FiCDundee News

Welfare Reform Event - April 2013

We held an event on Welfare Reform on April 25, 2013 in partnership with Hillcrest Housing Association and Dundee City Council. This event was primarily aimed at those within faith communities and highlighted key issues relating to Welfare Reform changes. It also helped explore local responses that might help those who will be affected by these changes.  Two churches have already worked on helping local people improve how they manage their money and FiCDundee will see if training to expand this can be provided in Dundee for the many others who expressed an interest.  A key opportunity for many existing faith projects and communities will be to successfully access the money recently made available by the Lottery to help those experiencing hardship.

To check the photos, please visit https://www.facebook.com/FaithinCommunityDundee?ref=tn_tnmn#!/media/set/?set=a.610489792314225.1073741826.548872068475998&type=1  

 

SEs Aspiring Event – March 2013

We organised a small event on Social Enterprise in collaboration with Dundee Social Enterprise Network (SEN) at The Factory Skatepark in March 2013. A total of 8 people, representing different churches and projects, participated in the event. Susan Smith from Dundee SEN introduced the concept of social enterprise and explored options to manage a business model for charity oriented entities. Later, Peter Friend from Helm Training shared his experience of running a social enterprise - its ethos and community engagement. Towards the end of the event, the participants looked at how to get started and what kind of support -resources, knowledge and experience - is available to budding social enterprises, through Dundee SEN and other organisations.

To check the photos, please visit https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.591219487574589.1073741825.548872068475998&type=3

Understand your Community Workshop – January 2013

We organized a workshop in January in collaboration with Faith in Community Scotland, which aimed at helping community-based faith groups understand their neighbourhood and community better. The objectives were to make use of local information, carry out community research, respond to the priorities in an area and build evidence for funding applications. A total of 20 people attended the event, with participants from Regeneration Areas like Lochee, Menzeishill, Douglas and Hilltown. The participants represented different faiths, including Christian and Muslim traditions along with a small number of people from non-faith backgrounds. Additional inputs were given by the Dundee Partnership and Regeneration teams of the City Council.

To check the photos, please visit https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.563688036994401.137174.548872068475998&type=3 

DDI Survey – March 2013

The Dundee Drop In (DDI) Group is a network of groups/projects that provide a range of services to vulnerable individuals. We recently conducted an ‘Identifying Needs and Gaps’ survey and released a report, in collaboration with Bethany Christian Trust, to better understand the issues experienced by the people living in poverty and identify future service developments in conjunction with statutory partners. We are planning to take this exercise to the next level to help the Group hear the stories of those they work with. This will value the experience of those in our society who fall on hard times and potentially help shape services and policies.

New Volunteer at FiCDundee – Arish Rajkarnikar

 

 

I am Nepalese student currently in my final year of BA (Hons) Business Studies at the University of Abertay. I graduated from Woodstock School, India in 2008. During my time at Woodstock, I was an active member of a program called C.A.R.E. (Community and Restoration of the Environment). The C.A.R.E activities included teaching underprivileged children basic English and Maths but majority of the activities were based around fun and games. Other C.A.R.E activities included: cleaning up the hillside and raising awareness about the environment. I also founded a student-led organisation called SWASA (Students on War Against Substance Abuse). SWASA aimed to help students with drug and/or substance abuse problems. In Dundee, I have volunteered with Save the Children so far and I hope to help Faith in Community by whatever way I can because I believe improving fairness and equality is a must in any society.