Finding our voice The power of community education, organisation and development Charlie McConnell Finding my voice: The power of community education, organisation and development By Charlie McConnell Published by Samizdat Publications © Charlie McConnell 2014 All rights reserved. Any part of this book may be quoted, but should be acknowledged. Price £10.00 Published 2014 ISBN no: 978-1-63068-557-7 Printed by Veaseys of Totnes Email: [email protected] Contents Chapter 1 Learning to juggle Baby boomer • An inconvenient youth • 1968 Je participe • My politics teacher was a fascist, so I went to Russia • The Far Left was just mouthing slogans • A lace doily among the dark satanic mills • To study politics is to study power • Discovering the power of community • Tanzania or Todmorden? • Meeting the Red Clydesiders – old and new • ‘It’s the best fucking thing we’ve got’ • Alexander the great • First publica- tions • Red train to China • Salt panners and droughts • Spare Rib and Achilles Heel • Big P Politics • 1979 Ugh • Lost deposit • George and Guy • Big Bob and Big Bang Chapter 2 National and international affairs European Parliament? • Or gun running in Latin America? • Empowering consumers • Trojan pony • Ralph and the consumer movement • Gender politics, Bhopal and moving beyond the local • Penang and Borneo • Specialist technical aid • Community enterprise • Building a home • Breaking down walls • Up yours Delors! • African diary • An international association Chapter 3 Hale Bopp Vespers • Russia in the 1990s • Dacha Sacha • Into the Kremlin and the Livadia Palace • Little Boy and Girla • The Council • Youth issues • Sustainable and joined-up Community practice • Celebrating lifelong learning • Controversy • 1997 hoorah • Citizenship education • PAULO • Investing in people • Braveheart • Osler Cosla Barista 3 • Picking up the pieces • Ireland and islands • Making inequality history, saving the planet and opening borders Chapter 4 The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away Radicalising trust • Land ownership • Preparing the troops • The right to a voice • Name-dropping • A very personal engagement with the climate • Comin thro’ the rye • Colorado or Devon? • Small is beautiful, well come on, not that small! • This blessed plot • In search of warmth • Another look at the land • Finding myself looking back • Don’t agonise, organise • A tale of optimism, juggling and military strategy • From Olympian heights • We can be heroes 4 In memory of Pete Seeger ‘We shall overcome’ 5 Foreword I retired in 2012 after nearly forty years in community education, organisation and development work in the Britain and interna- tionally, twenty-five of those at a senior level, from being head of a national community education agency, to being the director an international college, from running an international non-govern- mental organisation, to being chief executive of an independent foundation and European director of another foundation that supported this work. I considered myself a community activist throughout my paid working career, before that as a student and now that I am retired. Retirement has given me more time to do three things I enjoy – to walk with my dog Poppy, to become a volunteer in my local community and internationally and to write. I had a few moments in the limelight – once as a child model wearing an astronaut suit not long after the Russians had launched Sputnik, then again when I stood for Parliament. I have written other books, educational textbooks in my professional area. This book started as articles for the International Association for Community Development, the Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice Theory and the Scottish Standards Council for Community Learning and Development, reflecting upon my work over four decades. I have expanded these, adding the journey of why I got involved in this work, the result of teenage delinquency and the discovery of democratic socialism, two sides of the same pathological activist personality trait. It then follows the history of community education, organisation and 7 Finding our voice development in Britain and, in part, internationally and aims to set this within the socio-economic and political currents of the day. It looks, in some detail, at the attempts to create what in one of my previous books I had termed the ‘empowering profession’ and an officially recognised professional sector for this work. But primarily, it traces how this has played an important role in grassroots democracy building, environmental protection and the social, cultural and economic renewal of communi- ties around the world. There are many, many job titles in this diverse field - community worker, community education worker, community development worker, community organiser, devel- opment worker, development educator, community based adult educator, youth worker, youth and community worker, to name but a few! In Britain these occupations were officially recognised by the government, in 1999, as a single employment sector – called community learning and development. And for the sake of simplicity, I have mostly used the generic term community education and development worker to describe who does this work, irrespective of their job title. The government’s recognition brought together this wide range of community education and community development occupations for the first time as a single employment sector. The government wanted to acknowledge and support the sector to play an ever more important role in promoting some of its key policy agendas here and internationally. These were concerned with tackling social exclusion (the 1990s word for poverty), and for building stronger, safer, educated, enterprising, tolerant and resilient communities. This included work to promote health education, environmental action, residents’ participation in rural and urban regeneration, community relations, youth infor- mation and empowerment, inter-community conflict resolution, crime prevention, consumer and citizenship education, adult 8 Finding our voice literacy, community arts, job creation and social enterprises, digital inclusion and generally strengthening civil society. As a political scientist, my primary interest was in ways in which we could increase people power. This is a personal journey, but one shared with many others. I appreciate that in large part it must appear that I was like Zelig, in Woody Allen’s marvellous film of that name, the character that always seems to pop up at every historic moment. My sincere apologies if it reads that way. I was however enormously fortunate to have worked during a period when a new profes- sion and a style of empowering professionals was taking off in Britain and other parts of the world. In many instances, I was merely a fly on the wall, in others one of the architects and builders. Whenever, I owe an enormous debt to all those I have worked with and for and mostly, the communities I have had the privilege to support and to learn from. The book also includes anecdotes and stories that cover other parts of my life. For example my attempts to become a member of the British Parliament and the European Parliament and which, in one way or another shaped or were informed by my professional career, and of relationships and friendships that have also influenced me. It is a biased book, in the sense of my political alignment on the left. But it is not uncritical of the left and, in a British context, of decisions made by Labour govern- ments, devolved governments and local authorities, which in my view were not supportive of this work. It also acknowledges that in some cases Conservative governments, and in the case of Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP), have been support- ive. In the latter part of the book, it covers my growing concerns about environmental issues and criticisms of the current British Conservative/Liberal government’s negative views towards public services and, in particular, its savage cuts in expenditure upon community education and development when, more than 9 Finding our voice ever, communities need help to become more resilient at a time of economic recession and even more seriously, in the face of changes in the earth’s climate and the impact of this upon vul- nerable coastal communities. It is mostly a story about working in Britain. But it also covers my visits to Eastern Europe, Russia, Mongolia and China in the 1970s; to Latin America, and then my secondment to work in Penang in Malaysia to work on international consumer education, in the 1980s; my work with the Council of Europe in 1989 and managing pan-European programmes throughout the 1990s and 2000s, including my experiences of Russia post Gorbachev; my involvement with community development in Southern Africa in the mid 1990s; and my active involvement with the International Association for Community Development, which I ran for several years and was on its Board for fifteen. This gave me the opportunity to work with, and to observe the work of, practitioners in North America, the Middle East, Europe, South East Asia, Southern Africa and Oceania. And, most recently, it covers my work running an international college supporting social and environmental activists around the world. I know I will have omitted many with whom I worked and shared my life, and my apologies for that. My thanks to relatives, friends and colleagues who reminded me of many things forgotten and censored some things remembered. And thanks especially to Poppy and my daughter, Holly, who put up with me talking to myself, and to Iris Steen for supporting me more than she knows. Charlie McConnell Dartmoor, Edinburgh and Putney, 2014 10 Chapter 1 Learning to juggle Baby boomer I stammer. It’s not that bad these days, in fact pretty rare. Sometimes it occurs in meetings or, worse, when I am speaking at a conference. I’m told it’s an attractive trait. But when I was a child there were many times when I could hardly speak at all as a jumble of words would pour into my head but dam up as they reached my mouth.