Our story starts with the arrival of Andrew Mawson in East London to take charge of a Church. He was confronted with a dilapidated building with a dwindling congregation in a deprived area. Andrew sought out the talent in the area and used it to regenerate community life. The tragic death of Jean Vialls, a mother abandoned by state institutions, deepened Andrew’s commitment to change and led to the building of the first health centre in Britain which was owned by the patients through a development trust. 25 years later the Bromley-by-Bow Centre is internationally known and has been used frequently by government as a national exemplar for integrated health care and the regeneration of communities.
Andrew wanted the benefits of this approach to be more widely felt. In order to achieve this he became one of the founding partners of Poplar HARCA, now a £300 million housing company, and Leaside Regeneration, a large scale regeneration company operating in the Lower Lea Valley. The Centre and its partners continue to work closely and are at present bringing together a £1 billion regeneration project on land almost opposite to the Olympic site and on an area of land the same size..
In 1998 to promote further the role of entrepreneurship in building communities, Andrew co-founded the Community Action Network (CAN). CAN now provides both business support to social entrepreneurs and offers high quality office space to organisations working in the social sector. CAN has also been instrumental in helping to create key social enterprises which have led in the sector. These include Unltd ( a £100 million fund supporting social entrepreneurs), Primetimers (bringing business support to social enterprises and the third sector) and the Social Enterprise Magazine.
The story is still unfolding and Andrew and his team are now focused on building a vibrant community in St Paul’s Way in Tower Hamlets. More widely they have been promoting the Water City vision for East London which, it is hoped will in time define the long term legacy for the Lower Lea Valley.
Our thanks to architects Wyatt MacLaren for the photos of the Bromley-by-Bow Centre.
Principles
1.
We believe that some dreams need to be turned into reality. Don’t just talk about it, get your hands dirty and do it. If this seems impossible we do not care, we keep trying and we persist until we succeed.
2.
We care because we are part of the communities in which we work. What matters is integrity, long-term commitment and results.
3.
We know that every human being has a unique talent. By applying these talents in local communities it is possible to make them strong and vibrant instead of soulless and “deprived”. What matters is backing people before structures.
4.
Our work is about people and human stories, because it is people that create a sense of place and make everything work. Our services are tailored to the communities we serve. We do it because civil servants and politicians find this people stuff so difficult. Their regeneration plans are over concerned with government structures and rarely consider human beings. We don’t believe the solution lies in yet more structures, but in the quality and experience of individual leaders and the teams they build around them.
5.
Function is important but so is beauty. People in deprived areas deserve beautiful environments as much as anyone else. We are the environments we live in; if we create brutal environments we should not be surprised by the ugly consequences.
6.
Health is not just about clinical solutions but also about the links with wider social networks.
7.
Organisations in the social sector should be run on business principles if they are to be both sustainable and provide the best for their communities. They should reduce their dependence on arbitrary demands from government and private funders and instead should build partnerships with the public and private sectors.