Dear Deidre Brock, Gordon Munro, Iain McGill, Lorna Slater and Martin Veart. We would be delighted if you would take part in our friendly online hustings.
We understand that as candidates for Edinburgh North and Leith you will be working all hours of the day and night in the short time left before the general election on 8 June.
But we would love to learn a little bit more about you and why you are stending for election. There has probably never been a moire challenging time for our elected representatives. Many voters do not get the chance to meet their local candidates face to face and it is often difficult to see the real person beneath the media stereotype.
The aim of this simple questionnaire is to provide an opportunity for you to share your politicial and personal motivations and inspirations – and for us to meet the human individual who is taking the risk of standing for election and asking for our votes.
Questions
What are the most important issues for people in the constituency? Name perhaps three.
How would you use your seat in Westminster to address local issues, using powers not held by the Scottish Parliament?
What or who motivated you to become a politician – were you inspired by anyone in particular and if so what did you admire about them?
Being an MP is a hugely demanding job, how do you like to unwind, relax and recharge your batteries?
Can you share with us a quotation from a favourite poem or song?
Our five local candidates are (in alphabetical order of first name)
Deidre Brock, SNP standing for re-election after winning the seat from Labour’s Mark Lazarowicz in 2015
Gordon Munro, Labour, local councillor since 2003, re-elected Leith Ward 4 May.
Iain McGill, Conservative, stood for Westminster in 2010 and 2015, and Scottish Parliament in 2016.
Lorna Slater, Green, engineering project manager, standing for election for the first time.
Martin Veart, Lib Dem, formerly oil and gas industry, studying for MSc Heriot Watt.
A new way of working is in the air. That’s the bold, cheering and challenging statement at the start of the Community Manifesto which has emerged from a series of community discussion events in Leith and north Edinburgh. Can we turn words into actions?
Food features in many of the stories on the Wall of Success. But this week we pay tribute to two local enterprises that combine home cooking with great community spirit – and more than a pinch of entrepreneurial spice. Welcome to Punjabi Junction and the World Kitchen in Leith.
Perhaps we should begin with a disclaimer. Leith Open Space is privileged to be among the founder members of the World Kitchen in Leith (WKiL), a voluntary group which launched with a multicultural spread during summer thunderstorms in the Leith Festival of 2009. Punjabi Junction began life a little more formally (or at least undercover) in 2010 as Punjab’n De Rasoi in the community cafe near the foot of Leith Walk.
The opening of the cafe was the fulfillment of years of dedicated work for Trishna Singh and Sikh Sanjog. As she commented when we first visited the cafe seven years years ago, ‘The day that sign went up was when I realised we had finally done it. It is a huge achievement for the women of our community.” [See story HERE]
There are clear differences between these two warmhearted projects. The women of Punjabi Junction run a social enterprise which means meeting the daily challenge of sustaining a viable small business in a harsh economic climate. At the Side by Side Gathering in December 2016, Trishna Singh underlined the need for investment funding to support such innovative projects which enrich local life while developing skills and opportunities.
In contrast, the members of World Kitchen in Leith are part of an informal voluntary venture, catering at local events, which means sharing skills and recipes in their spare time – while also meeting demands of the day job.
Collaborative working, preparing multicultural brunch in Out of the Blue kitchen –
Rooted in community
Yet both WKiL and Punjabi Junction are founded on a firm belief in the importance of community and that also has deep roots in the cultural diversity of Leith. And both provide opportunities for developing skills and confidence. (Note, below, the shared priorities for collaborative working.)
The idea for World Kitchen in Leith beganwith Gurmit Singh, another active member of the Sikh community in Leith who was then a member of Leith Festival Programming Committee. Keen to promote community integration, Gurmit sent an invitation to every minority ethnic community group he could think of inviting them to take part in a cookery demonstration to celebrate their culture.
First to respond was Mridu Thanki, a keen vegetarian cook in the Hindu tradition, working on her first cookery book (Mridu has moved to live in London but still keeps in touch). Leith Open Space met Gurmit and Mridu in Out of the Blue to write their story for our blog…and somehow ended up joining the WKiL team!
“Food can be a creative art as well as a necessity of life. But it is also a social event. Food not only brings pleasure, it brings people together.’ Mridu Thanki.
Punjabi Junction is open Monday 12 pm to 5.45pm (cookery classes 6pm-8pm), and Tuesday – Saturday 12-10pm [See HERE for new menu]
World Kitchen in Leith produces imaginative multicultural menus, catering for local events and organisations.
1. Punjabi Junction is run by Sikh Sanjog for the community. Our vision is to inspire and empower Sikh and other Minority Ethnic women to advance their own life opportunities, through the building of skills, confidence and social inclusion.
2. Since 2010 the social enterprise community care has generated jobs for over 150 women from Sikh and other ethnic and white Scottish backgrounds. We workalongside Learn Direct/Remploy/Intowork/SCVO/ and Edinburgh Community Food
3: Celebrating South Asian-Chinese heritage – hosted MECCOP’s Exhibition in Punjabi Junction Cafe an inspiring intergenerational oral history connecting families and creating links with wider community
Priorities for future:
1. Opportunity for women working together
2. Need for social investment fund
World Kitchen in Leith
1: Cookery demonstrations for a Sheltered Housing collaborative memory project in North Edinburgh
2: Catering for 200 people at Elrec’s multicultural eco celebration as part of Communities For Conservation project 2017
3: Being Human Festival 2016 – planning and providing a meal for an event exploring issues of food, faith, identity and taboos
Priorities for future
1. Celebrate cultural diversity with fun, through cooking and sharing food
2. Collaborate with other community groups for covered market in Leith
Punjabi Junction contributed delicious pakoras to the Open Space community discussion events
Each child will be actively encouraged to become a confident individual, successful learner, effective contributor and responsible citizen. North Edinburgh Childcare
‘Please don’t make childcare an afterthought.’ The heartfelt message from Theresa Allison is clear and simple. Good quality childcare is an investment in the next generation – or to put it another way, in the future of Scotland. ‘It’s much more than babysitting.’
Dads are vital to helping our kids get the best start in life. One of our main priorities for 2017 is supporting more young dads.
Dads Rock turns five this week and, like all parents, the three founding fathers can’t quite believe it. As they prepare for a quiet celebration – there will be birthday cake – they have eyes firmly fixed on the next five years.
It’s one of the transforming powers of art that it can help change the way we see familiar things, not least the places where we live. Joyce MacMillan
Leith is home to many artists.This week the Wall of Success celebrates the remarkable achievements of two creative pioneers. In different ways their work transforms the place that helps to inspire them – while LeithLate brings art into streets and cafes, Active Inquiry turns real life into activist theatre.
‘We aim for young people to be accepted as full members of the communities in which they live and learn.’
This is a Wall of Success story to make you smile. The sheer vitality of the young talent displayed on The State Leith is cheering enough, especially in the grey days of early January. It starts with having fun. But the aims of this adventurous young community interest company go much further.
‘If you are homeless there is no such thing as social mobility’ Josh Littlejohn
We lay the foundations of the ‘Wall of Success’ by reporting local achievements and aspirations in housing and energy. Meet Port of Leith Housing Association and Home Energy Scotland. But first, let’s set the scene with inspiration from an ambitious social enterprise.
‘It all started with a desire to improve the vista and environment in Newhaven and fortunately we had the backing of Newhaven Heritage Centre…’ In this lovely guest blogpost, Heather Yang tells the cheering story of Newhaven Heritage Community Garden. Â Now over to Heather…
What do we need to build a Wall of Success?That’s our challenge this week with the clock ticking for The Gathering on Saturday.As we start planning, something intriguing emerges from the stories in front of us.
