| |
book Reviews
Sir Alan Sugar meets Dr Barnardo?
 Title: The Social Entrepreneur
Author: Andrew Mawson
Publisher: Atlantic
Price: £ 9.99
ISBN: 9781843546610
Click here to purchase this book from the URC bookshop
Lord Mawson’s book is a mixture of testimony,
autobiography, manifesto and good practice for those whose restless
ideas, and love of people, inspire them to want more for the communities
around them. He embodies the “social entrepreneur”; creating a social
and human profit by making communities flourish. These are the people
who make change happen, undaunted by bureaucracy or convention. They do
so, if Andrew Mawson is anything to go by, rooted not in policy
documents, but in people’s lives.
The book is written because of, and about, the URC Bromley by Bow
centre. In a series of unfolding parables we are reminded that anyone in
the business of creating change must begin, end, and be partnered with,
real people and their gifts and concerns; whether that’s people like
Ethel, Su, Santiago, Prince Charles or Lord Mawson himself.
The author calls himself an enfant terrible, and there are shades of
Chris Woodhead and Norman Tebbit about his impatience, but all the work
he describes is deeply humanising. He is undoubtedly “can do” because
the book is full of “have done”, which is inspiring and intimidating in
equal measure. Andrew Mawson is serious and hopeful about creating
change, but insists we must be effective, creative and determined.
He is also adamant that money and institutions should back success.
Precious resources should not be shared out equally, but effectively.
While Andrew Mawson does not address the theological groundings of his
work, he calls us all back to a richly renewing principle that we can
make community change happen, when we are serious, creative and
neighbourly about that change.
Revd Dr Peter Cruchley-Jones ministers at
Rhiwbina URC, Cardiff
|
|
|
LINKS:
URC Bookshop
|
