Creating Change
What we want to change
Urban Forum believes that society is improved by people in communities having a greater say over what happens in their communities and the policies that affects them. We are passionate about equality, social justice and an equitable distribution of power. We also believe a more equal and just society is better for everyone.
How we think change happens
Our theory of change involves the work of people active in their communities, linking up with others, learning from experience and influencing policy.
- For communities and community groups to be resilient and equipped to deal with challenging times there needs to be more collective action at a community level. And the best way for activists to learn and develop, and to encourage and inspire others, is through shared experience.
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Policies can either help or hinder change through collective action: By building self belief and confidence that we can make a difference to our communities by joining with others. Or by stopping community action in its tracks, and confirming suspicions that no one ever listens and nothing ever changes.
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Local people know best what helps and what prevents community action. So for good policies to be made they need to be influenced and informed by the experience of those at the grass roots.
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At the same time, society is complex. Policies have unintended consequences, involve many different factors and affect different parts of the community in different ways. This means policies and practices also need to be informed by a wealth of evidence, experiences and viewpoints.
There are eight features of how we work
To support action
1. We make the support, advice and information we provide as practical as possible, useful both for people involved in activity for the first time, and experienced community activists.
2. We prioritise work that supports those normally marginalised to become more powerful and have a greater in influence/stronger voice.
To maximise cooperation
3. We work in a way that enables people to learn from each others experience, and build relationships.
4. We seek to link up work across different sorts of organisations and sectors to strengthen work in areas of common interest and share experience and expertise.
To enable learning from experience
5. We take an action learning approach - working with others to make a practical difference in specific areas, and at the same time taking the learning from this to apply more widely.
6. We distill what we learn and using this to develop an analysis of how policy and practice needs to change to better support community action.
To influence policy and practice
7. We use the latest evidence.
8. We act in an independent way - offering praise and criticism - so that we provide an authentic and trusted voice into policy making.