Visit to 10th Anniversary of Imagine Chicago

Three local people from Southwark were awarded funding to attend the first international conference of Imagine Chicago. Delroy Mclean, Jennifer Martin and Kate Start all of whom live and work in Southwark, were successful in their application to the Champions for Change Millenium Awards Scheme managed by the Peabody Trust and funded by the Millenium Commission.

At the conference representatives from eleven countries shared their ideas and experiences on how they were involving their local communities to make them more the way they would really like them to be. 

One example was "Imagine Nagaland", the biggest Imagine workshop involving the whole state of Nagaland with 2 million people. This was conducted under the leadership of Peter Delahaye from UNICEF and was a real mile stone in the history of Nagaland. 
As a follow-up of the Imagination Process there is a great reawakening among the people of the state to take ownership and responsibility for their own future. On the government level, a movement has been initiated to "communitize" the various services. They started with education and health sectors, and many "Good Governance" workshops have been taking place across the state to streamline all the government employees and ensure their commitment to give quality services to the people. 
Other Imagine projects include:
Nepal, Singapore, Cape Town and Western Australia. 
The Imagine Southwark group brought back many ideas they would be willing to share with other local groups to develop an even better borough. 

Imagine Chicago was set up 10 years ago to bring together local people in making Chicago more the way people would like it to be. The conference in September, was the first of its kind and provided an opportunity for networking, making contacts and new friends. Imagine Chicago was set up 10 years ago to bring together local people in making Chicago more the way people would like it to be. The conference in September, was the first of its kind and provided an opportunity for networking, making contacts and new friends.

Copyright  Imagine Southwark/ Imagine Peckham 2002

updated 18 October 2002