Tag: Help

Craftivism and Social Media Surgeries. Being there.

During the Making For Change project I mentioned in my last post, I had the opportunity to listen to Sarah Corbett give a talk on Craftivism. Sarah  is the founder of the Craftivist Collective, a social enterprise which uses the techniques of craftivism to engage people in social justice issues, so she was perfect for the #MakingForChange project.

The Craftivist Collective’s approach to activism is more low key, respectful and more targeted approach than that of traditional activism.

To give you an example when the group were protesting in favour of the living wage for staff at Marks and Spencer’s they didn’t rock up to the head office waving placards shouting and stamping their feet. Instead they were took a more subtle approach, holding craft sessions or “stitch ins” outside branches of M&S.

They encouraged people to turn up to their session wearing Marks & Spencer’s clothing and to then to sit peacefully and stitch nice messages on M&S handkerchiefs encouraging the adoption of the living wage, that would then be gifted to all members of Marks and Spencer board.

This low key, quiet protest worked to engage the community. Shoppers, instead of having to shuffle around loud placard waving, intimidating protesters stopped to ask questions, “Why were a group of seemingly well dressed people sitting on the High Street sewing?”. Their interest was piqued, they were intrigued and a conversation was started.

This was only one of the projects Sarah talked about, and they were as equally as interesting, but in all of them the message that Sarah kept coming back to was the importance of being there.

Being there.

By being there with other craftivists – wherever there may be – and engaging in crafts gave people the space, time and freedom to talk about the things that mattered to them in a gentle way. By being there at protests and behaving non threateningly but intriguingly, passersby were engaging and we able to spread the message of the issues that mattered to them.

And being there is a message the we sell both for and at Social Media Surgeries.

When people approach us wanting to set up a Social Media Surgery for their town or neighbourhood it’s one of the first pieces of advice we give. “Just be there”. Find a space, start small, have zero expectations, but be there. You may only have 1 or 2 people come for help, but if you weren’t there you couldn’t help.

And when people come to us for help and support at surgeries, be it at our paid training sessions with councils, housing associations or charities, or at volunteer run surgeries with volunteers, third sector orgs or the solo community activist the message is the same “be there”. Who is your audience? Where is your audience? Find them and be there. Share your stories news and ideas, both good and bad. Write for them, engage with them, but be there. Because if your not there telling your story to your audience, no one else will.

Why do people attend Social Media Surgeries?

Yesterdays Social media Surgery in Low Hill, Wolverhampton was attended by Jerome Turner, research fellow on the Creative Citizens research team at Birmingham City University. It was Jez’s first time at a surgery and he’d come with lots of questions for his research about why people chose to come along to either give or receive help.

Jez recorded some of the answers and shared them with us via  audioboo and you can listen to these below .

Patient Pat Fullwood came along for assistance setting up a Facebook page for her Neighbourhood Watch group and for support on a page she’d previously set up for the Long Knowle Community Association.

Jaswinder Singh Chagger (aka Handsome) came to look at how he could use Facebook and Twitter to connect with organisations across the city of Wolverhampton.

James Clarke from WV11.co.uk came along as a surgeon again and he said the thing that makes him keep coming back is being able to share his knowledge with others “opening their eyes to a whole new world”

Building civic engagement in Wolverhampton one neighbourhood at a time

Yesterday saw us host the first in a whole series of Social Media Surgeries we’re involved in around Wolverhampton.

It took place in an area of the north east of the city called Low Hill. It was set up and managed like all other social media surgeries except instead of being supported by just one organisation, it’s being supported by a partnership of public sector organisations from across the city that includes council departments and housing  associations.

The thinking behind this means we’re able to support a more diverse mix of people to benefit their communities and improve civic engagement across the city with input from lots of different areas.

Yesterday’s event was really well attended and, with support of “surgeons” from our public sector partners, were able to help:

One attendee on returning back to work even declared it the “best social media surgery ever“. I’m not sure we’re impartial enough to be the judge of that but I’m sure looking forward to the next one in Low Hill and the others due to be arranged across the city.

Lozells & Birchfield Social Media Surgery, Small and perfectly formed.

I have been helping at a couple of surgeries now including the well established Central Birmingham Surgery and the Wolverhampton Surgery which I helped to get started and each one is different.

Lozells and Birchfield surgery is small and whilst the Central Birmingham surgery is run through podnosh on a voluntary basis this one forms part of our paid work.

Today I returned to Lozells Methodist Church to help the surgery manager Jo Burrill from our client  Midland Heart – a social housing organisation who work hard in communities, and 4 patients who’d registered for today. Selwyn looking for support with his email, Chris and Kevin both with WordPress enquires and Verona who wanted some help posting to a website. It was a nice number and while I helped Chris with his stuff and Jo helped Verona with hers the others got chatting and Kevin turned into an impromptu surgeon to help support Selwyn with his email problems – every one left  happy having received  the help they needed.

Everyone who has attended each of these surgeries either surgeon or patient has left satisfied with their input and that is is the measure of their success, it’s not the number of people that come through the door but being able to help the people that are there. So while in comparison to the to the city centre surgeries of Birmingham and Wolverhampton, Lozells and Birchfield’s Neighbourhood Surgery is small but it’s definitely perfectly formed.