Ivor Souter has recently been appointed the new development officer for the Merkinch Partnership programme as part of the government’s Social Inclusion Policy. Ivor, who has been the manager of the Merkinch Community Centre for the past 13 years took up his new post on the 1st September and explains what his new role will involve.

"I have been appointed the manager of the programme to get things started and I am hoping to do a lot very quickly. The SIP’S money is a Scottish Office funded programme. Each council throughout Scotland were asked to focus on what they would hope to spend the cash on and Highland chose to concentrate on young people. The SIP’S money is to replace, or to renew, the Urban Aid grant, which was seen to have too narrow a criteria, only certain groups were eligible for money through that scheme. The project is about encompassing all the different groups, from voluntary organisations, local and central government to health and education organisations, and it is very important that all these groups work together and as a part of my job I will be making sure that happens.

SIP’S money is not only focusing on those that are socially excluded; it will be used to maximise the use of resources that are already out there. The buzz phrase of the moment is 'joined up working', that is, agencies and organisations working alongside each other, and I think this really has to be encouraged. Services have to interact and work with each other, it’s crucial."

Ivor, for many years now, has been at the forefront of involving young people in the decision makings which affect them directly. Ivor and Keith Bootle, of the South Kessock Safety Karers, talked about the need to listen to, and focus on, the younger members of the community, find out what their needs and aspirations were. They also looked at ways that would enble them to set the proposals that were being discussed into motion. "Keith and myself got other groups and organisations round the table as part of the Youth Strategy, the problem was that we were all still doing all normal day jobs and because of that things were taking twice as long to get going. We were talking to young people, asking them what it was they wanted and what we were hearing was they wanted the chance of employment, help with housing as well as information and access to health and safety issues. These issues had to be looked at seriously but unfortunately at that point we had nobody to drive these issues forward. Now we are in a position to make things happen and working together with other groups and organisations means we will have the opportunity to unlock money and grants from other sources.

One of the earliest things we will be assessing is the need of young tenants in the area, to get a true picture. The Housing Department are looking into this but they have a small budget. That said though, young tenants need support, their families need support, and as a part of this a support structure has to be set up and the housing services have agreed to be a part of this, this is just the start of the bigger picture, the start of a building block. As part of this initial improvement for tenants we will be producing a tenants guide which will inform tenants of their rights and responsibilities of being a tenant as well as including general information within the leaflet like where to find your nearest doctor, dentist and other professional services that people may not know how to access. We want to make young people aware of the possibilities that lie out there, studying, volunteering, in fact, there is a huge amount of points in the youth strategy that we would like to take forward. We are aiming to fill the gaps in the system, not duplicate what is already in place. Our aim is to encourage young people to be innovative and creative and the youth strategy has always involved young people directly, discussing with them what their specific needs are, and having listened to them at length, the problems we are hearing about are the same ones over and over again - they have nothing to do, nowhere to go."

Ivor adds "We will be appointing a Youth Officer in the very near future, this is absolutely crucial to this project, that person will be going out there developing and taking forward the youth services, working with, and for, the younger people of the community." Ivor continues "There is plenty of money around, not just for the SIPS project, but money in existing projects and new projects which could be helped through accessing grant giving bodies like the New Opportunities Fund. The SIP’S money is not a short term solution it is a building block for new and positive ideas and as Programme Manager I am there to help plan bits of the jigsaw."

Ivor, who will be working on the project part-time, is now hoping that setting up office outside the community centre will be next on the agenda, as he explains "I would really like to see office space set up somewhere like Grant Street where we would be very central for the whole of Merkinch, but that is really up to the Council to locate and negotiate premises. Though for me an office outside the community centre is very important. The space here is very limited and trying to get paperwork done and phone calls made when there is so much other things happening at the centre is hard work, for the project to work properly a separate space is required."

Ivor, who has a long history of working in youth programmes and community-based initiatives is very positive that the project, now that the Scottish Office has released the funds, will start to be able to show some real movement.