Communities working together to have a direct say in how public money is spent is important…
SRN’s latest blog from Holly Hendry, Network Officer for the North of Scotland, explores her experience and input into #YouChoose3, a local funding opportunity supported by recovery themes.
Between October and December 2018, along with Moray Wellbeing Hub Holly was involved in supporting #YouChoose3 a Participatory Budgeting (PB) opportunity that tsiMORAY co-ordinated. Awards were allocated to local organisations under the themes of ‘Connecting Communities’ and ‘Be Healthy’.
Holly says: This approach felt very different to other funding opportunities. Applicants played an active role throughout the process. They came together to support each other to strengthen applications, exploring both their own and others by taking a recovery focused and strengths based approach to do this. Projects were showcased at a friendly market place where the public, family and supporters could come and find out more about each project before casting votes on how the funding should be distributed."
"What struck me was that time and time again during the process I could see common recovery themes (CHIME) being echoed. Not just through explicit conversations but in relation to the interactions, stories and experiences shared between one another."