{"id":87488,"key":"Resourcing_Citizens_Action_Networks_2","title":"Resourcing Citizens Action Networks 2","latest":{"id":1274204,"timestamp":"2026-09-16T16:13:19Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"[[File:Repair Cafe by Ilvy Njiokiktjien.jpg|thumb]]\n\n''The first [[Resourcing Citizens Action Networks|Resourcing CANs]] section is about ways of seeing resources, [[Resourcing Citizens Action Networks 2|Resourcing CANs 2]] looks at different forms of resource''\n\n== Apps and tech ==\n\n[[File:Apps4s2.jpg|right]]\n\nhow technology can help all aspects of the development of Citizen Action Networks,\n\nand including particularly any tech which enables gathering and gatherings (as the essence of networks). So to [[CAN handbook, Ways of working#More about getting started|help getting started]], although not the only the thing or necessarily even the most important thing, some sort of online presence in the fairly early stages, eg to help people find you. eg draft and design ideas on a wiki page, google docs, etc., then easy to use, low cost options for simple website, social media presence, etc, ideally with at least some interactive content / options promoting participation and involvement.\n\n<blockquote>\"For sure, the days of neighbourhood online networks are not far off. Local nets will give you all this and better, more efficiently, less expensively, with genuine options for user-involvement and interaction - and by extension in my view, conversational democracy. But without the paper.\" Kevin Harris<ref>[http://neighbourhoods.typepad.com/neighbourhoods/2009/05/local-paper-makes-headlines.html Kevin Harris], May 5 2009</ref></blockquote>\n\n=== Online community tools are good enough, and sufficiently widely adopted, to enable action ===\n\nCoronavirus, and its strange distancing, compels us all to rethink how we come together. Our mutual care and sense of collective responsibility is expressed by NOT being physically close, or even proximate to each other.\n\nSo counter-intuitive is this - and perhaps especially so, after our recent periods of street activism, whether over environmental or constitutional matters - that it's no surprise we've rushed to our online spaces, especially in their more sociable forms.\n \nAnd where they're not sociable enough, we've made them more so. People use Instagram for Q&As, or Zoom to conduct large, pulsing conferences, or Facebook to instantly organise their community's mutual aid.\n\n''References'': A time for quick action, Tessy Britton blog about how Participatory City Every One Every Day is moving online ''links needed''<ref>Want to keep a city participating in Dagenham, or citizens assembling in Paris? Online community tools are now powerful enough to support vital activity, April 5, 2020 [https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/2020/4/5/participatory-city-new-social-network thealternative.org.uk]</ref>\n\n=== We need digital learning clubs in CANs, and evolution of civic tech to support CANs ===\n\nI suggest we need the equivalent of \"homebrew\" digital clubs today. These would be locally specific, friendly spaces (we assume the spaces would be virtual as much as actual). Here, residents and citizens could explore, benchtest, and co-develop tech that serves their concrete and communal needs. (We've called for Learning Clubs before on this site).\n\nIt's the kind of club we (at A/UK) easily imagine being an element in a CAN (a citizen action/community agency network). But you can see it happening in practice with Ed Saperia's Newspeak House, which regularly matches needful communities with tech practitioners.\n\nPresuming that central government doesn't have the willingness or foresight to support such civic tech, is this where philanthropic or foundation money could usefully go? The recent embrace of readily available social tech by hundreds of thousands of mutual aiders shows, at the very least, there is demand that would respond to possibilities and partnerships.\n\nCould one part of the question, \"what is the next level of organisation for this flourishing mutualism?\" be about how we develop the next stage of civic tech? That is, not just for survival needs, but as a springboard - towards ambitions and visions for more self-organising and self-provisioning? August 2020<ref>Alternative Editorial: Look to communities - they're the real testbeds of tech innovation, August 23, 2020, [https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/alternative-editorial-tech-community thealternative.org.uk]</ref><ref>''see also'': We need civic operating systems to manage the social fabric for healthy communities – plus a social app store of tools, David Wilcox, August 17, 2018 [https://networkedcity.blog/2018/08/17/we-need-civic-operating-systems-to-manage-the-social-fabric-for-healthy-communities-plus-a-social-app-store-of-tools/ networkedcity.blog]</ref>\n\n=== CANs using tech ===\n\n* localized community action groups, (in Cape Town, [[South Africa]]), usually starting with a few people on a WhatsApp or Telegram group.<ref>We're delighted to discover Cape Town's CANs movement - \"community action networks\" that have been keeping a city together, under Covid, [https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/2021/2/18/capetown-community-action-network Daily Alternative Feb 18, 2021]</ref>\n\n'''More'': [https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/category/TECHNOLOGY The Alternative UK, Technology category]\n\n=== External links ===\n\n* [https://publicinfrastructure.org/ Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure], ''added 14:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)''\n* [https://newpublic.org/ New Public], For Better Digital Public Spaces, ''added 14:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)''\n* [https://civictech.guide/ Civic Tech Field Guide], the world's largest collection of projects using tech for the common good. ''added 14:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)''\n\n== Citizen data initiatives ==\n\n<blockquote>\"Finding and extinguishing the sparks of\nstigma, xenophobia, hunger and poverty\ncannot be achieved through the\ncollection of epidemiological data at all.\nRather this requires social data,\ncollected and reported by professors of\nthe street, based on real-world\nexperience.\" Presentation on Cape Town CANs, Cape Town Together<ref>[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58727b5a9de4bbf0b38db631/t/603255bb12ac5b6cf222d3e4/1613911487232/Presentation+on+Cape+Town+Cans.pdf static1.squarespace.com]</ref></blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\"But I have realized that over time with our food delivery program the CAN team\nhas definitely learned a huge amount of information, a lot of it not yet written\ndown, about where the most vulnerable families are, where the church\nnetworks or neighbourhood groups are already stepping in and where the gaps\nare. Our main thing has been that most of this information is just in our heads.\nBut if we sat down as a group we could probably generate a huge amount of\nsocial data of this kind for our specific area- definitely something to do in the\nCAN when we have a bit of time!\"\n\n* Manya Kenilworth CAN, Presentation on Cape Town CANs, Cape Town Together<ref>[https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58727b5a9de4bbf0b38db631/t/603255bb12ac5b6cf222d3e4/1613911487232/Presentation+on+Cape+Town+Cans.pdf static1.squarespace.com]</ref></blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\"There are many ways to be poor, but in today's world not having the right kind of information represents a certain kind of poverty. As long as outsiders decide what is important and are in a position to ask all of the questions, we will never be able to solve our own problems. Without information we are nothing at all and have no power to understand things or to change our life. If Inuit society is to develop we must be able to collect and use information according to our own terms.\" A Nunavik Inuk</blockquote>\n\n''see also'': [[Citizens data initiative]]\n\n''section needed''\n\n== Commons and free stuff ==\n\n<blockquote>\"I have no illusions that we can simply declare a Law for the Commons. The very idea and its variations must first be formulated for our modern context, and then fought for. But at a time when existing regimes of law and governance are in a shambles – losing public respect, failing to meet people's basic needs, destroying the Earth – I believe that commoning and laws to enable it have a bright future. Commons can meet people's needs in fair, open and effective ways, and provide a dignity, respect and equality that the market/state order has trouble achieving. By cultivating more direct engagement with people, and demanding that they step up to responsibilities, commons also have great promise in improving ecological stewardship.\" David Bollier<ref>[http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-09-15/who-may-use-the-king-s-forest-the-meaning-of-magna-carta-commons-and-law-in-our-time resilience.org] September 15, 2015</ref></blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\"Commoning is a radical concept because it insists upon the active, knowing participation of people in shaping their own lives and meeting their own needs.\" David Bollier and Silke Helfrich<ref>[http://patternsofcommoning.org/overture/ Patterns of Commoning]</ref></blockquote>\n\n''section needed''\n\n== Community currencies ==\n\n<blockquote>\"Complementary currencies can reveal to us that, even in the poorest places, there are vast living assets - ideas, skills, time, love even - that can turn our ideas of scarcity on their heads.\" David Boyle</blockquote>\n''section needed''\n\n== Community funding intiatives ==\n\neg via\n\n* community energy etc.\n* recycling and circular economy schemes\n\n== Community media ==\n\nincl community radio, video, community art and media services\n\n== Education and learning resources ==\n\nskill sharing, etc.\n\n== Funding citizen and community action ==\n\n''including: avoiding overdependence on funding, towards sustainable funding, ethical funding, etc''<br>\n''section needed''\n\n\"'''this (funding system) is not enough for the social, economic and environmental crisis we face, even more so in the post covid context.'''<br>\nSo many studies have shown the incredible value created if social capital is higher in a neighbourhood. Social capital boosts health and reduces anxiety, it reduces unemployment, it increases academic achievement, it increases household income, it reduces crime rates, it stimulates climate change action, it increases political participation, it increases attachment to place and economic growth, it stimulates entrepreneurship, it builds resilience and creates positive life outcomes. In one study it showed that social capital was more important to education outcomes than education spending. The list of studies goes on and on.\" Designing participation systems around people, not institutions, Tessy Britton, Feb 24, 2021.<ref>[https://tessybritton.medium.com/designing-participation-systems-around-people-not-institutions-b2188e08b854 tessybritton.medium.com]</ref>\n\n== Public interest law resources ==\n\n[[File:Derecho.png|right|50px]]\n\n''eg settig up a CIC?, etc''<br>\n''section needed''\n<br clear=right>\n\n== Maps for citizen and community action ==\n\nHow maps, geographic, network, relationship, and asset mapping can help.<br>\n''see also'': [[Maps for community action]]\n\n== Spaces, premises and land ==\n\n[[File:Repair Cafe by Ilvy Njiokiktjien.jpg|right|200px]]\n\nincluding hopefully something on underserved rural areas eg cafes, pubs, community pubs, community shops, friendly local churches, arranging community transport, etc.\n\n<blockquote>\"We're like a road show. We don't have a space, so we use the community.\" Lucy Gomez-Feliciano<ref>Early Learning and Health Director of Logan Square Neighborhood Association. [https://transitionnetwork.org/news-and-blog/el-amor-de-la-comunidad/ transitionnetwork.org] / [[Chicago]]</ref></blockquote>\n\n''see also'': [[Urban sustainability]]\n\n== Other forms of resources ==\n\nArts, culture, theatre, film, video, games, etc.\n\n''Are there any games, eg card decks, to help groups envision and help develop ideas for [[Resourcing Citizens Action Networks#Integrated community resources|Integrated community resources]], or their ideal set of community resources, or could we help in the development of such? Any resources like this for Slipham? (link needed)''\n\n== Other aspects of community resources ==\n\nCommunity owned or managed assets. Questions of advocacy, developing ownership, management etc.\n\n<blockquote>\"A great high wall there, it tried to stop me. A great big sign there, said 'private property'. But on the other side, it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me.\" Woody Guthrie, This Land Is Your Land</blockquote>\n\n=== Ways of working ===\n\n''section needed''\n\n<blockquote>\"...we need to challenge ourselves to build toolkits that focus on the informal, the local and the conversational. @zenrainman<ref>[https://medium.com/reflecting-on-toolkits/making-space-for-the-informal-99f0968d1bc0 medium.com]</ref></blockquote>\n\n{{CANs near you footer}}\n\n{{CANwiki footer}}\n\n{{Back to top}}\n\n'''Notes and References'''\n\n* What is a CAN? Information from '''The Alternative UK''', [https://www.thealternative.org.uk/citizens-action-network thealternative.org.uk]\n* Daily Alternative articles about building CANs, [https://www.thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative/tag/Citizens+Action+Networks thealternative.org.uk/dailyalternative]\n* CAN Insights, David Wilcox, Decmember 2020, [https://www.appropedia.org/File:CAN_Insights.pdf Appropedia file]\n\n<references />\n\n{{Page data}}\n\n[[Category:CAN handbook]]"}