community development – Unite for a Real Alternative

***“… we got the children’s playground fixed, trees planted, fencing fixed, walls repainted …”***

Laura Broxson: Do you have a management company where you live, and do you know what they do? Being stuck at home during the lockdowns gave me a huge insight as to what was going on in my estate, and more so, what our management company was not doing.

Within days of the first lockdown, I witnessed drug dealing, anti-social behaviour and a number of cars were broken in to – as well as the front door of my apartment block. Clearly the only way to eliminate all this is for a shift in society and for more resources and educational opportunities to be put in communities, but in the meantime myself and others were living in fear and needed to take action in terms of preventative measures.

“With life and work, it was easy to allow oneself be fobbed off”

Now, all the above mentioned activity obviously isn’t the fault of the management company, but myself and others had been requesting CCTV for years to at least help put people off – and we had been constantly ignored and fobbed off. With life and work, it was easy to allow oneself be fobbed off, but lockdown meant I now had the time to focus on this.

On my own behalf and on behalf of Unite, I couldn’t have been more pleased than to have been asked to say a few words at this event last night: the launch of ‘Personal Journeys in an Unequal City’, held in the Fire Station Artist Studios on Buckingham Street in Dublin’s North Inner City.

Here’s what I had to say:

When I first got to read ‘The Systematic Destruction of the Community Development, Anti-Poverty and Equality Movement’ by Patricia Kelleher and Cathleen O’Neill last Autumn it was a real wake-up call. This seminal work described how the 1980s and the 1990s saw the emergence of a vibrant state-funded community movement. and how this has been displaced since 2002 with what Cathleen and Patricia describe as ‘a shift from participatory democracy to neoliberalism’.

The book being launched tonight, ‘Personal Journeys in an Unequal City’, carries the reflections on this period – and what has happened since – of eleven people with such a breadth of experience in the community sector that a permanent record of the work done, the successes, the failures, the changes and the challenges is essential.

Continue reading “Address at launch of ‘Personal Journeys in an Unequal City’”

About Unite for a Real Alternative

Unite Trade Union will produce a political blog/commentary which will be regularly updated and published on our social media and related platforms in the Republic of Ireland. Blog posts can be emailed to you on application. In the neoliberal era Unite believe it is critical that modern Trade Unionism fights for members and their communities inside, and outside, the workplace. The factors that impact on our members lives do not stop when they leave work, or end at what used to be referred to as ‘the factory gate’. Most posts are written by Brendan Ogle, Unite’s Senior Officer in the Republic of Ireland.

Tag: community development

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Address at launch of ‘Personal Journeys in an Unequal City’