Blog Archives

Shaping The Future (North West Wales)

I was pleased recently to be invited to become an Ambassador for the Shaping the Future programme in North West Wales. This programme aims to ‘put human potential at the heart of regional development’ – an aim with which I immediately felt aligned; as I did also with the intention to create sustainable economic diversity by encouraging skills development, with retraining and redeployment for the highly-skilled employees of the Wylfa and Trawsynydd nuclear power sites as their careers are threatened by decommissioning.

To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.

Understanding How The Pakistani Community in Blackburn Relates To Public And Private Institutions

Blackburn on a Saturday afternoon… and an invitation to join discussions with business, mosque and council leaders from the Pakistani community, as the Insight Out project comes to an end, with dedicated time to face outwards and engage additional concerned citizens. It was a wide-ranging, open-hearted debate about what Pakistani heritage Blackburn residents might do to improve the outlook for both their own and their neighbours’ communities. The move towards real action, I sensed, has begun.

To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.

Sociology, Democracy And The Economic Crisis

Aditya Chakrabortty of The Guardian has just (8 May 2012) published his second commentary about ‘the dearth of sociologists and other non-economists analysing how we got into’ the current economic crisis.  This silence, he says, is in vivid contrast to the (dramatic but ineffectual) protests of academic social scientists when monetarists reigned supreme whilst Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.  But, sadly older and wiser, this time we need to focus on a more encompassing agenda of transaction, impact and meaning.

To read more of this article and to comment, please visit Hilary’s professional website here.