The Campaign Company Blog

Ressy Rocked!

It's not every day you get to design and construct a suspension bridge, grill a bunch of government ministers and civil servants in a Select Committee, fly on the London Eye, dine at Planet Hollywood, meet a TV celebrity, tour the Houses of Parliament and have lots of journalists clambering to interview you and take your picture... especially not when you're 14 years old and live in some of the most deprived areas of the UK. But this is what our 25 young people who took part in the DWP's Child Poverty Matters event have done over the past 24 hours, and they have really done their communities proud.

All participants put so much effort into their work, and all clearly got a lot out of it. Jim Murphy and John Hutton spoke to a lot of the young people at some length during the bridge building session in Victoria Tower Gardens this morning, and Floella Benjamin gave a motivating speech drawing on her own experiences of growing up in poverty. The young people then gave the Select Committee witnesses a really good grilling, with lots of questions about what the Government are/are not doing to tackle child poverty, and plenty of their own ideas about what they think the Government should be doing.

Most importantly, all involved are determined that this is only the very beginnning of a very constructive dialogue between young people and Government on the issue of child poverty. It will all be illustrated in photos on these pages very soon so watch this space (and www.myspace.com/childpovertymatters!) for updates.

who deserves a pat on the back?

The LGC awards are looking to give national recognition to local initiatives that have really made a difference.

Categories cover things such as community engagement and innovation.

Deadline is 11 October 2006 and you can find out more here.

Engaging diverse communities

Last week the government announced its new Commission on Integration and Cohesion, which is made up of some interesting people - local government and trade union officials, university academics, youth engagement experts. It's worth having a look at the full list.

The terms of reference of the group are interesting, including:

"considering how local areas themselves can play a role in forging cohesive and resilient communities, by:

a) Examining the issues that raise tensions between different groups in different areas, and that lead to segregation and conflict

b) Suggesting how local community and political leadership can push further against perceived barriers to cohesion and integration

c) Looking at how local communities themselves can be empowered to tackle extremist ideologies

d) Developing approaches that build local areas’ own capacity to prevent problems, and ensure they have the structures in place to recover from periods of tension."

Community engagement is obviously going to be key to delivering this. I know we're doing some work with BFAWU (the bakers' union) on engaging with hard to reach groups and have worked with several local councils in this area. So I look forward to the dialogue that will come from this new commission and hope we can contribute!

All set for Child Poverty Matters event

Time flies! It was only a month ago that we were asked to do this, but now we’re all set for the DWP Child Poverty Matters that will be taking place tomorrow and Thursday. 25 young people aged between 13 and 16 from across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be descending upon Westminster tomorrow to discuss the issue of Child Poverty. The young people taking part have been specifically recruited from deprived communities, including New Deal for Communities (NDC) and Neighbourhood Management Pathfinder (NMP) areas. They will be ambassadors for their neighbourhoods and have the opportunity to tell the Government what it is like to live and grow up in their area and what they think should be done to improve opportunities for young people where they live, and achieve the Government’s ambitious target of eradicating Child Poverty by 2020. Activities taking place include:

·           Videoqube – there will be a Big Brother style Diary Room where young people can tell the Government about where they live and share their thoughts on what the Government should do to tackle poverty

·           Bridging the Poverty Gap – a bridge will be built demonstrating young people views on what the Government should do to ‘bridge the poverty gap’. Two pillars will be built out of blocks - one pillar illustrating ‘Today’ and the problems faced now, and the other illustrating what the situation should be like in ‘2020’. The pillars will be ‘bridged’ with the positive steps that should be taken to achieve the Government’s target of eradicating child poverty by 2020.

·           Young People Select Committee – the young people will have the chance to put Government ministers and other decision-makers in the hot seat and question them about what they are doing to end child poverty. Witnesses include Lisa Harker (Independent Adviser to DWP on Child Poverty), Kate Green (CPAG), Colette Marshall (Save The Children), Julia Sweeney (DWP), Jim Murphy (Minister for Work), John Hutton (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions), Pat McFadden (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office)

And one of my childhood heroines - Floella Benjamin - will also be making an appearance. Although best known for presenting Playschool, one of Floella’s many other projects is Touching Success, a focused programme aimed at children and young people - especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds and culturally diverse communities - to ‘help them develop a vision for their own future, build the skills to develop self belief, to reach for the sky and feel self worth’.

Will try to keep you posted on how it goes over the next couple of days!

Minimising junkmail - but keep schtum if you're a postie

Did you know that if you don't want to receive the direct unaddressed mailings and fliers that comes through your post box, all you need to do is contact your local sorting office and request an opt-out form, and then complete and return. This nugget of information has recently attracted media coverage because a postman has been suspended for telling people about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5294708.stm

The world knows everything about you

This is probably the most interesting article I have read in a very long time.

It's in the Guardian and reveals how search engines like Google are more than just a tool for us to find out information. In fact, they store all our searches and this data can easily be used to identify you. There are some very amusing examples, such as the churchgoing woman who wanted to buy religious quilted wall hangings...as well as vibrators.

I cannot do it justice. Just read it!

Run your MP's blog!

This is a fantastic idea. If your MP doesn't have a blog, force him or her to take one on by starting it for them! You create a proxy blog and post up news about them so that they either:

a) get so annoyed by your take on their activities

or

b) see the value in what you are doing.

Either way the end result is that they see the error of their ways - and so you hand it over to them.

See here for info on how it's done. Or visit the first one that was created for Tim Yeo MP...he now has an up to date website, so it's done the job at least partly.

FT Consultation on the road!

As part of our consultation for the North Cumbria Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Trust, we decided that we would try and reach as many members of the public as possible by taking our consultation on the road and having a "physical presence" in all town centres.

Today was Barrow In-Furness, a tiny town on the Cumbrian peninsula. Heavy rain prevented us from standing outside as planned so we spent the day in an arts and entertainment centre (lots of kids and parents on their summer holidays). What surprised me was people's feedback. We tried as hard as we could to bring the consultation to life, recognising that governance arrangements aren;t everyone's cup of tea but everyone got really into it and made some really useful comments. A local journalist came to take our picture (west cumbrian post i think but watch this space).

We'll post photos tomorrow and we'll update on the public meeting laters.....

New TCC product!...culinary engagement

After a weekend spent cake-baking and decorating, and then refereeing 15 three-year olds at a bun fight, the inspiration came for a range of new TCC products, utilising my new-found skills....

Democracy cake: allows everyone a slice of the action! Build your own cake (in the shape of your own particular local authority, perhaps?..or maybe utilise the alphabet and spell out just what you want...or even make your local politicians eat their words?), add a sprinkle of youthful enthusiasm and a few drops of essence of engagement. The results are tasty, to say the least.

And then there's the new TCC podcast: How to have your cake and eat it.
Tune in to watch me demolish every last crumb, whilst sharing my insights into the world of community engagement. Warning: contains talking with my mouth full.

If you can't see the podcast, make sure you come along to the Let's Eat! event next week. Have your say on the latest toppings and stay around for the grand finale - Let's Blow!...working together, I just know we can extinguish those candles.

All of these products have been thoroughly researched and tested. Indeed, the latest TCC opinion poll reveals that 93% of TCC employees think I am a great maker of cakes, whilst a disappointing 37% believe I have now graduated to being A Proper Mum.

Back to the recipe book...

Remember when August was a quiet month...

Time was, that August was the opportunity to sit back and relax, and think about the previous months' hard work and autumn's challenges.

No longer!  This week sees TCC undertaking a major consultation exercise in Cumbria, working in London with the Department of Work and Pensions, Ministers and a collection of young people from all over the UK developing strategies for combatting child poverty and undertaking focus groups for the Bakers' Union in Guisborough and laying the foundations for a Democracy Wall in North Yorkshire.

Look out for regular updates on all of these in the blog!