Action Group — Connected Communities

    Continuing to support other community groups to better use and change the political system

We will address this by:

• promoting our Kitchen Table Conversations (KTCs) Tool Kit for community groups
• engaging and working with community groups to enhance their campaign objectives

The Connected Communities Action group’s “theory of change” is that generating community and suburb level processes for setting and monitoring local goals will build connections, help people understand the political system better and so be better placed to hold the ACT Government to account. We work by using an Asset Based Community Development approach [link to the ABCD section in the Library].

Engaged citizens with a sense of agency and common purpose underpin a better democracy.

We believe:

• Democracy is “co-governance” for the public good
• Trust in democracy needs people to have a sense of “belonging” and community connectedness
• By collectively setting and monitoring goals communities can see how policies relate to outcomes and feel agency within our system of governance (vs just seeing it as “politics”)
• The ACT government can learn that involving residents groups and community councils through richer ways of engagement and participation can give better outcomes for all of us.