"We know that the best ideas come from the ground up, not the top down. We know that when you give people and communities more power over their lives, more power to come together and work together to make life better great things happen." - Prime Minister, David Cameron

As a way of showcasing and celebrating the wealth of community empowerment projects in the region SEREP decided to establish the Community Empowerment Awards. The aim of the awards is to encourage and reward the dedication and enthusiasm of local people, voluntary organisations or community groups, who have worked with their local councils, and other partners, to influence decisions about their communities and the services they receive and can demonstrate their ability to work together to make things happen.

Each local area ran their own scheme and put the winners of their area through to a regional final that was judged by a panel made up of SEREP partners and partnership staff. To ensure that the good practice and learning highlighted by these projects was put to good use we have turned them into a series of case studies which we hope you will use to raise awareness of the diversity and quality of empowerment activity taking place in the region and these can be accessed via SEREP Documents.

The overall winners were:

1st Place – Buriton Village Voice Group
2nd Place – Losdworth Larder and Leybourne Parade Regeneration Project
3rd Place – Mortimer village Partnership