Clann Credo’s upcoming annual conference will focus on job creation and community building and will feature keynote international and Irish speakers.
Common Cents 2010 will take place in the Radisson Blu Hotel, Athlone, Co. Westmeath, on 25 March and will examine the contribution that Social Enterprise can make in the critical area of job creation, particularly from a community perspective.
According to Clann Credo’s Paul O’Sullivan, the current recession requires a response that literally builds from the ground up: “Communities are being devastated by job losses. The old model of finance and development has collapsed. Social enterprise, assisted by social finance, offers the opportunity to rebuild our society job by job, community by community.”
The conference theme is “Social Enterprise: Creating Jobs, Building Communities” and it will hear from a number of high profile speakers, including Gerry Higgins, regarded as one of the leading experts on social finance in the UK.
Mr Higgins heads up CEiS, a leading local development agency that aims to develop local economies and communities through social enterprise. Its Enterprise Support Service is now the largest in the UK.
Originally from Cork, Mr Higgins has also advised UK, French and Australian governments on the development of Social Enterprise.
According to Mr Higgins Common Cents 2010 offers the opportunity to detail the emergence of social finance as the operating model of choice for community and voluntary organisations. This would focus on the growth of social enterprise internationally and the funding and investment environment for social enterprise.
Another confirmed speaker is Sean Coughlan of Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, a body set up to support the development of social enterprise in Ireland. Mr Coughlan will outline the difficulties and opportunities facing today’s generation of social entrepreneurs.
Past speakers at the Common Cents conferences have included President Mary McAleese, who told those gathered for the 2006 conference that:
“Clann Credo plays a truly invaluable role in giving practical effect to our moral responsibility for the social progress of the poor and the overlooked. You have meshed commercial acumen with the common good, created partnerships with established structures and given communities access to the funding and the confidence they needed to change their own futures for the better.”
To book your place contact Anne-Marie or Angie at
info@clancredo.ie or phone (01) 400 2100.