Craigmillar Communiversity Archive Publications Documentary Exhibition Quotes Art Trail Links Contact
The Communiversity
(first published in Mailout magazine 1996)The communiversity is a concept
for which the time has surely come.
The idea is not new. Different forms have gradually been evolving over
the generations. Now the information revolution has given it the tools to
make innovative and rapid advances. A communiversity starts from the premise
that lying dormant in every community is a vast reserve of creative energy,
as well as knowledge and experience of social problems and ideas about solutions.
The challenge is to unlock this creative energy and real-life knowledge
and use them to regenerate the community and give a purpose for living to the individuals in it. But how is this to be done?
One way is to...
- unleash people's creativity by using art as a catalyst
- use technology to take education and training out of its institutions
to where people are and provide the opportunities to develop their
potential
- create a learning exchange market which will make maximum use of existing
capital and human resources inside and outside the community
and which can educate, train, fund, inform, and empower people provide
an innovative degree and post-graduate course for on-the-job training or situational learning
- start with people who are at present involved with community work in its
broadest sense. They could be running projects or in the caring
services. Many others might be unemployed.
I can best explain how one of form of communiversity evolved by giving a
thumbnail picture of my experiences as a founder member and 23 years
Organising Secretary of the Craigmillar Festival Society. Craigmillar is
an ill-conceived and disadvantaged Scottish housing
estate. Yet it was there, in what many thought was a most unlikely place,
that the arts proved to be a catalyst that opened the door
through which thousands of residents entered into meaningful community
life.
In 1962 frustration at the lack of opportunities for children spawned the
Festival Society. The straw which broke the camel's back was the
answer to our request for school music lessons. The headmaster concerned
told us that, 'It takes us all our time to teach THESE
children the three R's far less music!' Already angry at the lack of
social, educational, employment and cultural openings for their
children, the mothers' response was to show that there was a rich local
cultural heritage. They put on a people's festival... a shop
window for the local talent which they knew existed. The festival was
an instant success, bringing colour, joy and fun to
a drab, depressing area. But little did the founding mothers dream that,
by bringing people together to do their own thing, art would be
the catalyst which would unlock the great wealth of creative energy
lying dormant in the community, and create a springboard for the
regeneration of the area. As people came together, they widened their
horizons, grew in
stature, gained confidence, and started to question their
environment. They began to ask, 'We pay local taxes, yet what do we
get for them? All we have is houses. Where are the amenities
necessary for 20th-century living?' But the authorities were not listening.
By now, the estate was 32 years old, with a population of 22,000. People
were aware that poverty is not about a lack of income to live on; it is
also about being denied opportunities for personal development. So if the
great pool of untapped talent we had unearthed
was to be developed, these opportunities must be found. And the only
way to obtain them was to do something about it ourselves, since it
was obvious that nobody else would!
We decided to try and enlist professional help in our battle for local
amenities by approaching universities, colleges, and health and other institutions.
To our delight, they were all most helpful, and they told us how to campaign
and how to present our arguments in the
most persuasive ways. As a result of this support and encouragement,
Craigmillar gained many new major amenities such as a community
centre, an arts centre, a library, a sixth-year school, a children's
nursery school, and an industrial estate.
As part of this programme, the Society successfully applied for urban
aid to employ and train local people as neighbourhood workers. These were
people to whom Craigmillar residents came not only with problems, but ideas
to improve life.
By now, as well as taking up the cudgels of social action, what people
had unconsciously embarked upon was an ongoing learning process. They
were learning how the machinery of government worked, how to use it, and
how it used them. This entailed learning how to
make maximum use of capital and human resources inside and outside the
area pertaining to housing, planning, education, employment,
health, social work, leisure, recreation and the arts. They also learnt
how to create opportunities to develop local skills and
talents and relate them to the needs of the area. As a result, they
set up facilities such as play schemes, play groups, after-school
clubs, holiday homes, a truancy unit, youth and children's clubs, a
hostel for homeless youths, a information and advice centre, a day
centre for the socially isolated, as well as a variety of government
job creation schemes.
Gradually the Society learned how to marry the fun of the festival
with the passion of political action. They saw that there were many ways to campaign other than by shouting and banging the big drum.
Combining culture with satirical criticism is often more effective and
far-reaching. So, supported by Scottish actors and writers, we learnt how
to write, produce, and costume our own community musicals.
Sometimes they were written around a piece of local history. Other times they were based on a burning issue of concern in the community.
This united the community as never before and provided a dynamic ground swell for successful community action.
Working in partnership with the MP, councillors, their officials, professionals
serving the area, the private sector, and others through what we came
to call the corporate approach, we learned how to set up a democratically-elected
community infrastructure with
built-in accountability to the community. Emphasis was always on the
fact that the Society belonged to the people and not the staff, and
that it was run by people who were supported and sometimes trained by
professionals but not directed by them.
Applying directly to the European Union, the Society was awarded a very
substantial grant to build on its community development work further.
It was the only project in the nine member countries where the people themselves
were given the money and allowed to spend it as
they saw the need - something never done before. All this necessitated
an even more far-reaching learning process, helped by
professionals and others. People came from around the world to study
and learn from Craigmillar, and take home a blueprint of what was
happening there.
Now this was at a time when the men and women in the street were feeling
more and more divorced from the people who made the vital decisions that
determine the quality of their lives. So the evolution of community development
in Craigmillar which used art as the
catalyst was seen as one answer to bring the people with the power into
closer partnership with the ordinary people who elected them.
After five years, the Society published its own comprehensive action
plan called The gentle giant who shares and cares. This report gave 400
recommendations for the regeneration of the area. Many of these
have since been implemented.
One of the recommendations was for a communiversity. The word was
coined by consultant researcher Stephen Burgess who supported but
never directed the Society and who crystallised our ideas.
The communiversity was the next logical step in the training and development of neighbourhood workers, volunteers, local activists,
and interested individuals who until then had been denied a chance of
adequate education and who now saw the necessity of getting a foot in
the education door.
What was needed was an innovative approach to life-long learning.
This was to be a learning-exchange market linking people to a learning
network inside and outside the district, which would enable people to
make maximum use of human and capital resources and could educate, train,
fund, and empower people. In some instances this
could be distance learning, taking education out of its institutions
to where people are and linking them up by computers through the
internet.
By now it was evident that disadvantaged communities must find a way
of gaining access to modern technology - in particular, computers- and
use them to their advantage. Otherwise class divide would widen further.
What was also needed were degree and post-graduate courses which would
enable the indigenous population to obtain qualifications which would qualify
them for some of the local posts funded by urban aid, EU, and other bodies.
Until now, many of these had been given to
people with professional qualifications, most of whom came from outside
the area. This often caused resentment and was a disincentive
to volunteers.
Building on the success of using art as the catalyst to unlock peoples'
creativity could provide opportunities to develop skills and talents,
and relate these opportunities to the needs of the community, such as finding
employment or training, setting up local businesses or initiatives,
providing community caring services, preventing bad health, promoting community
development, breaking the
cycle of deprivation, and giving individuals self-fulfilment and a purpose
in life. A purpose in life is now more necessary than ever
when some people will never know what it is to be employed. Emphasis
would be on training people as enablers who would enthuse
others in the community and and involve hopefully them in the communiversity.
This would create a ripple effect in the community.
Alas the Germans vetoed the poverty programme and the communiversity
fell by the wayside. But the concept did not die.
A decade later, Barnet College took up the idea and ran a highly successful
HNC public art course which conference will study in conjunction with other
UK and worldwide versions. Although many do not carry the name communiversity,
many are going in the same
direction.
Thus a communiversity would go far beyond a college since it would empower
communities. Taking education out of its institutions to where people and
their problems are and adapting it to meet their needs and expectations
would allow people to improve the quality
their lives, encourage social responsibility, and give people a stake
in society. This would not only benefit the individual and his or her
community, but it would also foster a more sharing, caring and creative
society.
Helen Crummy
former Organising Secretary,
Craigmillar Festival Society,
1962-85
Author of Let the People Sing.1996 copyright Dr Helen Crummy MBE
Published by Mailout Magazine 1996