Category

• Emerging Local Practice

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Poverty impact

• Mitigation

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Poverty driver

• Reduce cost of living
• Provide benefit in-kind (experience)

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Keywords

• Social Inclusion
• Volunteering
• Food Poverty
• Community Wellness
• Imaginative Learning

Aim

The aim of the project is to give “people opportunities to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise have”.

Summary

Urban entertainment poverty project community cinema aimed at strengthening the sociocultural experiences of a low percentile SIMD ranked community. Providing a free at point of access, fixed community base within Forgewood’s Community Centre, the project provides a venue for social interaction, education, and social activities. Free snacks and drinks enhance the cinema experience for service users. Targeted activities, such as holiday screenings for children, alleviate socioeconomic pressures on community members with children and provide children with an imaginative and creative way of learning. Volunteering opportunities also provide life learning experiences, new skill sets, and alleviate social isolation.

What difference does it make?

It is too early to say definitively as the project is in its early stages, but it is making a positive difference socially and culturally to the socioeconomically deprived community of Forgewood.

Key take-aways

• Community development projects benefit from being instigated not by shareholders but the community itself.
• Low set up costs through Cinema For All means the project can be copied at a low cost to communities.
• Projects that provide a tool through which diverse community groups can communicate and socialise mitigates the effects of entertainment poverty, such as stigma.

 

Organisations

Forgewood Housing Co-operative

Location

Forgewood, Motherwell

Contact