A time for quick action
The current, extraordinary situation is forcing all of us to think and act more quickly than most of us are used to. This has been especially true at Every One Every Day, the one-of-a-kind practical participation network being established in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, in partnership with the council.
Human Beings finding their feet in fellowship and shared endeavour is not a new idea, but in our fractured world it needs to be stimulated and supported and made easy.
Chris Naylor, Chief Executive London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
In many ways, the challenge has been simple: “How can we become useful to the residents of the borough at this incredibly stressful and difficult time?”
Prior to closing our Warehouse Public Makerspace and 5 project incubation shops spread around the borough, a decision we enacted on Friday 13th March, our focus had been the same overriding issue it always has been: increasing contact and participation among the thousands of people living in the borough. Our infrastructure had been designed to do this in physical spaces. So what happens now?
[To find out more about the Every One Every Day initiative please see links at the bottom of this post]
Physically isolating is only part of the answer — and it’s also going to be a growing problem in itself very soon.
It is clear that the NHS, Central and Local Governments and countless amazing individuals are now on the front line, keeping the rest of us safe and secure. For many of us, all we have been asked to do is to stay at home. To isolate. But this is NOT all we need to do, not by a long way.
What is clear is that both the prospect and reality of staying isolated for the coming weeks and months throws up many other health issues, not directly related to the coronavirus. Focusing on the physical and mental health of the literally millions of people, forced into physical isolation presents major issues, which will grow bigger every week we that are forced to be apart.
We urgently need to find effective ways to meet these challenges, and quickly.
We are a social species. Huge numbers of academic studies have proven beyond all doubt that what we are all about to experience will impact mental and physical health in an unprecedented way. It is the effect of social isolation, being physically apart from other people, that is certain to have a great impact on people’s health. Long term studies have proved that loneliness and the effects that it produces, along with hard-wired biological responses we all have, give an individual a far higher risk of dying when isolated than either obesity or smoking.
This topic was part of a talk I was due to give on the importance of practical participation for health at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Partnership for Healthy Cities Summit which was sadly cancelled last week.
“To grow to adulthood for a social species, including humans is not to become autonomous and solitary, it’s to become the one on who other’s can depend.”
J Cacioppo 2017
“Wellness is created and lived by individuals every day through their ability to care for oneself and others, being able to take decisions, and having a sense of control. These factors depend upon strong social networks and high levels of social connectedness”
Sir Harry Burns — Former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland
Never in our lifetime has connection with other people been more important.
At a time of isolation for millions of people across the globe, many with ill health and money and security worries, the need for contact and support couldn’t be greater. We all need to take proactive, positive steps to make meaningful connections as quickly as we possibly can, for our own sakes and for everyone else’s.
We are now faced with the heady cocktail of circumstances that have disrupted every aspect of our lives, with some more at risk than others: Millions of people are in their homes for extended periods.
_ There are 8m people who currently live in single person households in the UK.
_ There are 8.7m people over aged 70 in the UK who may be in quarantine in their homes for at least the next 3 months. In Barking and Dagenham for example, between 12,000 and 15,000 people are aged over 70 and at greater risk from infection.
There is an overwhelming sense that the world is both unrecognisable and out of control, and our futures are uncertain..
Practical Steps We are Taking quickly
At Participatory City in Barking and Dagenham, we are moving as much activity online as rapidly as possible so that we can continue to give local residents the tools they need to connect and organise. We are always fiercely practical but we also want people to find hope as quickly as possible. It’s an expression I heard last week from colleague Denise in Toronto, and it really resonates. We need to get the idea of actively participating and connecting to hope out to the wider world as quickly as we can. Working positively for the future is one vital way of counteracting the effects of our current situation, and it is something we can do from home, with our own two hands. We just need now to do it online and at home.
Participation is the key to our shared future. It connects people to others who can help them shape better lives. It helps overcome social division, so that people can understand each other more clearly than they can right now. It frees people from loneliness and isolation, enhancing their wellbeing and improving their mental health. And most of all it, it gives us all a sense that the future is ours to make, not just the product of forces far beyond our control, and in so doing it provides the sense of hope and optimism for which people are searching all over the world.
Marc Stears, Sydney Policy Lab
At Participatory City, since last Monday we have worked full-time on transferring all our activity to a new online network platform for Every One Every Day. This may seem like an obvious solution, but it wasn’t a decision we took lightly. This stuff is not easy. The surge in activity we saw a decade ago in creating online network platforms led many people, myself included, to understand first hand just how difficult and resource intensive it can be to get an online network alive and buzzing. But we’ve decided to do it now, and here’s why.
What we hope to achieve
If any face-to-face potential still exists in the current situation (even if it is 2 metres apart!), it will be at street level. Neighbours can and should try and check in and chat to neighbours on their doorsteps, keeping a safe distance. Practically speaking, neighbours can help each more quickly and easily because they live close by. Neighbours can also plan and organise expressions of community and solidarity for when this difficult time is over. This can be done through activities like planning street parties, street planting and rewilding, plans for joining the Precious Plastics Universe, and even play streets, as well as exploring dozens of ideas for building new future focused infrastructure for food, transport, health and collaborative business.
The functionality of the new Every One Every Day platform will allow people to start Helping and Sharing Teams that act like individual networks, with their own members, their own information feeds and blog posts.
- Our plan is to support dozens of such teams being established through the website in the coming weeks.
- We intend to grow the existing Every One Every Day local network of 6,000 residents in the borough. This is aimed at further increasing the resilience that “dense networks” create for responding to further emergencies of the crisis as they emerge.
- We intend to start many new street level projects that connect and support residents, but which also spark people’s interest and creativity in their own homes, helping to keep them optimistic and engaged in learning by fostering the friendship we do through our spaces, now working online.
- We want to support local organisations to use the Participatory City site to form their own teams, on an online space that connects these organisations directly to residents who might need their specialist support.
- We want to raise awareness and quickly access the excellent response network that Barking and Dagenham Council are launching this coming week with the BD Collective, of which Participatory City is part.
Why this platform has a good chance of succeeding
I am very familiar with the challenges of starting online network sites. The biggest lesson I learned from my own experiences years ago was the mistake of expecting a website to work on its own. Without real face-to-face interaction working along side it, a stand alone website was an almost hopeless endeavour. I also learned that it takes a lot of time and effort to create a stimulating online environment, with a positive and supportive culture. You have to pay close attention, be responsive and upbeat at all times, you need to moderate carefully to create trust and confidence to share ideas and thoughts on the site. It also takes a lot of effort to get people to join in the first place. For all this, we think in our current situation we have a good chance of making it work — and here are some of the reasons why:
1. People want to help each other
This crisis has already clearly shown how much people want to help one another. Finding resources, ideas, information on how to get started, and how to do this safely is wanted and needed. Peer-to-peer support through building trusted relationships has never been more needed and relevant. If the Every One Every Day site includes practical tools to help people to act on their natural motivations to help one another, then it will become both valued and used.
2. People want to connect with hope
The quickest way of connecting to hope is to start planning and creating straight away. Our own team has benefited hugely from having an immediate shift in focus to creating something useful. Other people feel the same. It’s not rocket science, but it will help a lot to keep ourselves productive on positive things like learning, making and sharing.
3. We know people already
The Every One Every Day team has met and worked face to face with over 6,000 people in the borough over the last two or so years. People know and trust the team. Continuing their conversations online is not as big a leap as it would be if we were trying to jump start an online platform without knowing people! Our office is in the middle of a public makerspace — we work out in the open, literally, every day.
4. We have a team
We have an established and expert neighbourhood team of 15 Project and Programme Designers who are now refocusing their time and effort on creating stimulating content, as well as inviting people to become members, encouraging them to post content and connect with people, supporting them to start teams and projects — in the same way as they do when people come through the door of our shops. This group is also running online sessions to help people learn how to use the site, how to take pictures, write blogs, and generally support people 1–1 through calls and emails — to overcome gaps in digital know-how or confidence.
5. People want to connect and share
The site will enable people to find and connect with people who live nearby, who share their interests, concerns and ideas. We hope that this site will be a magnet for people with positive dispositions, a place for optimistic and constructive idea sharing and developing.
6. Resources for home working and homeschooling
An entirely novel situation of whole families at home 24/7 requires new routines. It also needs to have new ideas and advice on how do this. There are 100s of organisations across the globe generating new practical ideas for learning and re-organising home life. Now people can share any content they find useful with people they know locally.
7. Time on our hands to think about inventing a good future
The platform will include lots of tools for exchanging ideas about how to make our neighbourhoods even more wonderful when this crisis is over. It also gives us time to rethink lots of things we take for granted about our everyday lives, a time to reflect on the kind of world we want to live and how we all have a hand in creating it.
Success is never guaranteed, but we are determined to make it work if we possibly can. I am expecting a bumpy ride. We will be monitoring and sharing all we uncover each week.
The Every One Every Day site is open to all, so you are more than welcome to join and see how it’s going. As always, we are working out in the open and with complete transparency, in order that others can learn from our mistakes, or copy our successes. Any time we can spare we would love to help others.
Fingers crossed this will work. We have signed up 245 members who have joined the site since last Thursday afternoon, its a good start, but it will have to grow considerably larger if it is to succeed. Watch this space!
Stay well.
More about Participatory City Foundation and Every One Every Day on our websites.
The Spring Programme Newspaper — now postponed or moved online
Introduction 4 minute video