Re:Source: Building Smarter Communities

Community Matters' Empowerment Programme, Re:Source, aims to improve community resourcefulness and build stronger communities.  The programme seeks to demonstrate and actively promote the contribution that community organisations make in underpinning thriving neighbourhoods.

We know that neighbourhoods face complex challenges, especially during these unprecedented times and that any solution must place community at the centre. The Re:Source programme intends to equip organisations, local government officers and individuals with the skills and confidence to create sustainable solutions to meet their neighbourhoods' needs.  At the heart of this lies the conviction that communties themselves are often the experts on their own challenges and opportunties.

Re:Source complements the delivery of the Government's Big Society agenda, which seeks to "put more power and opportunity into people's hands."  Its ambition is that local government, communities and private citizens are able to work together more easily and openly ro solve social problems together.  Re:Source intens to facilitate exactly the relationships that must be strengthened if the Big Society is to work by helping to empower communities.  Re:Source intends to build the confidence and skills needed by community groups and residents' associations to take full advantage of the opportunities the Big Society will bring.

Re:Source was funded in April 2009 through the Department of Communities and Local Government and will run until March 2012.