Sandwell has been awarded a total of £300,000 of government funding for four voluntary sector led Connecting Communities programmes in Tibbington, Friar Park, Ocker Hill and the Rowley Regis/Tividale areas of Sandwell.

 
The programmes will be working to strengthen community cohesion and community leadership in areas where there has been a sense of isolation from services and the decision making process that has been worsened by increasing levels of unemployment.

 
The four programmes will be tailored to the needs of the individual areas but all will have common elements which will include teambuilding, work placements, training to develop the participants’ general employability and a “team challenge” that will carry out some type of improvement to the area.  In total 80 young people (aged 16-24) will take part in the programme in community leadership and citizenship.

 
The lead partners are Friar Park Millennium Centre, Murray Hall Community Trust, Centrepoint and Oakham Church, all community led organisations rooted in the neighbourhoods identified.  Other partners include the West Midlands Fire Service, Sandwell Council Communities Unit, West Midlands Police, The Albion Foundation and local housing associations, Accord and Black Country Housing.

 
All the partners are signed up to provide taster sessions or placements for the young people involved.  Part of the purpose of the “taster sessions” is to ensure the young people involved have a chance to sample a wide and varied range of work opportunities in the hope of broadening their horizons and raise their aspirations.

 
In each of the four areas a smaller delivery group has been set up to implement the programme, in each case this involves further voluntary organisations active in the area.  Care has also been taken to ensure the people who will work on the programmes know the areas well, in some cases they are local young people themselves.  While the programmes are up and running, all are still keen to hear from local young people who might be interested in getting involved.

 
Gary Bowman, director of Sandwell Partnership said; ‘This is a really exciting chance to reach out to some of the areas of Sandwell where we know people have felt alienated from the mainstream which leads to understandable frustration.

 
What Connecting Communities offers is a chance to open doors for some of our young people.  Giving them the chance not just to work with some of the organisations that influence their everyday lives, but to have a real say and perhaps from this some of the next generation of community leaders can emerge.’

 
If your organisation would like to get involved in Connecting Communities contact Sandwell Partnership on 0845 434 9140 and we will put you in touch with the lead agency for your neighbourhood.