We have been working away at an exciting EU project called Narratives of Impact since September 2020 and last month we had our penultimate meeting in the fabulous city of Milan. The partners from Italy, Germany, Poland, Spain and myself (UK) got together to finalise the video guides that we have made to go along with a toolkit created for NGO’s, charities, and voluntary organisations to use storytelling to measure impact.

The toolkit is designed to help organisations, teams and individuals to use storytelling to to see what is working and what needs to be improved. Applying storytelling methods can really help to improve data collection and more importantly help improve services and delivery. Using different storytelling methods can help people to engage with data collection and learning processes in a creative way, enhancing inclusion and access, as well as interest and commitment. 

Each partner has worked hard over the past few months to create their own video guide and it was great to watch the final videos together whilst eating delicious Milanese pizzas. Marco from @COSV hosted us in the COSV offices in Milan and gave us a warm welcome. It was good to meet the staff and see where they do their important work.

The next step in the project is translating the toolkit into Italian, German, Spanish and Polish ready to be published in June.

Kath Peters, project manager, PVM.

The Home? Project was set up last year to create a space to give Migrants, Refugees and Asylum seekers a voice to speak about their lived experiences in Northern England with the view to change the narratives that surround migrant communities. The project hopes to serve as a vehicle to drive the message home that things need to change for the better. Common themes and key findings from the stories will be created as an animated film and distributed in the wider community such as schools, colleges, universities, museums, libraries, informal education settings, councils, community groups and grassroot organisations.

These stories have been gathered through using PVM’s methodology of Community Reporting and Archive Research training.

PVM has partnered with 5 crucial partner organisations spread across the Northern region to train volunteers to become Community Reporters and begin the story gathering / sensemaking process.

We kicked off our first community reporter sessions last year in October with Refugees Women’s Connect based in Liverpool and completed the Community Reporter training at the end of February with Methodist Asylum Project in Middlesbrough.

There’s been a variety of stories and feedback shared from people that convey many different challenges and successes when entering the UK. For example, as English is not the native tongue for most people migrating to the UK, it has been difficult to find work or know where to turn to get appropriate advice and direction. However, people found that the longer they have stayed in the country, they have met other people in the same or similar position through charity organisations and have made friends and received knowledge on steps to take to get educated into English culture. They become familiar with the organisations that have been setup to help aid migrant communities. With these developments, some of our volunteers have reported that their experience has become more positive over time as they learn the language and expand their knowledge and communities.

With government coming down hard on migrants and bringing in new legalisation that will make a migrant’s life even harder, it is crucial that the lived experiences of migrants in the UK are heard and action taken to improve their lives and well-being.

In 2021, People’s Voice Media embarked on the CONTINUE Project, which sought to support young people experiencing social exclusion to tackle the specific challenges of post-COVID times in terms of staying connected and integrated into European communities. The project was delivered by a consortium of 8 NGOs from different European countries, experienced in youth education and community- based activities. The work involved storytelling, social action projects, policy development, knowledge exchanges, an outreach campaign and the creation of an online platform, and was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

The UK strand of the project, which People’s Voice Media has been responsible for, saw us partner with Gorse Hill Studios in Trafford, Greater Manchester, to examine the ways in which their young people had been affected by the pandemic, and co-produce ideas for ways in which they might be supported going forward.

Over the two years, the project saw us gather stories, host Conversation of Change and knowledge exchange events, produce insight reports, and recommendations for policy and practice. We’re proud that these recommendations have been taken forward by Gorse Hill to begin discussions with Trafford Council on ways in which they can work together to support local youth, and we’re proud of the project’s reach across Europe.

We’ll be following up on the lasting impact of the project over the next 12 months and will report in upcoming annual learning reports so watch this space.

Since September 2023 we’ve been working with the fabulous folk at Ideas Alliance and Curators of Change in the West Midlands as part of a Lottery funded project called – Not Another Co-Production Project. This is a 3-year project exploring how we can develop coproduction in ways that benefit local people, professionals, and organisations across England. A key aim of this work is to move co-production from a buzz word into an embedded practice within grassroots organisations across England to ensure that people have a better life.

In this second year of the project, we’ve been focusing our energies on the West Midlands and the People’s Voice Media team have been busy equipping people and organisations with Community Reporting skills to help them harness the power of lived experience stories in their work. Last Winter we delivered a series of 6 in-person workshops in Birmingham, training people in the different aspects of Community Reporting – from gathering stories to using the learning from people’s stories to effect positive social change in different community contexts. The sessions were attended by 12 people and a mixture of practical and soft skills were developed, as well as confidence-building and networking opportunities.

“I’m really enjoying every session so far, it’s given me an opportunity to really think about how we do stuff and reflect on the fact that we actually do things really well. However there are definitely areas we need to work on more which are around getting people more involved in decision making processes”

On the back of this training, one organisation has already been successful in securing 2 funding bids – whoop whoop!

To support people to use these skills in their work post-training, we set-up an initial series of small group mentoring sessions – helping people to embed what they’ve learned into their own contexts. These peer learning spaces provided help to people and organisations as they set-up their projects, and promoted the sharing the of learning and ideas. One person noted that, the sessions have “empowered me to share best practice and give examples” and another said that the sessions were “well structured and interesting – each session built on the previous one”. There are some areas of these sessions that we’d like to improve though such as running them over a longer period of time and opening them up to more people. We will be taking these ideas forward in year three as we move the project to Greater London.

More updates on this work will follow!

For the past six week, people from across Greater Manchester have been taking part in the Changing Futures Community Reporter Training Programme.

PVM have partnered with Greater Manchester Combined Authority to deliver a series of eight workshops as part of the project. So far we have covered the core aspects of community reporting, and people have started to gather and upload stories to the Community Reporter Website. 

The end goal of the project is to gather stories of peoples lived experiences of multiple disadvantage, specifically from people whose voices are often not listened to. GMCA plans to use these voices to improve the range of support services available to communities across Greater Manchester. In the process, people will be upskilled in Community Reporting and by the end of the project will be experienced enough to conduct their own story gathering projects in their own communities.

Over the course of the first 4 sessions, participants developed a basic understanding of community reporting. They learned interview techniques, digital literacy skills and explored their understanding of ‘multiple disadvantage’ in the context of their own lives experiences. 

“Being around the team and learning – it’s good to open up“

A group member reflecting on what they’ve enjoyed in the sessions.

For the past two weeks the group have been out gathering stories in their own communities – take a look at the Community Reporter website to view some of them!

“There’s not just me going through what I am going through”

A group member reflecting on what they’ve learnt during the sessions.

For the remaining four sessions, the group will review the stories they have gathered, picking out the key themes and learning points. They will then learn how these findings can be shared more widely and used as tools for creating positive social change – hopefully putting these techniques into practice.

Stay tuned for more updates on the Changing Futures Community Reporting Project!