Community participation - Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Community participation in two deprived neighbourhoods
Estates of Wythenshawe. The experience, and the frustrations it has brought,
has moulded his perception of community participation in some highly
uncomplimentary ways.
Greg is a social entrepreneur. 2 He identified an unmet social need, using his
own experience of growing up in the area. He created value from an underused
social resource, converting a disused part of a dilapidated and repeatedly
vandalised Methodist church into an up-to-date gym complete with weights,
resistance machines and a space for aerobics and dance classes.
The space is bright, modern and clean, with new parquet wooden floors and pot
plants in the corner. Photographs, press cuttings and even a calendar featuring
some of the gym’s members adorn the walls. Greg features prominently in all of
them – at six foot six inches and 18 stone, it would be difficult for him not to. The
pride of the members towards their space is indivisible from their visible
admiration for Greg for making it possible.
When it comes to participation, however, these successes have served only to
increase Greg’s bemusement that his achievements have not been recognised
or rewarded by formal institutions like the city council or the LSP in the shape of
grants and funding. From Greg’s perspective, he has a rapport with young
people that statutory agencies could not hope to have, and a track record of
success that entitles him to their support. Through these relationships, he
believes, he is one of the best-placed individuals to tackle problems on the
estate like vandalism and youth nuisance. He makes no bones about being an
outsider; for him, this is what makes him good at what he does. He views
engagement with them instrumentally, as a means to the end of keeping his
‘kids’ happy – they have money, he has a good way for them to spend it. He
understands the emphasis that bodies like the LSP place on due process and
has tried to go about things the proper way, developing a detailed business plan
with clear figures for what he needs. Trying to play by someone else’s rules, and
still not succeeding, has made him question the game itself. In a memorable
incident, Greg and several dozen bodybuilders from the gym organised a ‘walkin’
to a local LSP meeting and demanded to be heard – something that some of
the attendees at the meeting were likely to have found alarming. Once the group
had been given the floor they were moderate in arguing their case, but some felt
that the direct approach to asking to be heard further entrenched the perception
that Greg would not make a ‘good’ participant on the boards and committees
whose decisions he would ultimately like to influence.
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