Cardiff recruits Active Citizens

Safer Wales is recruiting volunteers for the Active Citizens programme

Active Citizens participating in an environmentally friendly project for their community (Photographs courtesy of the Creation Development Trust)

Safer Wales is the first Cardiff organisation to recruit volunteers for Active Citizens, a charity run programme aiming to help local residents and spread knowledge of sustainable development.

Active Citizens is a British City Council run programme that aims to develop the community and the world around us by addressing local problems in innovative ways of social action.

Barbara Natasegara, the CEO of Safer Wales, says the organisation has implemented Active Citizens to oversee those excluded from society because of certain vulnerabilities, such as victims of hate crimes, and to be an advocator of sustainable environment.

Barbara states, “We are recruiting people who have a certain set of skills, who want to do something in their own community, that can link with overseas communities, and be aware of sustainable development.”

The Active Citizens programme is aimed to get residents to become more active in improving their community and the world around them.

Another Welsh Active Citizens programme in Blaengarw is overseen by charity Creation Development Trust to conquer the area’s prominent issues of deprivation and ill health.

The Time Bank Active Citizen programme is based on providing volunteers currency in the form of time credit. Every hour a volunteer gives, the programme gives one hour back in access to activities provided by the centre. This can be from cabaret showings, child care, and learning courses to trips away and a whole array of other activities.

Recently, Blaengarw has given 32, 000 hours back to volunteers. A time bank has been set up in Cardiff recently and David Pugh, the time broker for Blaengarw Time Bank, hopes that in the next two to three years everyone will have access to time banks and will become Active Citizens.

He believes Active Citizens can help improve their communities in these hard economic times.

He states that, “Anything that has that feeling that people can release themselves, or enjoy themselves, can release the feeling of deprivation.”

Active Citizens is also implemented to build links between the UK and the world.

Active Citizens have been involved in projects in places such as Sudan, Somalia and Egypt and are currently looking to build on the connections made with Al Fateh in Sudan, says Barbara.

To read about some of these international projects and see pictures and videos of volunteers’ experiences, click on the link below:

http://bit.ly/egOY7w