Understand your Community Workshop

A workshop was organized by Faith in Community Dundee in collaboration with Faith in Community Scotland (FiCS) and Dundee City Council at Kirkton Community Centre on January 23, 2013. The trainers of the workshop were Shakeel Ali and Andy Whittet from the Transformation Team, FiCS. The workshop was aimed at helping community-based faith groups and other pertinent organizations understand their neighbourhood and community better. The objectives were to help participants:

 ·         Make use of neighbourhood information

 ·         Carry out community research

 ·         Respond to the priorities in an area

 ·         Build evidence for funding application

A total of 27 people attended the event, with participants from Priority Areas like Lochee, Menzeishill, Douglas, Mid Craigie, Coldside and Hilltown. The participants mostly represented faith-groups, mainly churches, while there was a small representation from non-faith groups and the Muslim community. A Community Research Toolkit was also made available to all participants. The workshop was free to attend and a light lunch was provided.

 

A very useful resource which lists and explores different methods of community research is

Action Research by, in and for Communities (ARC)

A practical guide to community-led action research

Scottish Community Development Centre

Available online - http://www.scdc.org.uk/what/community-led-action-research/ARC/

 

Few photos from the Workshop: 

  

  Gordon, FiCDundee welcoming the participants  A glimpse of the participants

 

Participants brainstorming on an exercise	A fruitful discussion!
Finding a way to understand community better	Consulting one of the trainers, Andy
Trying out Mapping Exercise	Shakeel & Andy going through the slides

 Learning how to use statistics                           Accessing information from right sources

Designing questionniares	Presenting the group work