exclusion. We got money interestingly not from DG22 or some of the places you might expect but actually from DG16 in Brussels which is regional development money. I think this is important because there is a real recognition within the Money for Structural Funds that it is the citizens of Europe within the communities who are the biggest economic and social asset within those communities, so the idea being that if we build people's capacity there may or may not be jobs at the end of the day, but those people can actually begin to affect their environment and their community in a very dynamic way. We have developed a curriculum and we have recruited for this year 50 people to follow this particular curriculum. The criteria that people had to meet to come on to the programme were:
Local Co-ordinator The structure is very simple at local level. We have 10 groups from the different communities. There is a local co-ordinator who is recruiting and supporting the animateurs through the programme. We have a tutor who is teaching the group of 5 people in each area, somebody skilled in working with and supporting adult learners and then we have community animateurs who we are paying to take people through the programme. But what we found when we started to recruit was that there were a lot of people very keen to learn about social exclusion, to learn about Europe, to learn about how decisions are made, to learn about funding. But they were in a sense too highly qualified, so we have created a category that we have called 'co-learners', and so sometimes we have people who are unemployed, but who might have a degree, learning alongside the other people as well and that mix is quite a dynamic one, quite a fascinating one. We are only 5 or 6 months into the programme but already I feel that there are some really interesting outcomes. People who have had a very very low level of skill and confidence in themselves are beginning to have an impact, are beginning to learn the skills for example to make presentations to other people, to ask questions, and not just about what happens at European level. We have got a demand now from the group who went to Brussels a couple of weeks ago that we go to Westminster. Open Doors We found that in the European commission a lot of doors opened for us and there was a willingness to have a dialogue and a debate with what they call real people from Europe and the policy makers. Animateurs are now saying 'Will we find that same response if we go to the UK government in Westminster?' It will be interesting to see if we do. We are also beginning to have a lot of tensions within the actual structure of the organisation as people's confidence is built up, because of course we have got black people, we have got people with physical and learning disabilities and handicaps, we have got people who are discriminated against in other ways. People are finding their voice and using it within the organisation to create a lot of tension, challenging the ways in which the organisation is going to have to open up in the future.I feel in fact that that is a very positive sign that something is beginning to work. Contribution by Robert Bachelor My name is Robert Bachelor, I am from Nottingham and I am presently unemployed but I am also an active community volunteer. What is it like being on the Circero Project? On one particular part of the project there are 5 students. There is myself; there is a lady who is confined to a wheelchair and has only one limb that she can use; we have single mums and we also have the gentleman who is involved in the credit union. We are all very very different and we all live in areas of very high unemployment with large ethnic mixes. Initially it was actually quite daunting to sit there and hear the sort of issues that we are expected to cover. However from my personal experience and I think I can say this for the group as well, we found that as we started to learn we wanted to learn.As we wanted to learn and learn more and more, it gave us a more accurate understanding of how decisions are made that affect us directly, that we actually have no influence on. Democracy For example 'Look at Democracy' was one of our first modules. We looked at democracy; we looked at the history of democracy from the Chartists, the Corn Laws right up to what we have now, which is the First Past the Post system. On our study we found out much to all our amazement how difficult the journey has been from there to where we are now. We call it democracy. It is a sort of democracy, because no doubt you are all aware of the impact that for example the poll tax had on the numbers of people who actually voted. We also looked at how the media portray areas of urban deprivation like ours. Adjacent to us are what they call 'advantageous to business', enterprise zones. We did not really understand what the connections were. Through the study we found out how detrimental these enterprise zones actually were to areas of urban deprivation because an employer can come in, use up the favourable rent status and then disappear after 6 months with no inclusion of the community. There are no jobs, there is no training. All this study led to a fantastic fact finding visit to Brussels. Our entire team went and while in Brussels we enjoyed the excitement of visiting the European Parliament. We hear about this on the television, but actually being there is a very very different thing, because apart from the grand nature of the building we actually had opportunities to grill - and I am saying grill - without reservation, people like Mulreids. We also spoke to Rodger Barton and Glynis Kinnock. We looked at the hemi-cycle the actual chamber where everybody sits and we were able to talk to the sort of people we only see on TV in those fleeting sound bites. The building was accessible to the lady who came with us who is confined to a wheelchair, and she was able to look around and get some understanding of where the discrepancy is, and what the media tells us happens in Europe and what the actuality of it is, because the distortion is enormous. Without going there we would never have known it. We also went to look at a few of these rather quite certainly disadvantaged communities, the Tomber, the Tonga and the Moroll communities. We also visited the European Trade Union Federation or ETUC 'kindercassene', which is a kindergarten project. And we were able to compare what they have with what we have in the UK. In some aspects we were miles ahead in the UK, in other aspects we are not. We also paid a visit to the War Cemetery at Flanders. That was the first visit we made when we got off the boat at Zebrugge. The significance of the War Grave visit was that it was to a First World War cemetery, immaculately kept, loads and loads of headstones. For us as a group it was very very upsetting, because the nature of the place is that the rows of immaculately kept headstones have inscriptions on which say things like 'The Great War' and 'Gave their Utmost for the Highest'. The majority of the people buried in that cemetery were between 17 and 30 years old. It was a very solemn occasion, but of course from there the talk about European community began to gather pace. What have we done with this experience since we have got back? We got back to the UK all revitalised and charged up and 'Yes we want to do this, this and this.' Now we sit down and look at the course. We are 6 months into the course. It has been very very intensive; 3 hours a week and it is bang, bang, bang. What we want to do now is look at how to take this into our very own communities because a lot of what is done and what we have found about when we were in Brussels, we can actually use in our community, which would actually empower the community. Because one of the ladies who went with us, Leigh is confined to the wheelchair, what the study and the subsequent visit has done, is draw out of Leigh skills that she never knew she had. For example we went to the African community and Leigh had to be physically - chair as well - lifted into the building because access is non existent almost. Despite this discomfort, Leigh was able to sit and actually join in the discussion which centred around racism and the mixed race relationships. Upon returning we as a group, as part of a debrief are now actively looking at how we can take what we have learnt into the community. Without the course we would never have done that. We might not have even have met and we would have stayed involved in our little areas of the community. Now we have come together as a group, as a force, and can now go out with all the enthusiasm and drive of that force and with Leigh as well and I say to our community, 'Look, knowledge is useful and when applied properly perhaps we can achieve this, because the truth of this situation is this.' So as regards achievement, I feel as a learner we have achieved a lot.
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