Accessibility Tools

Organise a neighbourhood walk

Cultural Assets


Author: COP

Introduction

Walk (photo by Tobi via Pexels)
Walk (photo by Tobi via Pexels)

It’s proved that cultural heritage, both material and immaterial can be a propeller of sustainable development, regeneration and economic growth in communities. Cultural heritage doesn’t necessarily need to be found on display in a museum only. We come across all sorts of cultural expressions and cultural assets from the moment we wake up in the morning, until bedtime. 

Asset mapping is a community building tool used in asset-based community development approach. It was designed to be used, especially, by community members, conceived to highlight local strengths, (cultural) expressions and (cultural) resources, and acknowledge them as assets for further collective wellbeing exploitation.

What’s the activity?

A neighbourhood street (Photo by Maria Orlova via Pexels)
A neighbourhood street (Photo by Maria Orlova via Pexels)

Imagine the following scenario: the neighbourhood where you live is declining day by day, and is less and less vibrant. Public spaces are more and more empty, young people has moved to bigger cities, the disinvestment from local authorities and, more recently, the restrictions enforcement over the pandemic period have led locally based shops, businesses and cultural amenities to close, such as the cinema, the art gallery, the club of theatre, the coffee shop where people from different cultures and origins would meet and share their stories, the room in the corner where old ladies would meet and teach how to weave.

Upon this scenario, what can you do about it? What shrouded cultural gems remain to be explored, promoted and used for the sake of community?

The first step is to learn about participatory cultural asset mapping and gather some neighbours, friends, family members or acquaintances to start changing your own reality.

What am I going to do?

  1. Initial Framing

Before rushing into the field intervention, watch the following video to frame your action. 

a) Start with “Asset Mapping”. It might look a daunting task, but actually it’s easier than you think. Watch the short video intitled “Asset Mapping: what is it?” under the “What do I need?” heading for a general and easy to understand illustration.

b) Check what the expression “cultural assets” may encompass, by downloading the file named “Cultural Assets” on the “What do I need?” section.

 

2. Checking the process

a) Meet up with some neighbours, family members or friends and follow this process. It’s important to get a committed team together. 

b) Beyond identifying strengths and talents in your community, define a specific purpose for your asset mapping. You’re not sure about what strengths and talents are? Check the Quest “Get your vision tested”. You can use asset mapping as a process to address a particular issue of your concern. Perhaps the collective goal is to come up with some sources of economic revenue and boost local pride, by setting up a thematic walking tour for tourists? If you don’t have a clue about what the purpose may be, brainstorm about it after taking the first neighbourhood walk. You might call it “exploratory walk”. In the next walk, having in mind the purpose, make a list of criteria or assets that participants should have as reference. Adapt it as needed according to your local reality.  See an example of cultural assets list on the “What do I need?” section.  

c) Before taking the walk, agree on community boundaries to limit it and make this activity easier. May they be natural or artificial, socioeconomical, defined by sorts of activities or even feelings (no-go feelings, for example.). You may want to explore more about the boundaries of a neighbourhood. If so, visit the link “Divisions of a Neighbourhood'' under the “What do I need?” heading);

d) Identify and involve relevant stakeholders (other residents and city staff, if possible).

e) Organise and schedule a neighbourhood walk. Identify a timeslot when as many people as possible are available, you may get around the neighbourhood and run into residents that may be open for a chat or may have some regular local activities taking place.

f) Get the word out. Invite your community!

g) Take a walk together, take photos of the assets you come across.

h) Have a device to take notes at hand (e.g., mobile phone). Take notes of assets and ideas that may spring to mind. 

i) To make this activity funnier and memorable…leave uplifting signs of hope by writing or chalk drawing in the streets or you may want to make a photo album out of it, so all participants can have souvenirs about it in the future.

j) Afterwards, print a map or do it online, gather all the participants and map the assets with different colours. Each colour corresponds to a specific category. For instance: yellow for storytellers.

 

3. Promoting the assets

a) Imagine that you have identified a strong group of local storytellers or passionate people about certain topics, maybe you could put together thematic walking tours (free or charged), where they would be the guides or simply welcome the tour in a special place of interest. To see how to organise this sort of activity, please check the link “Talk the Walk (walking tour)”.

What will I learn?

Knowledge Acquired:

  • The importance of cultural asset mapping;
  • Meaning of cultural asset and the range of cultural assets;
  • Steps to undertake asset mapping;

Skills Acquired:

  • Organise a local asset mapping in my community;
  • Uncover local cultural assets;
  • Promote and showcase community assets to residents, visitors and general citizens;
  • Awareness;
  • Mediation;

Attitude Acquired:

  • Nurture a positive outlook over my community circumstances and strengths;
  • Take pride over the local culture and assets of my community;
  • Take agency to attract more activity to my community.

 

What will I take home?

With this quest, you’ll gain some seed thinking ideas to easily map assets in your community and turn a commonplace activity, such as walking, into something refreshing and purposeful. 

 We hope you’ll be mindful that people are the best assets and source of information and that there are lots of assets you weren’t aware of. Also, the best prepared the activity is and the more accessible, experiential and fun you turn the walks into, the more participants you’ll have and the better result you’ll get. 

You’ll know your community better, random encounters that will pop up, definitely will help you understand what sort of activities are taking place in your neighbourhood (maybe you could overhear a neighbour singing at his place ⟢) and who lives around.  Most importantly, you will build relationships and kick-off an interesting initiative or… maybe tradition, who knows?

 

Resources

Click each section below to see all resources available.

 

Frontline Worker Toolkit

Aims and Objectives:

  • Learn how to deliver or teach an asset mapping activity step by step through neighbourhood walks;
  • Facilitate tips and ideas to regenerate an area or neighbourhood, through a cultural asset-based perspective;

Top tips:

  1. Asset mapping neighbourhood walks may take place as many times as necessary at different points in time of the initiative. They may be used to explore the area and understand the physical boundaries and assets of the neighbourhood with the initial group of people - exploratory neighbourhood walks - or later on with all community members and have their insights about the neighbourhood assets. 
  2. You may experiment with the participants this activity, setting up all together this event, so all participants feel more motivated to learn from this experience and willing to replicate it. Breakout the group of participants into small groups and split tasks. 
  3. You may use “neighbourhood walks” primarily as a tool for asset mapping and community building, to get familiar with the neighbourhood and neighbours even though you are living there for a long time. You may want to use it as a routine to become more active and significantly improve your health also or to use this activity as family time and make it more fun and interesting for children. For this purpose, see the articles suggested, by visiting the website listed.  
  4. You might want to adapt the Cultural Assets list, by providing examples from your community. This will keep it real and make it easier for participants to understand what cultural assets are. Please bear in mind that by taking this option you may narrow their thinking, prevent them from being creative and find out untapped assets.
  5. If the participants haven’t completed the quest “Get your Vision Tested” by the time you deliver this activity, perhaps you could advise them to take it first, in order to be introduced to Asset-Based Community Development. Afterwards, this quest will be a lot easier. You may complete the Quest 1 in group.

Suggestions to make the walks less boring for children
https://activeparents.ca/5-ways-to-make-neighbourhood-walks-less-boring/

 

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