The Synergy Centre

Synergy  - the interaction or cooperation of agents, organisations etc

to produce a new or enhanced effect compared to their separate effects.

Aims

·     To promote the individual and collective well being, health and happiness of people living in communities, particularly those suffering from social exclusion, poverty and the associated low levels of well-being, mental and spiritual health.

·      To raise awareness of healthy and sustainable living practices and thereby empower people to adopt healthier, happier and more ecological lifestyles.

·     To tackle worklessness and social exclusion in the community by providing people with the necessary support, inspiration and infrastructure to become more economically, socially, culturally and spiritually active citizens.

·     To highlight the importance of creativity as a means of providing people, particularly the young, with an outlet for self expression and a means of enhancing self esteem and confidence, the lack of which lie at the root of much antisocial behaviour.

·     To contribute to wider community safety by diverting young people from the risks associated with destructive cycles of boredom and crime and instead giving them an outlet for their youthful energy and drive.

·     To build the capacity of local groups and individuals working in the field of citizenship and cultural education in healthy, sustainable and ethical living.

Objectives

·     To provide much needed affordable community facilities and space where a wide variety of people can gather to deliver projects, pool experience and best practice, fulfilling an invaluable synergising role, whereby the whole is considerably stronger and more effective than the mere sum of its constituent parts.

·     To act as a resource base where workshops, presentations and exhibitions in a variety of healthy living, personal and social development and empowerment techniques can be facilitated.

·     To provide advice, training and mentoring to nurture the development of other voluntary / third sector organisations to provide services to local people.

·     To operate a community arts venue for the development and presentation of a wide variety of both professional and community arts initiatives, injecting a sense of local community and identity and regenerating a ‘pride of place’ in the neighbourhood.

·     To run a Synergy Youth Project providing local young people with creative skills to raise their employment prospects in the creative economy.

·     To run a Synergy Youth Council to give local young people a stronger voice and to equip them with the communication and conflict resolution skills they need to become respected members of society.

·     To provide a variety of other innovative services to facilitate the reintegration of socially and economically excluded people.

Social Enterprise

Gaining wider recognition for the balance between private sector efficiency and rigorousness and public sector values and goals, the third sector is ideally equipped (if supported sufficiently) to deliver services to local people. If local people have a stake in the organisations delivering services, it is believed, they will seek to raise standards and lower costs. Furthermore, local people are more likely to have a better understanding of the needs of local communities and be better equipped to respond to those needs. Often, however, the ability of social enterprises and community groups to deliver services is limited by capacity shortages which prevent them from realizing their potential. The proposed centre would showcase an example of a successful social enterprise while providing affordable facilities and support to emerging and existing organizations. The income from the in-house venue and associated catering outlets cross-subsidise the affordable workshop, office and studio space and also provide invaluable community outreach to bring audiences, participants and customers to patronize the work of partners.

The entrepreneurial approach of the Centre is vital both in terms of its growing income streams and its strategic position in the local community.  The high price of commercial property and uneven distribution of capital insure that access to affordable leisure or cultural facilities is limited to those who can afford the high costs associated with setting up such a venue. Invariably those with the necessary capital tend to be more interested in the maximization of financial rather than social profit. The subsequent lack of affordable leisure or cultural infrastructure in turn limits the economic and social benefit that local, not-for-profit groups can generate.

Diversity

Synergy’s role also includes providing facilities for a wide variety of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups many of whom are catergorised as ‘hard to reach’. By creating an umbrella under which these diverse groups can gather, Synergy Centres facilitate engagement with and between such groups, signposting them to other opportunities and providing advice and support as they engage with authorities that are often thought of as distant and inaccessible by these communities. Merely by providing affordable space to diverse groups, Synergy Centres enable the culture of such groups to flourish and achieve fuller expression, thereby contributing to the diverse cultural wealth of the community.

Youth

The Synergy Youth Project and the Synergy Youth Council support and empower local young people, many of whom come from BME backgrounds, with the skills and inspiration they need to become respectful and respected members of society. Synergy takes inspiration from the traditional African proverb – ‘It takes a whole village to raise a child.’ Rather than the raising of responsible, disciplined, well-mannered young people being seen solely as the responsibility of parents or schools, the project seeks to advance the belief that this is a challenge facing society as a whole. Synergy seeks to tackle the shortage of positive role models for young people and to challenge many of the negative role models offered to young people by the commercial media, particularly certain sections of the urban music scene. It also seeks to address the growing divide between young people and people in positions of authority, most notably the police and the local authority, by facilitating a process of dialogue which can help bridge the divide and help both sides better understand each other. In this way, the Synergy seeks to enable authorities to achieve a better understanding of the culture, interests and needs of young people and address the causes of many of the problems they face rather than using law enforcement techniques as a means of tackling the symptoms.