Community Roots CIC
Everything we do starts with listening.
We work alongside communities to understand what matters to people, identify strengths, ideas and opportunities, and connect people who want to make things happen.
Using community organising approaches, we support people to build relationships, develop confidence and skills, and take an active role in shaping their communities. Our role is not to do things for people, but to create the conditions in which people can develop their own ideas, take action and build something that can last.
Listen
Good community work starts by listening. We use community organising approaches to build relationships and understand people’s experiences, concerns, ideas and aspirations.
Connect
Individual conversations often reveal shared experiences. We help people connect with each other, with opportunities and with organisations or networks that may be useful.
Build confidence and capacity
Participation can begin very small and grow over time. Volunteering, mentoring, training and practical experience can help people build confidence, skills and responsibility at their own pace.
Support people to act
Community organising is ultimately about action. That may mean creating an activity, improving a local space, developing a group, influencing a decision or helping to run something themselves.
Create opportunities
Our hubs, food projects, café and enterprises give people places to put skills into practice and can create routes into leadership, governance and paid employment.
Learn and adapt
We listen, test, reflect and adapt. Monitoring and evaluation are part of our practice, not simply something done at the end of a funded project.
Learn more about what we do
Community Roots has been working alongside communities since 2013.
Our work has taken different forms over that time – community conversations, training, community hubs, food projects, resident-led activity, volunteering, social enterprise and partnerships – but the approach that connects them has remained consistent.
We listen first. We build relationships. We create opportunities for people to participate, develop skills and take increasing responsibility. And we work alongside communities as ideas develop into action.
This section brings together some of the projects, partnerships and people that have shaped Community Roots and shows what we have learned along the way.
Some are completed pieces of work. Others have developed into something new or continue to influence what we do today. Together they show how listening, community organising and creating opportunities can lead to change over time.
Explore our work, stories and impact below.
