COVID-19

SW Edinburgh: the first people led Community Wealth Building Locality, supported by
GoBeyond and a raft of Community Grants July 2020

What is GoBeyond?
Working across local neighbourhoods in South West Edinburgh, GoBeyond is a network of trusted local voluntary sector partners with over 130 contributors.

We’ve already got a great record of working together but the demand Covid-19 has placed on our services has changed overnight so our response must also change.

Our purpose is to increase the capacity within our community organisations so that we stay resilient and strong in times of crisis.

SW Edinburgh: A Community Wealth Building Locality, supported by GoBeyond.

As of 14 July, 2020, in SW Edinburgh, the GoBeyond network enablers and key anchors, Space & Broomhouse Hub, Big Hearts Community Trust and Whale Arts, would like to start a conversation with the people who live and work here, about the area adopting a people led strategy to create a ‘Community Wealth Building Locality’, based on Wellbeing Economics and a greener recovery.
This will be supported in particular by community anchor organisations, above, as well as embedded into the distributive and creative network that GoBeyond can facilitate, to involve many local and smaller community groups and initiatives, and led by people in local communities.

First small steps:
• Using a distributive network between organisations and small community groups to increase
collaboration and mutual support, this is GoBeyond.
• Local grants programmes to help innovation, decided either via participatory budgeting, or
when events are not possible, community representatives & anchor staff make decisions.

We can announce the following grants:

We’re delighted to announce some of the amazing groups who will be receiving funds from our
Small Community Grants scheme (supported by Scottish Government’s Supporting Communities
Fund via The National Lottery Community Fund).

Congratulations to all these local projects who will use the grants supporting local people from
Gorgie and Dalry, to Broomhouse, Sighthill and Parkhead and up to Wester Hailes and Clovestone, a
total of £55,000 distributed to these small groups.

 Edible Estates: Building structures for outdoor learning on return to school in Wester Hailes
 About Youth: Outdoor youth work activities with Bridge 8 Hub in Wester Hailes
 Grass Roots Remedies: Herbal Response Project in Wester Hailes, delivering free herbal
remedies (herbal teas, chest rubs, honeys) to the community
 Dove Centre: Activity packs for older residents in Wester Hailes
 Wester Hailes Litter Picking Group: Equipment and tools for community litter picking
 Hailesland Gardeners: Tools & plants for new community gardening group in Wester Hailes

 Open Heavens Church: Board games for families in Wester Hailes area to enable families to bond and communicate with each other during lockdown
 Holy Trinity Church: Equipment to live stream church services from Wester Hailes
 Health Agency / Willow Garden: local residents to connect in a beautiful greenspace
 With Kids: Support for children and families in Wester Hailes
 Dunedin Canmore Youth Projects: To provide youth work in the form of detached/street work.
 Love Gorgie Farm: Resources for local community schools & educational programmes
 Art in the Park: To provide green space art workshops for those who are isolated
 St Brides Centre: Providing short story writing course for isolated individuals
 Friends of Saughton Park: To stage a series of musical performances
 Gorgie Yoga: Providing free yoga Sessions for residents
 CHAI: Deliver support for disadvantaged local families
 Broomhouse Primary & Parents group: Creating a parent & family room within the school
 City Star Majorettes : Providing extra kit for their members
 Community One Stop Shop: To provide food supplies to different cultures
 AbilityNet: Combatting digital exclusion in Broomhouse, Sighthill & Parkhead community
 Broomhouse Community Growers: raised bed & seed kits/community gardening group
 B Healthy Together: Providing health & wellbeing kits
 St Augustine’s Rugby Club: For additional sports equipment
 Stenhouse Primary & Parents group: Providing school uniforms to pupils
 St. David’s Toddler Group: Creating leaflets and posters to reach families
 Youth Café: Producing face coverings
 St Joseph’s Primary & Parents group: Supporting families in need of household essentials
 Murrayburn Primary & Parents group: Progressing their Science, Technology, Engineering,
Art and Maths home programme

Planning ahead, for SW Edinburgh: developing a people led Community Wealth Building Locality:

We would like to also to be outward-looking and to start a conversation with City of Edinburgh Community Planning Partners, Business and Scottish Government, about what this might mean for their understanding of the locality and the opportunities here to ‘build back better’ and to be part of the growing community wealth and wellbeing economy approach locally and internationally.

Medium to long term steps in SW Edinburgh Locality:
• Attract investment in key local anchors to be part of the post Covid Recovery
• Attract progressive procurement of goods and services in SW Edinburgh by major partners
• Attract investment that creates jobs in the social enterprises locally and reskills for environmentally friendly and wellbeing focused sectors
• Attract new green infrastructure investment, informed by the Edinburgh Climate Commission findings and recommendations
• Align ourselves with the Community Wealth and Wellbeing Economy approaches in Scotland and internationally to guide us

This Community Wealth Building approach will take courage to build, where we go beyond the historic sole economic value, and shine light on the intrinsic value of people and assets that underpin a holistic approach to development in the next 10 years in SW Edinburgh.

Contacts:
Bridie Ashrowan, Chief Executive Space & Broomhouse Hub: bridie@spacescot.org
Craig Wilson, General Manager, Big Hearts Community Trust: Craig.wilson@bighearts.org.uk, and
0131 603 4816
Leah Black, Chief Executive, WHALE Arts: leah@whalearts.co.uk and 07773553445.

Notes:
1. The local grants programmes have been supported by the Scottish Government Supporting
Communities Fund.
‘We know community groups have significant experience in responding to challenges so they are well placed to support people and communities in SW Edinburgh as they look to support a local response to COVID-19. These Scottish Government Supporting Communities Fund awards will make a key difference to many people living locally, helping them become more resilient in the face of this crisis.’ National Lottery Community Fund Scotland Director, Neil Ritch. The National Lottery Community Fund is one of several organisations distributing the Scottish Government’s Supporting Communities Fund. To date up to £10 million is being made available as an initial sum available to support community anchor organisations, and a further allocation of £10 million has been approved to support the second phase of the Fund.

2. GoBeyond Web site: https://wearegobeyond.org/
The GoBeyond Charter is on there. We use Slack (an online communications tool) to connect as a locality in South West Edinburgh. This has meant more than 130 members, from small third sector groups and churches, through to social workers and members of the local groups through to anchor staff can easily connect with each
other. It allows the locality to have group discussions and share information with each other easily and safely online. For five years the South West has had four local action groups meeting in areas of high poverty, and the GoBeyond Slack means they can connect quickly throughout the crisis.