Social action is a term used to describe or define how an individual, group or community reacts to issues of mutual concern, or social conditions they care about.

Social action brings people together and helps to develop and strengthen communities.

There are a variety of ways in which social action takes place across Cambridgeshire and these include the following.

Volunteering

People giving time to assist local good causes. We all know that the context of volunteering is changing, with people having less disposable time to enter into long and formal volunteering commitments. The rise of more fluid forms of volunteering are taking place, including Micro-Volunteering, Time banking and Employee Supported Volunteering Schemes. If you are a Cambridgeshire based business and want to support a local good cause as part of a team building challenge please contact us.

Peer support

Peer support is about mutual self – help. Cambridgeshire ACRE are undertaking a range of activities around Community Mentoring in village halls, where one village hall supports another with skill, knowledge and guidance. For more information on Community Mentoring, contact Lisa Chambers.

Time-banking

Time-banking supports the creation of a time based economy, where people exchange time in order to meet a community need. There are a number of time-banks across Cambridgeshire.

Visit: https://supportcambridgeshire.org.uk/new/timebanking/

Community organising

Community Organising looks at the way in which communities come together to take action against social conditions they care about. Far from being a new concept, Community Organising has been with us since the 1930’s, but has received new momentum lately. For more information visit: http://www.corganisers.org.uk/who-we-are 

You can also view our introduction to Community Organising here: 

You can see our Placed based Social Action Framework for working with communities here:

This application or Framework can also be used simply for Research, without the resultant Development support being required. An example is shown here:

Co-production

Co-production is where community based services are designed in partnership. Support Cambridgeshire sits on 19 Stakeholder Boards each year to ensure co-production opportunities between statutory and voluntary sector organisations are discussed, augmented and developed where possible.

Community owned assets

This is the process whereby communities take over the ownership and management of assets such as community centres or public houses. Like Community Organising, Asset Transfer has been with us for many years, but received fresh impetus following the Quirk Review entitled Making Assets Count.

If you are interested in any form of Community Asset Transfer or Management contact Lisa Chambers.