Resident University Birmingham 2006
Program
Key messages workshops
Photo's Resident University 2006
Excursions


 
EUROPESE GEMEENSCHAP
Europees Fonds voor regionale ontwikkeling
Key messages workshops




Youth and Education

It takes a whole neighbourhood to raise a child.

1. Formative experience of children: taught or gained.
2. Whole family and community is responsible for teaching. Not just role of teachers, social workers etc.
3. Skill set to engage with society: formal (if lacking: how to tackle regeneration) and informal.

Ethnic Diversity and Neighbourhoods

1. Don’t lose sight of the common issues.
2. Role of facilitators for new migrants is very important: who to contact? What are the short-cuts through the system? What are the ‘rules’ of the neighbourhood?
3. People’s housing choices are complicated and needs can get lost at a level of service provision (travel, proximity to places of worship, amenities etc.). It is hard for individuals to be the pioneers: are there imaginative solutions for this? This is an important issue for tackling ethnic segregation.

Safe and Clean Neighbourhoods

1. Problems are the same across all the countries, but there are also differences.
You need to establish what the real problems are:
 
  • Anti-social behaviour
  • Gangs
  • Individual responsibility
  • Problems of cars and traffic
  • Etc.
2. The responsibilities will have to be identified: whose is responsible for what?
3. Try to change behaviour through education
4. Enforce accountability of service providers.
5. Make landlords more responsible

Resident Led Neighbourhood Management

1. Be realistic about what you can do: start small work towards larger goals.
2. Check who controls the resources? Community control of budget is different than local government controlled.
3. Neighbourhood diversity = neighbourhood health.
4. Education is keyword.
 
  • Residents need skills, such as public speaking, to communicate needs
  • Service providers need training in how to work with residents.

Creativity and tactics

1. Convince officials and ‘funders’ that they want to give you money for your ideas. Use networks, petitions, contacts, door-to-door and
NEVER GIVE UP!
2. Play Politics. Find out what is ‘hot’ in policy, then translate this into fitting your aim.

Hard to reach

1. No-one is hard to reach if you use the right approach. Nobody has to fall into the ‘hard-to-reach’ group if there is the will and communication to involve people.
2. Woman are the key to successful communication.
3. Negativity is just a way of thinking: we need more positive messages.

Voice, represantation and neighbourhood

1. Engage with young people
2. Persistance
3. Build alliances

Partnerships between local government and resident led Neighbourhood Management

1. Take a risk: let everyone win and dare to get it wrong
2. Devolve or cooperate: service specific local decisions compromised by central government.
3. There must be a clarity of purpose, maybe joint training of local officers and residents?