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About Us
Introduction
Geoff Fagan
geoff.fagan@cadispa.org
Rhona Anderson
rhona.anderson@cadispa.org
Neill Patton
neill@cadispa.org
Latest posts:
Photo competition – Deadline extended
Posted by Neill Patton,
30 Jan, 2012
Cadispa Photo Competition – Enter Now
Posted by Neill Patton,
10 Jan, 2012
CADISPA (Conservation and Development in Sparsely Populated Areas) is an independent charity concerned with helping local people in rural Scotland to build a sustainable community ‘for themselves – by themselves’. To achieve this, CADISPA forms a partnership with a local community and offers them support, funding and legal advice, community based research and access to a network of other groups across Scotland that have experienced self-initiated rural development over the recent past.
This support comes to community groups free of cost and for as long as they need it. In return CADISPA asks that each group allows others around the country to seek advice from them and that The CADISPA Trust be allowed to capture and publish their story to achieving a more sustainable future. The Trust then publishes that information in a variety of forms and advises government at all levels of how ordinary people define ‘sustainable development’ from within their own context.
Objectives and Outcomes
The CADISPA Trust has two main objectives: firstly, it works directly with local people to enable them to become as informed and as powerful as their professional neighbours, and to choose a mandate of development options for their community that they know will make their community more sustainable and improve quality of life opportunities. Secondly, CADISPA seeks to ensure that local development sits within the 'triangle of sustainability' and asks local development groups to address environmental, social and economic factors in any project they pursue – helping them find a definition of 'sustainable development' that has meaning and resonance to them. We achieve this by working closely with local groups and by providing support and advice. CADISPA also hosts training, clustering and roadshow events and gatherings that are designed to allow groups to come together to share experiences, and to be introduced to the most up to date information in areas of most interest to them. In the past these have included information on village halls, youth drop-in centres, project management, funding, legal issues and environmental concerns.
Presently, there are over fifty CADISPA partnership groups in the network each committed to helping each other progress.
Probably the greatest asset that The CADISPA Trust has is the network of local community development groups and the passionate people that work within them. The network is a vibrant reservoir of talent, opinion and expertise that is freely and, usually, immediately available to groups or individuals looking for help or advice – or simply a voice to talk to. Many of the groups in the network have been with CADISPA for over twenty years and, over that time, have become expert, not only in their own development area, but also can advise on volunteer motivation, funding routes, legal challenges, indemnity issues and sustainability on the ground. It is this network that makes CADISPA unique. It also comes to groups free of cost – how great and unusual is that?
The Trust publishes the stories and lessons learnt from the different group experiences on the CADISPA website so that all and anyone can get access and share in the successes and frustrations of locally led sustainable development. We also use the information harvested from the Network to inform Government and other institutions on policy development issues. These ‘briefing papers on rural and sustainable development’ are also used by those in Higher and Further Education so that their students can reap the benefit of accurate, up-to-date and critically relevant illustrations on how rural Scotland, in all its modern forms, is developing.
The CADISPA Trust also offers placements and intern-ships to those keen to learn more, and to help spread the word that sustainability is a local affair and is the responsibility of everyone.