Community Engagement & Empowerment

Community Engagement & Empowerment

Led by Green Action Trust

Since the partnership’s inception it’s been important to us that projects we develop and deliver reflect community desires and involve local people throughout. Over the years we’ve learned a lot from local people about how to engage communities and we’ve adapted accordingly. The activities within this project, designed by Ice Cream Architecture, were informed by local groups and will be delivered in partnership with them.

In the codesign of these activities we engaged people around four themes: Mills, Movement, Craft and Community. The levels of interest in each, and recommendations on how these themes could manifest in community-based activity, helped prioritise how this project developed.

The activities and events which will be delivered:

Mills

  • Meditation among the Mills: A programme of yoga and meditation in serene areas of the park, surrounded by the memories of the industrial past.
  • Intergenerational Viral Videos: A local coordinator/dramatist will bring together people across the generations to collect stories about the local area, to then be codeveloped into topical content like memes, reels and parodies.

Movement

  • Mill Race Festival: This will include a race through the park (potentially a parkrun event) culminating in a festival celebration.
  • Health & Heritage Walks: Training up of local walk leaders to run a programme of walk and talks highlighting the park’s rich heritage and nature.
  • Activities for Everyone: Purchase of outdoor games and education kits (such as bowls, skittles, lawn tennis, pétanque, rounders, giant chess) which will be made freely available for community use in informal playing greens.

Craft

  • Building Biodiversity and Habitats: Outdoor education sessions on different plants and wildlife, followed by participatory planting sessions to improve pollinator pathways.
  • Leadership Training for Young People (Part 1): Training young people to be leaders in local activity including skills like ideas generation and design thinking, community development, building a team, developing funding applications and design. Then applying those skills to develop and deliver their own project with seed funding.
  • Leadership Training for Young People (Part 2): Running sessions with young people on building the heritage of the future through identity and then applying that learning to develop and deliver their own project with seed funding.

Community

  • Heritage Picnics (Part 1): Creation of an outdoor community space equipped with picnic benches and tables.
  • Community Shelter: Design and installation of a community shelter, potentially at the outdoor community space above.
  • Heritage Picnics (Part 2): Running community picnic and BBQ events using local food and catering services.
  • Outdoor Community Cinema: Running pop-up outdoor cinema events throughout the duration of the project.
  • Participatory Budget: Running of a participatory budget for local groups to access and deliver projects around the themes of the River Park. This will be run by the Levenmouth Community Steering Group (LCSG), similar to the last participatory budget which you can read about by clicking here.

Click here to access the Community Engagement Plan, developed by Icecream Architecture, which this project was informed by.

Leaving a legacy

It is our hope that this programme of activities will be well attended and enjoyed by communities, leading to more frequent recreational use of the River Park and a continuation of community-based activities and events for many years to come.