Power to the People of Lanreath
Journalism as Community work

Monday night saw the start of a new series ‘Power to the People’ on BBC2. In the first episode Tim Samuels, took villagers from Lanreath, near Looe in Cornwall up to Islington (their twin town). They set up a mini village on the green, including farmers bringing their sheep and cows, Morris dancers, and lessons for the school children.

Why did they do this? For over two years Lanreath has had no local shops, the bus service was stopped, and to top it all Cornwall County Council announced the village school would have to close. Ultimately they wanted to be listened to, to tell people these closures are killing their community, and that a village way of life should be supported, instead of having all their services taken away from them.

Tim, who as an investigative journalist has won many awards, also demonstrates his ability to be a skilled community worker. Community work is essentially concerned with increasing the expertise of people within a community, and promoting their involvement in the decisions that affects their lives. A major part of Community work is promoting collective and effective action.

When approaching the community he first sets about identifying how cohesive the villagers were, who are the voices of the community, and what networks there were within the village. From the start he listened to the views of the children, families, and elderly residents. By involving everyone from the start, no one was alienated.

He spent time listening to the villager’s experiences of how the closures affected the community. One elderly lady reported that going to the shop, used to mean so much more to her than being able to buy necessities, it meant she would meet people on the walk, and now there was no reason for her to go out at all. On finding out the Council wanted to close the school a young lad said they shouldn’t close it because there were plans for affordable housing which would bring in more children. Another pupil said that it was good being in a small school as you get more attention and can get help quicker.

He spent time finding out the villager’s worries. He didn’t seem however to demonstrate community work skills, when it came to deciding on what actions could be taken to protest against the closure of the school. A community worker stimulates and supports the community make their own decisions on appropriate action. I could be wrong, the villagers may have come up with the idea themselves, and I may have missed this in the documentary.

Tim isn’t of course a community worker, he’s a journalist required to deliver a story, and the ideas he comes up with are good ideas. He helps the school children make a short film about why to keep the school open, and takes them to Cornwall’s County Hall car park, where they approach councillors in the car park and invite them to see the film in the back of a van disguised as a cinema, with the children giving away popcorn.

After he’s engaged the community and gained their trust, they all got involved in the preparations for going to Islington. One 86 year old resident made a very lifelike scarecrow of John Prescott. They planned to take over Islington green, and create a mini Lanreath in the heart of London. Everyone was in high spirits on the way up, even though they realised there may be a chance of being arrested as they were protesting.

When they got there they all waited at various spots around Islington, and then all at once they made their way to the Green. At first the Londoners didn’t know what hit them, but after a while were joining in with the villagers as they recreated village life. As well as Morris dancing, they had a tug of war, a cake stall and handed out stickers asking people for support to stop the closure of the school.

They managed to stay for most of the day, until the Council turned up to move them on, and they peacefully packed up and went home. Tim said he hoped their message, that the countryside matters, was heard. As any good community worker would, he didn’t build up the villagers hopes. They go back with a great sense of achievement and community.

Since the protest, unfortunately it was announced the school would still have to close. Cornwall County Council said they couldn’t afford to keep a school open that had a projected pupil count of 12 by 2008. They may have lost that battle but the protest in London really brought the community together, they’ve still got a pub and the church, and since their trip they’ve got their shop back.

This programme is the first of three episodes, shown on BBC2 Monday nights at 9.00pm. In the next programme he helps a group of soldiers, who feel they have been cast aside since fighting for their country, to take their protest to Trafalgar square. The last episode he works with a group of pensioners, who form a group and produce a cover of the Who’s ‘my generation’, to make the point that old people should not be forgotten about.

Investigative journalism, supporting groups of people who want to get their voices heard, and planning protests not only produces a great story, but also empowers the communities themselves. A Community worker would be able to spend more time with the communities. However the goal of community work is to enable the community to carry on their own, and it seems watching the first programme, this has been achieved.

This is hopefully only the first series of ‘Power to the People’ and there will be more to come. On the BBC website Tim has asked for anyone who feels their group/community is being ignored or marginalised by society to let him know, and he may just get on the case.