Community Hub
23 September 2010
The community space at Peartree Library is proving successful.
The summer break offered time to develop a new initiative that has bubbled away for almost a year now. Working in partnership with Derby Libraries, we have identified a 'community space' at Peartree Library, a building brilliantly centred right in the heart of Normanton in Derby.
Research
- The research the Congolese community and I carried out through 2009 clearly pointed to several things that need to be addressed in engaging with communities
- One was the vital need for a community to have its own space: a place where people can meet; play, have fun together, a place where they can feel safe, and a place where they can learn and be helped to address things that are getting in the way of their lives
- Other priorities involved their keen interest to learn through Pathway style workshops on such as Health and Wellbeing, Volunteering and Education.
The library team has been so supportive of the partnership that is developing and has completely transformed a dusty un-used room into a splendid welcoming first-floor community space, with toilet facilities and a small office. This space is to be made available to all community groups that want to work together but who cannot afford rent. Working closely also with Community Action and Student Services, this facility is to be opened up to local communities through a steering group led by the community.
The first project to start there is Craft Action, further work by Voice of Congolese Women with the support of University of Derby but also through a Faiths in Action grant for £6,000 - to reach out to other women across the city of all faiths and ethnicities, to enter into a programme of garment making but also much more - the opportunity to learn together in supporting women and young people.
Three other projects are starting up there already - the setting up and running of a 'Welcome Boxes' designed to welcome and help new arrivals settle in our city, and an ESOL class with Kurdish Women (all women are welcome), both being run by Karina Martin, Project Director for Upbeat Communities, and an arts-based research project run by Jamie Bird, Lecturer in Therapeutic Arts, EHS.
Other projects are being led from within the University, too. This includes a placement being offered to a postgraduate Art Therapy student to meet with the women, to talk about Art Therapy and jointly design a programme that can be run in the Community Space over this academic year. Betty Phoba, Chair of Voice of Congolese Women is supporting this work and promoting the Community Space concept within the communities, as a Derby Award student, with this project being one of many projects undertaken by students within the community.
If this work is of interest to you or your faculty, please contact me for more information at p.walker@derby.ac.uk
Article by Peter Walker
