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The voluntary and community sector play an important role in empowering communities by actively providing a voice and in turn having an influence of decisions made on a variety of levels.
Community Empowerment is high on current policy agenda. Local Government are to lead the drive to enable more people to play an active role in the decisions that affect their communities and the voluntary and community sector play a huge and crucial role. Community Empowerment is framed around the following dimensions:
- confident
- inclusive
- organised
- co-operative
- influential
Community organisations are actively involved in community life and the barriers people face on a daily basis. Community organisations can and do play an important part in sharing its knowledge and experience by providing a voice for influence at a range of forums, boards, panels, committees, partnerships and working groups across the county of Wiltshire. The knowledge shared by our sector is invaluable and diverse, due to the wide range of charities and community groups working with people and communities that statutory bodies would not be able to reach on a day to day basis.
The Role of WIC in Voice and Influence
WIC’s role highlights where there are gaps in representation from the voluntary and community sector; provide support and workshops for groups that builds capacity in providing an ‘objective’ Voice’ to Influence, and work in partnership with colleague organisations to ensure that the voice of the sector is consolidated and represented at a strategic level.
Our overall aim is to ensure that the ‘Voice’ of the sector is respected, heard and valued so that it has a positive ‘influence’ on decisions that affect communities today and in the future.
For more information on the VOICE project, please download the WIC Voice strategy.
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