Celebrating Community Learning Champions Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - 10:33

As the Community Learning Champions' Support Programme - funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) - draws to an end later this month, a NIACE event on Wednesday 9 March celebrated its success by highlighting how lives are transformed when learning champions are given effective resources, support and training. A report on the work of the national support programme - featuring case studies of projects and individual Community Learning Champions - will be published on 29 March 2011.

Attendees at the event heard from John Hayes, the Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further Education and Skills, about the wider role of the volunteers in delivering the Government's Big Society ambitions. He said:

"We cannot underestimate the positive impact of the Community Learning Champions project. The Big Society is a place where people, neighbourhoods and communities have more power and responsibility and use it to create better services. Community Learning Champions are becoming an established part of the Big Society."

John Hayes' full speech from the event can be found here.

Other speakers included Liz Cousins, Project Manager of the Community Learning Champions Support Programme, and Carol Taylor, Director of Operations at NIACE. Films to showcase the work of Community Learning Champions were also launched at the event.

Since October 2009 the programme - delivered by NIACE, unionlearn, the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) and Martin Yarnit Associates - has provided training and development opportunities for 50 funded projects across the country; the projects have in turn produced 2,000 registered Community Learning Champions. The programme has also raised the profile of Community Learning Champions through a national register, a nationally recognised badge and a website.

Liz Cousins, Project Manager of the Community Learning Champions Support Programme, said:

"Coming to the end of a project is always tinged with a little sadness, but knowing that this one has gone so well - that so many more people have become engaged and empowered by becoming Community Learning Champions - is incredibly rewarding. Perhaps the most important things is the knowledge that the investment from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has had such an impact and is leaving a strong legacy of resources and materials which can be used into the future."