Case Study

Four organisations providing a network of out-of-hours education support have successfully collaborated in a project involving equipment purchase, co-ordinated delivery of courses and shared monitoring.

The African Caribbean Citizens Forum (ACCF), Muslim Khatri Association (MKA) and Pakistan Youth and Community Association (PYCA), led by the Bangladesh Youth and Cultural Shomiti (BYCS) set up the BME Complementary Education Network in 2004 to deliver courses from a range of community centres across Leicester.

A joint bid to the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund led by BYCS enabled computers and other equipment to be purchased at a discount on behalf of the network. BYCS had previous experience of purchasing so could advise partners. The Somali Afro European Media Project were able to offer skills in streaming video and audio of presentations, meetings and interviews for channels tailored to the community.

The partners also shared existing support contacts and suppliers. The smaller, younger organisations benefited from the track record of BYCS. Rather than duplicating equipment at all the centres, some specialist equipment was placed in appropriate centres. For example, the MKA had an accessible training room with a lift so certain courses and equipment were located there.

One partner had monitoring forms that could be adapted for use by all partners, and experience of data protection issues. The forms were redesigned and now a common system is used with consistent information being passed to the local authority.