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I sat and listened to a lady today, who has a passion for Redeeming Communities.  She has been setting up partnerships with all sorts of organisations – Fire Services, Churches, Local Councils and anyone else who wants to get stuck in.  She sets up cafes that youngsters can go to after school to meet with their friends and get off the streets, she sets up meeting places for young mothers or ex prisoners and asks willing volunteers to get involved.  At these meeting places individuals can get involved with Community Projects (giving them meaning, purpose and a sense of belonging) or they can just chill out.  The communities which have cafes run alongside the local fire services have found that there are less prank calls or nuisance fires.  The ones run with the police have found that a great deal of information is given to an officer in a more comfortable environment by those who wouldn’t wish to go down to a police station.   There is far more to it that the things I mentioned above but I can’t describe it as well as she can.  A couple of things struck me about her ideas 1) they aren’t new and 2) they aren’t complicated.  But it takes someone with passion and determination to decide to sort it out.  They have to be prepared to take the risk and commit to making a difference. 

We often cling to what we know rather than venture out and try something different.  Even if it isn’t something adventurous we may use the excuse “It’s been tried before and it didn’t work”.  We may put others off trying new things, especially the young or inexperienced .. after all they may benefit from our advice!  We feel that we need to tell them that it won’t work because it didn’t work last time.

But sometimes we must embrace an intermediate failure to step on towards a new successful idea.  So, even if we do give something new a go, we decide “if this new strategy doesn’t work we’ll go back to the old strategy that wasn’t working”  (because at least we were comfortable).

Maybe it’s time to have a fresh look at some ideas that may not have worked (or may have been shelved before they were tried) to see if there is a seed of brilliance in them.

(oh and by the way – the lady I mentioned is Deborah Green and her organisation is Redeeming Our Communities ROC)

Heather Wright