CBS Network, The Melting Pot, Thorn House, 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PR
Tel: 0131 243 2636 e-mail: info@cbs-network.org.uk Website: www.cbs-network.org.uk
COMMACT UK operates under the auspices of CBS Network Ltd, a Scottish Charity 000159
CBSN/COMMACT NEWSLETTER Feb 2009
This Newsletter is a joint venture between CBS Network (CBSN) and COMMACT UK (Commonwealth Association for Local Action and Economic Development). The first section below gives news and information about overseas projects and our partnerships with colleagues around the world. The second section details current CBSN work in Scotland and the UK.
At the joint COMMACT UK / CBSN meeting at the end of March, COMMACT UK was formally drawn into CBSN and is now an integral part of the charitable company.
This Newsletter is circulated – only by email – to all members of CBSN and of COMMACT UK and to all our various partners in the COMMACT and other networks overseas. The Newsletter will also be posted on the CBSN website. Please feel free to share this newsletter with other friends and colleagues where you are.
Overseas Projects and International Links
COMMACT INTERNATIONAL
The COMMACT International Conference took place in Brisbane, Australia in late October 2008. It brought together over 80 people-centred development activists from across the globe to share experiences and build practical project based linkages alongside a visit programme to local social and community enterprises. The conference showcased the COMMUNITY BUILDING VENTURES PROJECT and its work in Bangalore. India, a collaboration between the READ Centre, Renton Community Development Trust and Community Campus.
The conference also saw the launch of the Commact International Solidarity Partnership Programme, which is building practical and ongoing links between not-for-profit organisations in developed nations with on-the-ground organisations in developing nations. The website www.commact.com has a series of case studies from the Solidarity Programme which show the developing partnerships and some of the work undertaken so far. These partnerships reflect the Commact U.K. / Commact India collaborations that we have developed over the years, building lasting and beneficial partnerships.
Copies of all the key presentations are available via the web-site, which is also hosting “Sam’s Tale”, a report on our friendand colleague Sam Chelladurai’s trip to Australia and New Zealand after the conference.
COMMACT UK LINKS
Commact UK are continuing to work alongside Commact India members on a series of bilateral projects and developments. Commact UK sees itself playing a role in promoting project and organisational sustainability, especially through two-way knowledge and skill transfer. Commact UK can sometimes offer small-scale financial assistance and is run by CBSN.
COMMUNITY BUILDING VENTURES – CBV
Community Building Ventures (CBV) creates working links between Renton in Scotland, Middlesborough in N. England and Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in South India. 2007 saw a party from the UK providing building labour, classroom materials and some of a teacher’s salary to a school in Bangalore. In 2009 they plan to build a community meeting place at Huliyar in rural Karnataka and are also intending to build 2/3 houses alongside the community building in Huliyar. In 2010 they may finally carry out building work for the Akshaya Micro-credit Federation, started by HiLDA in Wayanad Disrict, Kerala. In between, CBV have been helping sponsor individual children in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, while deliberately avoiding long term dependency.
The possibility is still there to bring young Indians, who would not otherwise have the chance, to the UK. This will be Phase II of the project. In addition there may be possibilities of linking with an organisation in New Zealand with the aim of providing opportunities for young Maori men to participate in the programme in September 2009.The READ Centre is carrying out some development work on the Huliyar project at present.
The HiLDA TRUST and the AKSHAYA FEDERATION
BUY A BRICK FOR AKSHAYA - Kay Caldwell and Alan Tuffs organised a fundraising dinner in Glasgow in support of the construction of the new Headquarters Building for the Akshhaya Federation of self help groups in Wayanad, Kerala. It was held on Sunday October 26th at Dakhin, the award winning South Indian Restaurant in Candleriggs in the Merchant City..The dinner was attended by over 80 supporters ,raising over £2500 for the project,for further information please contact kayprobable@googlemail.com or alan.tuffs@btinternet.com
Jagran Jan Vitas Samiti
The Lloyds TSB project is coming to an end and Jagran are compiling a report.
Jagran have made a useful link with a nationally-funded agency, the Society for Promotion of Wasteland Development (SPWD), who are strong on environmental analysis. JJVS are starting a new project in collaboration with SPWD, with funds secured by CBSN from the Network for Social Change to document the social, economic and environmental conditions of the tribal people in the mining area, with a comparison with villages less affected by commercial development. CBSN are in discussions to consider a further project which will start in April 2009.
Social Audit Network India
Funding was approved by Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland for a collaborative project between CBSN and the Centre for Social Initiative and Management, Hyderabad to run 3 social accounting clusters and 3 master-classes in social accounting and audit over the next 2 years. A planning meeting for this project was held on 5th September in Glasgow. This project has emerged out of a 3 day workshop on social accounting and audit held in Hyderabad in February 2008 which was attended by over 40 people.
Patrick Boase ran two workshops with our Indian Social Accounting partner, the Centre for Social Initiative and Management ,in the second half of January. Both were held in Chennai, one at a social welfare organisation’s premises in the city, and the other at an academic institution on the outskirts.
The first workshop was for the first cluster of organisations to start preparing accounts in India. There are 11 organisations, including Creative Handicrafts, a fair trade organisation from Mumbai who have already prepared social accounts several years ago and a branch of Doctor Reddy’s Foundation who have been preparing accounts for their employment branch for four years. Doctor Reddy’s is a very large ‘corporate social responsibility’ outfit, ,which gets money from other sources besides the parent pharmaceuticals company. Another large company in the finance sector wants to prepare social accounts for all its corporate activities, so Mrinalini and Vatsala,from CSIM, will be helping them to prepare and execute a plan separately. Mrinalini is a SAN approved social auditor and has plenty of experience. The other 9 participants are mostly smaller NGO’s.
This cluster had their second workshop which was designed to take them through Step Two. Mrinalini and Vatsala had worked hard to ensure that most of them had MVOA (Mission, Values, Objectives and Activities) and Stakeholder Analyses approved by their organisations. Good progress was made. The next cluster meeting will be in May and it is planned to hold the first social audits at the beginning of September.
The second workshop was a masterclass, run along the same lines as the U.K. ones. It was attended by around 25 people, including a floating population of 6-7 staff from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Local Government. A form of Social Audit is already practised quite widely, but it means a form of “public review” by beneficiaries. They were very interested in the adaptation of SAA (Social Accounting and Audit) for wider use in local government projects.
One participant, sponsored by CBSN/COMMACT, attended from the Nepal Social Audit Forum, where they also practise ”public auditing”. Another person is preparing a PhD on social auditing in publicly-owned corporations. Others were a range of NGO’s.
The workshop went off well and was filmed in full!
We did not run the Day Three Social Audit module as we have decided for now to only allow those who have prepared social accounts themselves to go forward to train and be approved as social auditors.
CBSN in Scotland and in the UK and Europe
Social Accounting and Audit
The Scottish “Social Accounting Roadshows” programme, funded by CBSN and the Scottish Government, has now concluded. The last two events took place in Stornaway and in Dundee. However CBSN and SAN in Scotland are considering the possibility of extending this programme and offering events for particular interest groups – such as BME groups and housing organizations.
Partnership with Co-operative Development Scotland (CDS)
CBSN is currently coming to the end of a pilot project which took 6 Scottish Co-operatives through social accounting and audit process. The participating organisations are: Highland Wholefoods, Highland Home Carers; West Whitlawburn Housing Co-operative, ScotWest Credit Union, Loch Fyne Oysters and the WISE Group.
Social Audit Network Annual Conference – 7th November 2008
The report of the SAA Research project, Really Telling Accounts! was launched as a well-attended conference held Edinburgh on the 7th of November. The conference sparked off spirited discussion about the best ways of reporting the impacts that the social economy organisations have on their communities and in particular about the merits of measuring as opposed to balanced reporting. Speakers included Professor Jan Bebbington of St Andrews University, Geoff Pope of the Scottish Government’s Third Sector Division and John Pearce of the Social Audit Network. A full report on the conference can be seen on the SAN Website – www.socialauditnetwork.org.uk CBSN is grateful to the Scottish Government both for their funding of the research in Scotland (the research in England was funded by the Northern Rock Foundation and the Merseyside Social Enterprise Initiative) and for their contribution to the 7th November event.
Research Project - Really Telling Accounts!
The report of the recently concluded research project undertaken by SAN can be viewed on the SAN website (www.socialauditnetwork.org.uk) – click on Manual & CD and then on Really Telling Accounts! You can download the report plus any appendices you wish to study. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the report (containing a CD of all the appendices) please send an address label together with a cheque for £5 to cover P&P and handling to the SAN offices, c/o CEU, 69a Sidwell Street, Exeter, Devon EX4 6PH.
CEST - EUROPEAN TRANSNATIONAL PROJECT CEST Transfer: Sustainable Further Training and Competence Strategies for the Social Economy
CBS Network is a partner in this action research project which looks at the competencies and training requirements for social economy organisations in Europe and plans to write a curriculum and examine common training methodologies for the social economy sector. The lead partner is Technologie-Netzwerk Berlin e. V. So far four workshops have been held in Berlin and these are followed by consultation and interviews with relevant organisations in the UK. The curriculum consists of four main themes:
·
the Future of Work;
·
the Future of the Economy;
·
the Future of the Community; and
·
Social Enterprise Strategies.
The project will conclude with a conference and launch of a website in Berlin on the 25th September 2009
For further information on this contact Alan Kay alan@mkay88.freeserve.co.uk
We always welcome constructive criticism of the CBSN website as well as news and information that you might like to send us.
STRATEGY, MEMBERSHIP AND PARTNERSHIPS
Our strategic focus remains on our international work, primarily with our partners in India, and on promoting and developing the practice of social accounting in Scotland so that social economy organisations can better demonstrate the impact they have on people and the planet.
Membership of CBSN costs £45 (including VAT) for which members receive six issues of New Sector as well as receiving this quarterly newsletter. Members are also encouraged to join in the activities of CBSN/COMMACT UK and to make proposals for future projects. As a small development organisation CBSN depends on its members and volunteer directors to initiate and manage projects – if you have an idea get in touch with us!
Carl Ditchburn
For CBS Network and for COMMACT UK
February 2009
