Over the last three years, the People’s Voice Media team have been working on the CoSIE H2020 project. This piece of applied research has been exploring how public services across Europe and across different sectors can be co-created. There were pilot projects in Poland, Estonia, Spain, Hungary, The Netherlands, Italy, the UK, Sweden and Finland that ranged from setting-up entrepreneur hubs to enhancing personalisation in probation services and much more. As part of this work, we’ve been using Community Reporting and lived experience more generally to support the design, implementation and on-going evaluation of the pilots.

Following CoSIE’s nine pilot projects, the intention was to test out this learning in a test site in Athens. The Greek test site activities aim to use co-creation to enhance the engagement of individuals and families with low incomes, or who are unemployed, in a local allotment programme in Agios Dimitrios, a suburb of Athens. The gardens, launched in 2011, were designed to provide food for families/people involved, whilst at the same time enhancing environmental values, and reintroducing contact with nature in the city.

Over the last couple of months – and in-line with local restrictions -Community Reporting has been used within the community gardens to gain insight into the programme, spark dialogue between stakeholders, and allow reflection on the various different aspects of the programme. This has been delivered by our colleagues at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, who we first worked alongside as part of the INNOSI H2020 project a few years ago. Around 10 families have participated so far despite the difficulties the team have experienced due to COVID-19.

The stories they have told explore topics such as the benefits of growing their own produced and the ‘spirit’ of the allotment. The insights in the stories will be used to firstly drive the project forward and secondly look for key evaluation points and impact indicates.

We’ll be releasing the findings from these stories soon… so watch this space!