One report on Wellbeing and People empowerment

Acording to the summary of the report called NEIGHBOURLINESS+ EMPOWERMENT = WELLBEING is there a formula for happy communities? written by Mandeep Hothi, Nicola Bacon, Marcia Brophy & Geoff Mulgan, there is an increasing research on community and neighbourhood empowerment due to the different changes that have been happened in the current situation and this research underline the idea of the growing potential that this empowerment has to improve the wellbeing of the comunity as a whole.

In this report the three case studies are Manchester, South Tyneside and Hertfordshire. And this project has aimed to accelerate the links between local authorities and comunities and neighbourhoods by working practices that can increase the wellbeing of their residents.The results and conclusions of the different activities have tested how much active citizenship can impact on welbeing in communities.

It is not just a question on how some of the budgets can be redistributed to the community by the different aspects that some forms of empowerment can involve, but also on how communities can maximise their capabilities by working together and involving themselves in civil society.

The different ways this can be achieved go from environmental campaigns,to local community agreements, passing through consultation and engagement.

The local authorities that worked here were Manchester city council, South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council.The work was a part of a Local Wellbeing Project organised by The Young Foundation, the IDeA and the London School of Economics, with the Professor Richard Layard.Some of the subjects that this work involved are health services,poverty and drugs consumption, and they have been trying to solve the gaps between local government, public institutions and individual responsability.That is why this reading can be really interesting and a good example of social innnovation to be exported to other communities inside and outside England.