Could you help and be part of the change in Rochdale?
An Anti-Poverty Network is being established in the Borough of Rochdale and we are seeking support to form a Foundation Group to be the people at the heart of how we make decisions.
What is the Anti-Poverty Network?
Following the poverty summits earlier this year, Rochdale Borough Council is developing an Anti-Poverty Strategy. The Strategy contains lots of ambitions and actions, but what matters is whether it changes people’s lives for the better.
The Anti-Poverty Network is being formed to hold the strategy to account, to get this right, we need to make sure we are asking the right questions and shifting power dynamics. The people best placed to do this are the people with lived experience, and VCFSE organisations who are doing this work in our communities and living it every day.
Poverty cuts across every aspect of peoples’ lives, and affects all of our communities differently. We want this network to represent different experiences and perspectives, to create a movement of people working to understand poverty in our borough and influence change.
What is the Anti-Poverty Foundation Group?
The Foundation Group is what we build it to be, it’s an experiment in how we make decisions differently, and how communities are put at the heart of that. You’ll be the centre of those decisions and the ‘how’.
Who are we looking for? Heads, hearts and hands
During our recent Anti-Poverty event, voluntary sector partners comprised a list of preferred qualities of potential Foundation Group members, these included:
- Empathetic; shows compassion and understanding of the complex ways that poverty can affect people’s lives.
- Passionate; driven by a desire to support the people and communities of Rochdale.
- Non-Judgemental; actively listens with an open mind.
- Solutions Orientated; good at problem solving and working towards making change.
- Creative; good at coming up with ideas and different ways of looking at things.
- Committed; consistent and willing to give their time to this work.
- Proactive; a do-er, someone who wants to act and get things done.
How you will be supported?
As a member of the Anti-Poverty Foundation Group, you will be supported by an experienced Action Together facilitator, and your voluntary sector peers. You will also be compensated for your time, input and commitment to the Group.
If you are interested in being a Foundation Group Member, please complete the 'Expression of Interest Form' using the link below. Following the application deadline several applicants will be shortlisted to meet for an informal chat with our new Systems Change Facilitator for the Anti-Poverty work.
We are also asking you to gain support from a peer, or network, in asking them to write a short note as to why they think you would be an asset to the Foundation Group.
Applications must be completed by the end of the day on Thursday 29 February 2024 and returned to Heather Madden, Systems Change Facilitator (Rochdale): heather.madden@actiontogether.org.uk