In Our Own Words: The story behind examples of community empowerment in Scotland
The Scottish Government is keen to celebrate existing examples of community empowerment across the country. It hopes that other communities will develop the confidence and ambition to do something similar.
For many communities, becoming empowered may seem to be a daunting task and one which may be beyond their capacity. Seeing and hearing how others in a similar situation have overcome these hurdles can open people's eyes and broaden their horizons.
The 12 case studies represent a small cross-section of many hundreds of community empowerment initiatives underway across Scotland. They show a range of models that can be empowering. They involve communities owning assets and people playing a key role in influencing decisions about how public money is spent. They include several types of community organisation, including community councils, registered tenants organisations, community-based housing associations and community businesses.
All the examples focus on telling people's stories from their own perspective. Together they offer a powerful insight into how people can get together to do things for themselves and change their communities for the better.
All 12 organisations are interested in helping others learn from their experience; you can find details about how to contact them in the individual case studies.
All the case studies can be downloaded as a single PDF document.
'In Our Own Words' Case Studies
The case studies were carried out by Social Regeneration Consultants.