At February 10th, an inspirational meeting was held at the Midland Institute in Birmingham. The goal of this meeting was to talk with residents and professionals about the theme of the next Resident University ‘Big City, Small Neighbourhoods, One vision’. After the speeches of David Maxted (Birmingham City Council), Dick Atkinson (Balsall Heath) and Willem Giezeman (R4R Europe), the workshop was opened by one of the citizens of the Hague, Cissy van der Zijden.

This meeting was attended by different residents and residents’ organisations like Overpool and the Civic Centre Residents Association and by representatives of neighbourhoods and organisations like the Balsall Heath Forum, Castle Vale, Aston Pride, the Four Dwellings School, the Jewelry Quarter and the Mosely Community Development Trust. There was also a small delegation of residents and professionals from Germany and the Netherlands and some representatives of the Birmingham University.

The discussion lead to an interesting input for the themes of the workshops:
Youth and education – it takes a whole neighbourhood to raise a child
Urban diversity – how do we treat new people in our neighbourhoods
Safe and clean neighbourhoods
Resident Led Neighbourhood Management
Faith and Community
Voice, representation and Neighbourhood Politics/Experiences with partnerships with local government
Creativity/Tactics
How do you get (other) residents engaged and how do you sustain it? Building confidence
Importance of green spaces (health and wellbeing)
Social community enterprise

In the afternoon, the concept program of this years Resident University was presented. We hope to put this information on the website as soon as possible. The official registration starts in april.

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