North East Valley to hold ‘Dragon’s Den’ to generate community-led social enterprises

The North East Valley Community Project has had some great successes in building a vibrant community with lots of community-led activities, projects and events. These include a community drop -in space, Kai Share, Cosy Home & computer literacy initiatives, multicultural, young parents and senior groups and community events such as Creek Fest, Matariki celebrations & community dinners. We are keen to continue these and explore new ways to build a healthy and happy community, however these cost time and resources.

We have been fortunate to receive DIA community funding, however this has finished. We are now looking at new ways to generate ongoing sustainable funding by developing local social enterprises. We have asked locals to come up with ideas and potential business opportunities and are holding a ‘Dragon’s Den’ event to decide what we could support. This is an opportunity for locals to pitch their ideas to the community and our friendly 'Dragons' who are local entrepreneurs, and let the community decide what ideas to take forward.

We have a range of ideas from books of local poetry/art, a shared workspace for mothers with children, locally-made souvenirs for tourists to Balwin Street, to a gondola up Mt Cargill, and a virtual Dinosaur Park in the Quarry. Some of these ideas are a bit beyond us, but it is exciting that local people are generating ideas.

“This is a new model for how we can fund communities throughout our city by encouraging locals to take responsibility for their community. Building community-led social enterprises builds relationships, empowers individuals to develop new skills & knowledge and is a sustainable way of ensuring on-going funding”

We will also be launching the Valley Card social enterprise, which is a discount card for all of the businesses and services within the NEV. “This will save locals money, encourage people to support local businesses, and the money generated from the cards will go to fund community projects and activities. Win-Win-Win!”

The Dragon’s Den will be at Dunedin North Intermediate at 7.30pm on Thursday 14th September.

ENDS

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