Carol Wiggins

Brief description of achievement:

Carol is the chief executive of Huyton Community Partnership (HCP), Merseyside. She is the founder of this community-based organisation, which aims to give local people the knowledge and confidence to gain skills, experience and confidence to return to work, and to take real pride in their local community.

Detailed description:

Carol, then an unemployed mother of three, set up the HCP with friends and neighbours in the mid 1990s. The council estate in Merseyside where they were all living was suffering from high unemployment, social deprivation and the community had largely 'given up'. Carol and colleagues decided to take direct action, be 'active community citizens' and tackle problems head on.

The group began by inviting the local council and development agencies to meet with the community. This group subsequently became the HCP, a self-help group that also represents the community in the design and development of regeneration programmes in Huyton. The HCP develops and delivers services to local residents, enables community involvement and leads on regeneration and strategy. In short, it provides the local community with the skills they need to develop their own destiny.

HCP built a £400,000 community centre, and is responsible for the largest take up of Learn Direct in the UK. Carol has helped to create hundreds of jobs and give many more people the skills, experience and confidence needed to return to work. The local community infrastructure has changed and Huyton is now a place of new opportunities and confidence. The HCP has pioneered a range of other community projects - resource centres and neighbourhood satellites, as well as training and health development.

"Carol is an outstanding individual who is making an enormous contribution to helping to revitalise one of the most deprived communities in Europe. She does this by being positive, energetic and determined. Many individuals in her community have gone from a condition of severe social exclusion to obtaining sustainable employment. Carol, with other equally determined people she has gathered around her, has built an extraordinary organisation in HCP."

Councillor Ron Round, Leader of Knowsley, MBC

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