Aims & Objectives

History of the Project

Staff

The Broad aims of the Capacity Building Project are to expand the knowledge and develop the skills of those involved in community development, while providing local people with the means, resources and support to enable them to play an active and inclusive part in the social, economic, political and cultural life of the Craigmillar community

Capacity Building Project's Main Objectives are:

To provide learning opportunities to develop the skills and knowledge of groups and individuals in response to expressed needs.

To widen the experience of local people and enable them to increase their awareness of other issues and practices.

To ensure that local people are fully involved in and informed of ongoing developments in Craigmillar.

To provide resources and support to strengthen the capacity of local groups and organisations.

To promote local participation, encourage wider community involvement and support more effective community representative activity.

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The Capacity Building Project originates from 1990, when the Craigmillar Festival Society (CFS) accessed funding from the Scottish Executive's Urban Programme to establish a new initiative called the Craigmillar Active Citizen's Participation Project. The project was created to support the many voluntary sector organisations operating in the Craigmillar area and to provide training, resources and support to the many active individuals living in the community.

However, many of those individuals did not necessarily consider themselves to be community activists thus the very notion of active citizenship was a difficult concept for people to grasp. In addition, the title of the new initiative was also a bit of a mouthful, which was difficult to roll off the tongue, and for these reasons the project quickly realised that a change of name was necessary if it was to have the desired impact.

Given the project's community development aims and objectives the choice of new name was fairly obvious and widely accepted by those associated with the initiative at the time. With this in mind, the project changed its the name to the Community Development Project (CDP) in 1991, and operated as such until 1997. At that time new European funding gave the project the opportunity to widen its remit and extend its range of work. As well as broadening the project brief the additional funding from the European Regional Development Fund also allowed the project to double its staffing complement to six employees and in so doing become much more effective in terms of engaging with the local community.

To comply with its new funding arrangements and embrace the latest European terminology the project decided to change its name for the second time and in 1997 adopted the title Capacity Building Project (CBP), a very popular term in European circles at the time. Throughout this period CBP remained an integral part of the CFS and played an important function in one of Britainís oldest and largest voluntary sector umbrella organisations.

However, as a result of attracting European finance the CBP also became a very important part of the Craigmillar European Programme (CEP) and represented the community engagement element in Craigmillar's strategic approach to community economic development. The CBP was one of six local initiatives drawn together under informal management arrangements (CEP) to form a comprehensive and programmed approach to social and economic regeneration.

Following serious financial difficulties the CFS closed in 2003 and CBP became one of six former CFS projects that were reconstituted as independent, stand alone limited companies. The CBP's legal status and management arrangements may have changed, but the focus of the project's work remains the same and it continues to work in the community, for the community.

More detailed information about the project's work is available throughout this website.

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