Had a really good meeting today with a lady (Scottish!) who is trying to do some grassroots community work with a big housing scheme that's been created to house tsunami-displaced people. It was so bizarre seeing the scheme as it was just like walking through some crap Scottish scheme from the 60s - 4-storey houses, 10 to a block, no community facilities, nothing, no soul, no heart, just people sitting with nothing to do and houses starting to crumble and decay around them - after only 5 months of everyone being rehoused. With nearly 300 families there and high unemployment, it's a disaster waiting to happen, but the good thing is that this lady is working with a Sri Lankan community worker and they are really, really motivated to work with the community and try to get things turned round - employment training, possible community business, building facilities, children's clubs etc. There are going to be all kinds of challenges - how to engage community leaders and members, how to help get things going without 'imposing' solutions, how to get resources, how to develop sustainable income generation etc etc - but so much potential to make a real difference and prevent the whole place going down the swanny...
Anyway, they need a bit of support so I'm going to help them out with some strategic planning (what else!?) so that they can get a bit of a foundation to build on in terms of funding, business development, future volunteers and generally moving forward. I'll go up there 1 day a week for rest of time here, which will be a good change of scene for me and, while probably quite hard work, hopefully very stimulating.
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