Between May and October 2023, People’s Voice Media has been delivering a series of Ripple Effect Mapping Workshops and Storytelling Sessions with members of the Camerados Public Living Room movement. 

Camerados is a social movement – which really just means that there are lots and lots of people (from Baltimore to Blackpool) who think being a bit more human is a good idea. The movement started in 2015 and the main thing you’ll see them doing is opening Public Living Rooms in different communities across the world.

During November, we spent time curating the insights from the stories and Ripple Effect Mapping sessions to create a set of initial findings which we will build upon in the next round of story gathering and Ripple Effect Mapping. The findings reveal the positive impacts that Public Living Rooms have on the lives of the people who use them.

1. For some people, Public Living Rooms have a transformative or healing effect, simply through offering a space where they can be themselves and verbalise what’s on their mind.
2. For people who have spent time if various systems and services, Public Living Rooms provide an antidote to that. The lack of social stigma and the emphasis on not trying to fix people and just being alongside each other makes them a low-pressure environment for people used to the stresses and pressures of services.
3. Public Living Rooms have demonstratively brought communities together simply through allowing people to meet each other. They grow spaces and initiatives by creating a nice space to be in.

In all, this demonstrates that people benefit from spaces – like Public Living Rooms – that are a bit more human and that allow them to be human too.

We will continue working with Camerados over the coming months to further these findings.

Understanding lived experiences of pain can only lead to effective change for all. Empathy was at the heart of all the lived experience stories within the CAPE project.

Empathy is a powerful tool that allows us to understand and share the feelings and experiences of others. It is an essential aspect of our humanity, enabling us to connect with others and build meaningful relationships. This is particularly important for those living with pain, people shared how empathy was often lacking in their relationship with health and social care and unemployment.

I have learnt too much about the challenges that people face when living with long-term chronic pain. “Not being believed”. These lived experiences are full of the good, the bad and the indifferent responses that people get when seeking help and understanding to manage their pain. Empathy is also crucial in creating effective and sustainable change in society and service for people. Through empathy, we can see these challenges from different perspectives, develop more inclusive and equitable solutions, and ultimately, work towards a better world for those living with pain.

Empathy involves understanding and sharing the feelings and experiences of others. It is more than just sympathy or feeling sorry for someone; it requires us to put ourselves in another person’s shoes and experience their emotions and struggles. Empathy is a fundamental aspect of our social and emotional intelligence, allowing us to connect with others on a deeper level. When we empathize with someone, we are acknowledging their experiences and validating their feelings. This can be a powerful tool in building trust and strengthening relationships.

Empathy is important for creating effective and sustainable change because it allows us to see issues from different perspectives. When we empathize with others, we can understand the root causes of societal problems and how they impact different people. For example, if we are working to address poverty, we must understand the lived experiences of those who are living in poverty. This means recognizing the systemic barriers that prevent individuals from accessing resources and opportunities. By understanding these experiences, we can develop more effective strategies that address the root causes of poverty and create sustainable change.

Through empathy, we can develop more inclusive and equitable solutions to societal problems. When we take the time to understand the lived experiences of different groups, we can develop solutions that are more inclusive and equitable. For example, if we are working to address racial disparities in healthcare, we must understand the experiences of marginalized communities and how they are impacted by systemic racism. By centering their experiences and perspectives, we can develop solutions that are more effective, equitable, and sustainable.

In conclusion, empathy is a powerful tool that allows us to connect with others, understand their experiences, and create effective and sustainable change. By recognizing the importance of empathy, we can work towards a more inclusive and equitable society, where everyone’s experiences are valued and respected. By taking the time to understand the lived experiences of different groups, we can develop more effective solutions that address the root causes of societal problems. Ultimately, empathy is essential in building a better world for all.

Take a look at an example story gathered as part of this project over on the Community Reporter Website.

Written by Isaac Samuels (PVM Team Member)

This pilot project aims to strengthen our knowledge of people’s lived experience of racism and how this affects co-production.

PVM and the Co-Production Collective will be using lived experience to explore experiences of racism with co-production and identify ways in which structural racism can be addressed within the co-production arena.

Our objectives are to…

• Ensure that diverse voices are present within our co-production communities
• Understand how racism plays out within co-production
• Understand what we can do to be an anti-racist co-production community & put this into practice
• Gather 12 lived experience stories
• Deliver sense-making sessions exploring these stories
• Produce a short thematic film pulling out the key learning from the stories
• Host a Learning Exchange event sharing these finding with the wider co-production community & beyond

As part of this project we’re aiming to bring about social change on an individual, organisational, community & societal level including…

Over the next couple of months we’ll be collecting stories, delivering online sense making sessions and editing together a film based on the findings – all in preparation for the Learning Exchange event in January 2024.

Watch this space for more updates, including how to get involved!

Over the past 6 months, People’s Voice Media have been delivering a series of Ripple Effect Mapping Workshops and Storytelling Sessions with members of the Camerados Public Living Room movement.

Camerados is a social movement – which really just means that there are lots and lots of people (from Baltimore to Blackpool) who think being a bit more human is a good idea. The movement started in 2015 and the main thing you’ll see them doing is opening Public Living Rooms in different communities across the world.

What is a Public Living Room?

A public living room is an agenda free space for communities of people to come together, sit down with a cuppa, have a chat, and feel more human. It’s as simple as that!

So far there have been handful of online ripple effect mapping workshops and storytelling sessions. In these spaces representatives from different public living rooms have come together to reflect on what impact they’ve had in their local communities. Not only have they shared stories, but they’ve been busy producing Ripple Effect Maps.

What is Ripple Effect Mapping?

Ripple Effect Mapping is a technique that can be used by community organisations to measure and record the different levels of change that have happened as a result of their existence. Rather than focusing on numbers and statistics, REM helps to unpick and document the more qualitative ripples of impact that often occur in smaller scale community initiatives, but can be harder to monitor using quantitative means.

As part of the REM process, people mapped out the different forms of impact their public living rooms had led to. From boosting confidence in those who attended, to connecting people with wider community initiatives, there were endless ripples of impact. After noting these ideas down, people then began to categorize the impact based on individual, community and societal level change (hence the colourful dots you’ll see on the example maps above!) – this process helps people to visualize changes that otherwise would’ve been difficult to document. After the mapping process was complete each person reflected on their map by sharing their thoughts in the form of a story. By the end of the session we’d gained a deeper understanding of the intricacys of the PLRs and what impact they’d had on the communities they existed in.

Take a look at the photos above to get an idea of what a ripple effect map looks like!

From Rochdale, Greater Manchester to Boston, Massachussets, people have shared their experiences with setting up and running these spaces. We hope to share these experiences and findings more widely within the Camerados movement in the hopes of inspiring more public living rooms.

Keep your eyes peeled for updates on the finding of of this project!

You can find out more about the Camerados movement by visiting their website here.

Back in September, PVM team members Sarah & Georgia headed to Wrocław’s Instytut Kultury for three days of project meetings, policy seminars & conference activities.

We kicked things off by revisiting different work packages and exploring the key learning that have been produced as part of the project so far. It was great to see what progress has been made by each of the partners and to hear their thoughts on the findings.

We rounded day one off with an interactive city game, exploring different areas of the town centre in search of the iconic dwarf statues.

On day three we joined project partners in hosting a conference on ‘The Radical Side of Participation’. As part of this, PVM delivered a SWOT analysis activity reflecting on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the City of the Future map.

You can take a look at the map for yourself below:

We also heard from scholars, researchers, activists, city representatives and citizens who led discussions on participation in it’s many forms and the unique variations which exist across our communities.

Find out more about the project over on the EAURENAS website here.