Community First (Wiltshire)

Community First is a long established rural and community development charity based in Wiltshire and Swindon with a history of supporting communities with planning, volunteering and community action. The organisation is both a Social Action Hub and an Affiliated Training Provider able to deliver quality assured course in community organising.

Community First has been involved with community organising since 2012, hosting and employing three community organisers and really embracing the approach and its impact. As well as core community organising work on the doorstep in many communities, Community First’s community organisers have also been involved in training volunteers and in promoting various community rights and Neighbourhood Planning as tools for community empowerment. A powerful area of work has been the training of young people across Wiltshire as young listeners in the health service.

As a Social Action Hub, Community First focuses on two wards in Swindon and one area of Salisbury, where there is already an interest in using community organising to engage, mobilise and promote community action.  Links to other areas of work such as the National Citizenship Service and Healthwatch have been made.