On Monday 21st Feb 2022, Mehr Demokratie and the Institute for Volunteering Research co-hosted a symposium to explore legitimacy and efficacy of involvement in local community policy making with panellists from Holland, Germany and the UK.
The aim of the event was to share experiences and knowledge about how communities can collaborate with policy makers or indeed how communities can be policymakers themselves, coming together where they live, to build and maintain sustainable and resilient neighbourhoods and small towns.
Before the discussion, the panel members shared their position statements.
Frank Brander:
In the municipality of Groningen, a city in the Northeast of The Netherlands, Frank Brander is the 'Areal Secretary ‘Oude Wijken’' (old civil parishes) in the 'Department of Areal Coordination' of Groningen. Particularly in his area Groningen experimented to increase the engagement, participation, control en the ownership of the residents. Based on the positive results Groningen decided this year to implement "The Groningen model for democracy in villages and civil parishes".
Andrea Isermann-Kühn:
The ‘DorfwerkStadt e.V.’ is a registered association for the common good, that concentrates on the participatory work with people in rural and urban areas in Berlin and Brandenburg. Andrea Isermann-Kühn is the director. About half of the work concentrates on the civil parish “Mierendorff INSEL” in the Berlin borough ‘Charlottenburg Wilmersdorf’. Focussing on the challenge to achieve sustainability and resilience, together with the borough, the Dorfwerkstadt managed to establish a living lab of ‘constructive democracy’.
Ben Little:
Ben joined the University of East Anglia in 2016 as lecturer in Media and Cultural Politics. He is Associate Dean for Engagement and Innovation in the faculty of Arts and Humanities. Ben’s current research is on generation, activism and the politics of digital culture. He’s part of the editorial collective of Soundings Journal and writes about activism, generation and digital culture.
Thijs van Mierlo:
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The 'Landelijk Samenwerkingsverband Actieve bewoners’(the national partnership active residents) is an association of more than 2500 active resident groups throughout The Netherlands that engage themselves for their neighbourhood or civil parish, in particular for a fair and social energy transition. Thijs van Mierlo is the director. He states: “Policy only works when the directly involved are, as much as possible, themselves in charge over what is important for them and their environment. I believe in the creative force of society and enjoy working on that.”
Sam Moon:
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Sam has been involved in youth and community work in a volunteer and professional capacity for the past 25 years, the last 5 of which as a Community Enabling Officer in the Norwich City Council Community Enabling Team. Privileged to be part of supporting community to grow through working alongside residents and groups within the neighbourhoods of East Norwich, Sam endeavours to take an Asset Based Community Development approach starting with what communities are best placed to do for themselves first beginning with the passion, skills and gifts of those who live there. A glimpse of this has ranged from resident led litter picks, communal garden ownership to fully community shaped green spaces (Old Library Wood), co-produced participatory community grant projects (Heartsease Healthy Living) to developing Space, Skills and Stuff a connecting community resources tool. Outside of work Sam is an active member and on the Council of Camerados (https://www.camerados.org/) a movement that creates space for strangers to get alongside each other without agenda or fixing and to be more human. This has is taken the form of Gameradaos a community board game meet up embedding Camerado principle and a Norwich Public Living Room. Sam lives in Norwich with family and an obstinate cat call Tess.
Dr. phil. habil. Hilke Rebenstorf
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The Sociological Institute of the Evangelic Church Germany does research in the area of church- and religion sociology, economic and social ethics. Hilke Rebenstorf belongs to the scientific staff of the institute. One of the themes she works upon is the question: “How open are churches to engage themselves for societal change?” This is a vital Question. In Germany, because of administrative concentration processes, in the larger urban municipalities there are no democratic institutions in the civil parishes. That concerns about half of the German population. To a large extend these civil parishes are overlapping with church parishes. Therefore, the evangelical and catholic parishes often are the largest organisations in the civil parishes. So also with respect to achieve a sustainability and resilience they are vital.