19 January 2004

Lanarkshire, Scotland: Groups of local people who have participated in citizenship education programmes in North Lanarkshire over the past three years are being offered an exciting opportunity to help form a unique Active Citizens Forum for the North Lanarkshire area.

Since 2000, The European Social Fund has supported the Volunteer Centre North Lanarkshire in providing 10-week, 15-week and 30-week citizenship programmes to over 80 people who are involved in volunteering and community activity across the towns and villages of the local authority area.

The programmes have seen the active participants discuss and study issues such as active citizenship, social exclusion, democracy and decision-making at a local, national and European level. Many of the courses included study visits to the Scottish Parliament, Westminster Parliament and European Parliament in Brussels - provided a once in a lifetime chance to ordinary, deserving citizens.

And, now, all the people who have been involved in the previous programmes are being invited to come together to create an Active Citizens Forum, which will have the greater goal of developing and supporting volunteers and community activity in the North Lanarkshire area. The full remit of what the Forum’s role will be will be discussed at the group’s inaugural meeting on Monday 2 February, but it anticipated that it might playing a supporting role as a kind of "volunteer council" for the area. Mary McNeil, manager of the Volunteer Centre, said:

"The development of an Active Citizens Forum has been in the pipeline for a while and we felt that with so many active people having participated in programmes with the Volunteer Centre over the past few years that this was the right time to assist its formation."

"Many of the people who are being invited to join the Forum developed themselves tremendously during their participation in the citizenship programme and there’s no doubt it has a potential to influence the community in a positive way over the coming months."

"A large proportion of the people who have taken part our citizenship programmes have since gone on to become even more active in their community. One even stood for election as a local councillor at the last elections."

"Ultimately, I feel this can only be for the good of people who are involved in volunteering in this area. We hope that there can eventually be a role in the Forum for anyone local person who is active as a volunteer."