Co-design | Viva Community Design

A group of volunteers and staff from CN4C start to plan an event - to be held over three days but to have longer lasting consequences across both Cornwall and beyond. It's time for changes to be put into place and an increased societal awareness to be reached. This is based on our work in the community hubs in Redruth and St. Austell and what we hear from those coming into these hubs day in and day out.

A small group took a good practice trip to London including a visit to Bromley-by-Bow Centre. While we did a bit of touristing we also noticed how different it is from Cornwall - even down to rubbish collections. We met with some local change makers / community supporters at BBB centre. Lots more planning and talking to come!

A small group is invited to Bedruthan Steps Hotel for the preliminary Homes for Cornwall conference. This is a newly set up group aiming to procure more social housing in Cornwall and encourage landlords to increase their tenancies to social beneficiaries. We spent the afternoon speaking truth to power among some big names in the housing world down here.

Business planning day at CN4C.

A conference is held by CN4C in Newquay with invited guests from other partner organisations as well as doctors, councillors and other professionals. This was held to further explore the six areas of interest both in small groups and across the conference as a whole. On day one and three the community investigators worked together to design questions and scaling walks (hot link to scaling walks introduction / explanation) for the invited guests to be involved with on day two. Video testimonies from a variety of people, both from the community and stakeholders, were also gathered. Word testimonies were also made using represented voices for those who needed this extra security. Community designers were gathered from the local community of CN4C and others who work with the community around us. Invited guests included CN4C trustees, local councillors, Dr’s, other community investors such the CHAOS group and the Marine Network

The Co-design group goes to the Homes for Cornwall conference at Hall for Cornwall. This is a follow on, very publicised event to continue the work and momentum from the smaller conference at Bedruthan Steps. Jas and Rose give a speech to all attending - see 'If you don't have a safe home' poem.

Redruth Press visits us at the Elms CN4C hub and we work as a group to design a banner for the group. Each person is tasked with making a paper cut out of something that the group means to them, we were then able to screen print the paper design onto the banner and colour it using fabric paints. Lots of white rabbits appeared!

St Erme Reconnection Tour. A small group of co-designers go to St Erme for the day to take part in the Reconnection Tour event. We have a stall there, there are talks and lots of connections are forged.

VCSF event at Atlantic Newquay small group presented scaling walks.

NHS ICH at Newquay Atlantic. As part of the new NHS integrated care hubs Rose and Jasmine spent some time at the inaugural event both giving a speech/ poem reading and taking part in some workshops with those there. (you think we're all mad poem hot link here).

We were joined at co-design today by Kath the fire chief and Rachel from the Council care team. They were interested to hear our views on the future and generally very impressed by the spoken word poetry collection we have.

A group of co designers went to lovely Heathercombe on Dartmoor for a residential for some days. We did lots of work on the project, ate brilliant food, admired the landscape and wrote more poems.

On the 14th- 16th of November we went on a residential to Bedruthan Hotel to start writing a script for our pantomime, Shrek the reality check. Keep an eye out for upcoming details. We also had a dinner with some amazing guests who we look forward to working with in the future.

December 14th we presented some of there poetry from the book down the rabbit hole in county hall in Truro. This was the official launch of the book and we enjoyed hearing about how people related to there poems.

VIVA was invited to speak at the Challenge Poverty Event in Newquay where VIVA presented there poem pip gives me the pip. VIVA had a great time networking with new, old and future partners to help bring about change.

Three members of VIVA went to Plymouth university to observe the technological advances being made and what the impact could be for VIVA to get our voice listened to by a wider audience.

VIVA attended the ICB AGM where we were asked to preform our poem Don't Tell Me and give out copies of Healthy Times. We had a great time connecting with members of the NHS and look forward to working together more in the future.

Two members of VIVA attended an Air Quality Citizen Science Co-Design session to learn more about the current climate and what could be done both to help and prevent.

This session provided us with a more in-depth look at the current climate of the CPR area and what research opportunities there are for people to help with making a difference.

VIVA attended Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Civic Universities Agreement Research and knowledge Exchange Workshop in Penryn to develop an understanding of current research studies and developments to research going on with a connection to the university.

Teacher Writing a Formula on a Blackboard

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