Tackling conflicts within communities

Chris Elphick worked for many years with local communities such as Easterhouse, a Glasgow housing estate with high unemployment, helping people release their creative energies through theatre, celebrations and festivals - in the belief that once the enthusiasm and self-confidence were there, employment schemes and other self-help projects would follow. A major achievement saw the creation of the Easterhouse Mosaic Mural - the largest modern hand-built mosaic in Europe - which years later still stands in the middle of the estate untouched by graffiti, a tribute to the skill and vision of local residents. Having left Easterhouse, Chris Elphick was involved with one final achievement on the estate when he helped the Body Shop establish a soap manufacturing plant employing only local labour chosen for their commitment rather than their skills ('skills are easy to learn') and giving a percentage of the profits to the local community.

He experienced at first hand the contrast between the real practical achievements in such communities and destructive internal group tensions exacerbated by external pressures. As he puts it: 'Passion and anger, charisma, commitment, vision, inspiration and unorthodox leadership go hand in hand with a commitment to participative democracy. Such groups usually learn through doing, often in a very painful way.'

Elphick has established a new organisational development consultancy, Kirkham & Elphick, with his partner Hazel Kirkham. This aims to help groups reach their 'underlying well of creativity,' and to discover ways of transforming disempowering aspects of community life such as insecurity, scapegoating, conflict and jealousy so that the transmuted energies benefit the community. 'It's a question,' says Elphick, 'of how it is possible to be creative within the context of poverty, dependency and disadvantage that characterises many communities. How can I be creative, in other words, with neighbours I don't always like, in a work situation I find tense and with constant worries about money?'

Working in close partnership with their clients in the public, private and non-profit sectors, Kirkham & Elphick thus try to help people and organisations to increase their effectiveness.

Chris Elphick, Kirkham & Elphick, 63A High Street, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 1NR, Wales (tel 0248 372036; fax 0248 372035).

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