We have run over 180 Community Conversations in the past 5 years in partnership with Schools, Community Forums, Community Centres, faith groups, Neighbourhood Watches, youth groups, Council officers and Councillors and the Muslim Mediation Service.
We run all our events in a friendly and supportive way and ensure that everyone gets involved, has their say, and that every contribution is valued and affirmed.
1. "Light and Lively" to start up first conversations. As a response to the problem that people seem to need some encouragement to strike up conversations in the places and at the events that they attend (like the primary school playground, work place or at community events). Schools in the borough used Light and LIvely games to help their new Reception parents settle and break the ice with each other in September 2011.
2. "Getting to Know You Workshops" to build up rapport and motivation by sharing positive community experiences. These workshops usually last 1.5 to 2 hours and are a tried and tested way of enabling people who hardly know each other to share their experiences of community spirit and to look together at ways of bringing community spirit to the setting or place they are in. These have been used in many primary schools, in streets, community centres, between the generations and much more.
3. "Dialogue on Difference or Difficult Topics" to enable honest exchanges of views and values in a safe and accepting environment. Our DDDT format has succesfully brough understanding between people on topics of: a violent attack on a Forest Gate shopkeeper, relationships between settled and migrant communities, a sexual assault in Central Park toilets, inter-generational problems, a long running conflict in a Newham Mosque, Muslim and Non Muslim dialogue, unemployment, poverty and international issues such as the Gaza conflict and the Tamil humanitarian crises.
4. "Participatory and inclusive public meetings" We have run many community meetings on behalf of Councillors (see the reports) and have a wonderful team of 15+ diverse and experienced volunteer faciltators. On 31.3.11 we facilitated a large inter-generational meeting with 130 people on behalf of the older people's campaigning group Voice and Choice: half the participants were young people from NewVic college and St Bonadventure School. Our 25th anniversary Breakfast Seminar was attended by 70 key local community cohesion delegates. Our style of participatory meetings create energy and motivation. It is important for us that these events are meaningful in that the ideas generated can be picked up and taken forwards, and so we work in a collaborative way with local groups and agencies to make sure that they are able to do this.
We are grateful to City Parochial Fund for supporting the first three years of the project, to the Institute of Community Cohesion for funding the work in North Woolwich from July to December 2009 and for the Equality and Human Rights Commission for funding the continuation of this work from January 2010.
You can read in more detail about the project and our learning so far in this Community Conversations Learning Document.
CLICK HERE to read about recent events.
