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Hawbush Tenants Association

Hawbush Tenants Association (TA) has been active on a large housing estate in the south of Dudley for over 10 years. The current committee have longed for the means to produce a newsletter to enable them to inform their 900 households what is happening in the area and how people can have their say. Working with Groundwork Black Country, who have a laptop through the NIACE initiative, the TA were offered the chance to do just that.

The meetings to discuss and develop the newsletter were arranged around times when two year 10 students from a local school were on their weekly placement with Groundwork, introducing them to the voluntary sector. All involved had different areas of expertise: the students knew how to use Microsoft Publisher, which was installed on the laptop and was the software the printer used, the TA committee had all the local contacts and information and the Groundwork officer offered advice on design and style of the newsletter. Skills have been shared and transferred between all parties.

The final newsletter was produced and printed in less than two months, and has been distributed to households on Hawbush Estate.

The laptop is also being used in Dudley with a group of young women engaged on a trans-national project addressing social exclusion. Two of the group recently attended a conference in Bordeaux, and are using the laptop to create presentation materials so that they can feedback to their group, the local Tenants Association, the Steering Group for the project and the Leader of Dudley Council.

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