People-led initiatives and civic ecosystems
During this month’s CoLab Exchange sessions we looked at some of the people-led initiatives which have started appearing around the world, and considered ways that new creative and collaborative forms of participation in society and communities can be nurtured.
Here in Dudley we’re actively involved in testing this, through Open Hub Wrens Nest. We’re working with Tessy Britton and her colleagues from Civic Systems Lab. Tessy was recently interviewed in New Start Magazine, below are some extracts from the interview:
Tessy on people’s reactions to hearing about initiatives which are led by citizens (rather than organisations or institutions:
I put together the crowdsourced book Hand Made four years ago. It was a diverse mixture of projects but they really inspired me. I then did the Travelling Pantry and that was an incredible experience going around the country for six months meeting people and seeing if these innovative local ideas had a similar effect on other people. I’ve probably talked to between 4000–5000 people in the last four years and see how excited people are by the ideas. All of our work is about these amazing new ways that people are creating things — whether citizen projects or social initiatives. This is a new way of doing things and citizens are doing it outside of the existing participatory systems. Indeed, sometimes the system actually puts barriers in place of it. I’m totally in the grip of this idea and can see there’s something amazing happening.
Tessy on the contrast between traditional forms of participation and what is growing now:
From my own experience I’ve been through traditional routes of participating: I’ve chaired committees and done a lot of campaigning and charity and representation work. What I discovered is that each of these types of civic participation had serious limitations and I recognised that these emerging new projects were showing another route. That was very exciting. A lot of the other means of participation is about repair work but this new type of participation is about building and it’s a lot more creative.
Tessy on what we’re doing in Dudley:
We’ve made a list of over 12 things we need to change in the current system to make this kind of participation become the norm. One of them is space. These kinds of projects don’t need meeting rooms or event spaces, but instead need more functional spaces like kitchens or gardens or workshops. So we need to think about how we make these spaces part of the common infrastructure. People still use the room rental model but there is such low occupation and that model means that all activity has to be funded. We are working with Dudley CVS on a project at the Wren’s Nest estate in Dudley called Open Hub where their community centre has only 6% occupancy. It’s really well resourced with an industrial kitchen, IT equipment, and every cupboard bulging with something they got funding for. If you take that room rental model away you can create fresh opportunities for more experimental work, for people with an idea to come forward and grow it.
Stories of people-led initiatives which are inspiring us are being drawn together through the Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe.
What limitations have you experienced in traditional forms of participation?
What do you think we can do to nurture new ways of participating in society?
