‘If nothing else, I’ve realised why I’m here’

School’s out for summer. Well, it is in the sense there are no more classes to turn up for until October. There’ll be no end to studying, however. Far from it.

Just before we headed off on our summer break – the first year of our Foundation Degree in Sustainable Communities over – we were landed with another assignment. It’s probably the biggest we’ve been set to date and marks a change from our last piece of work, which was a group project. This involved putting together a team proposal for a LETS – Local Exchange Trading System – for a fictional town in a bid to examine the effectiveness of such a system. It was a way of working I wasn’t comfortable with. For this one, we’re all on our own – which I prefer to be honest.

I’ve gone for question 5:

“The orthodox (capitalist) reading of ‘the economic’ is one which promotes competition and self-interest over cooperation and mutual aid. What are the implications of this when promoting social and economic sustainability?”

I’m hoping it will allow me to look at enlightened self-interest and its role in the ‘economic’ left wing or right wing – and in human nature generally. It should keep me busy while the rest of the country is enjoying the luxury of a summer holiday!

Now seems like a good time to look back on how I would have felt about such an assignment when I started this course in January. A lot has changed since then – not least that in June I was officially diagnosed as having dyslexia. It’s something I think I’ve known for a long time and it was a bit of a relief to have it confirmed.

The support I’ve had from the course tutors in this respect has been fantastic. I only wish it had happened earlier. I feel more confident taking on a written assignment such as the one mentioned above now that I have some new study tools to work with and develop. Now I merely have to swim the Channel instead of the Atlantic each time I write an essay.

I wish I could tell you I’m more certain about where this course is leading me. The first year may be in the can, but as to whether it will lead to a career in regeneration I’m still none the wiser (see my first blog). I’m pretty comfortable with that to be honest and don’t feel in any hurry to reach a conclusion.

It’s been enough to begin to develop an understanding of the multi-faceted landscape of sustainable communities – much of which has been feeding into my work on various regeneration bodies in the East Riding of Yorkshire area, as well as my ongoing work to set up a Business Arts Centre for the area (see previous blogs).

I’ve mostly enjoyed the bigger picture stuff. Working at the coal face of sustainable communities, it’s useful to know how it all fits together and what’s coming down the line in terms of government policy. So at the beginning we were treated to a brief political history of regeneration since the 1970s – what’s worked and what hasn’t. That was fascinating and brought home to me how there’s just not enough long-term thinking being done.

I’m even surprising myself in this respect by getting immersed in documents and policy papers that would have seemed alien and unknowable before. So I’ve recently been getting to grips with the Communities and Local Government’s latest White Paper: Communities in Control: real people, real power. It’s a follow on from An Action Plan for Community Empowerment: Building on Success, a document we studied as part of an earlier assignment on the course. I’m fascinated by how the second represents a change from the first – and specifically how it’s empowering individuals rather than local community groups. Such interest has definitely been stimulated by this course.

The course has also helped to crystallise a number of ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while. Not least that I want to get involved with the creation of sustainable communities to help prevent poverty. I’m less concerned, perhaps, with healing existing sores than preventing future ones from opening up. If nothing else, I’ve realised why I’m here.

I’m certainly glad I started the course and I’d recommend it to others. There are things I’ve liked and things I haven’t liked – but I suspect that’s inevitable. I’m very much looking forward to year two, that’s for certain.

This is the third blog from Carlo Verda in a series about ASC’s foundation degree.