Voting opens on 25 ideas for community projects with Derry’s St Columbs Reconciliation Trust

Voting has opened on dozens of community projects and people can cast five votes for their favourite projects, all of which have a connection to St Columb’s Park.

A partnership with Garvagh People’s Forest and Rural Community Network and funded by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, the new initiative encourages civic innovation and partnership in the care for and management of shared spaces.

‘Commoning’ is a creative and innovative approach to civic participation, it provides opportunities for the community to come together to have their say but also to act and become directly involved in the care and protection of ‘common spaces’.

Sharon Doherty, manager from St Columbs Park Reconciliation Trust said the vision is “that the rights of citizens to help in the management and care of shared natural resources are explored and recognized by central and local government”.

Sharon said ‘Commoning’ is not a new concept and has existed for centuries in other parts of the world, particularly in indigenous communities where land, forestry and fishing resources are managed sustainably by local communities, as well as in large cities where ‘commoning projects’ have been developed to manage community spaces and provide common services and goods.

The Commons has three distinct elements: A resource or asset usually an open or natural asset that people use, visit or enjoy and in some cases exploit; The community, the people who use it, who live in it or off it and who can either wear it or take steps to sustain it; The relationship between these two, the people and the asset/resource.

St Columbs Park Reconciliation Trust and their partners have designed a project that enables local communities to take some small steps towards sharing the responsibility of managing and maintaining shared spaces, their ‘commons’. To enable this to happen, the Commoning Possibilities partners have included a Participatory Budgetting aspect.

Grainne O’Neill, the project officer at St Columbs Park House, said “Participatory Budgeting can be described as local people deciding how to allocate part of a public budget, it is a way for citizens to have a direct say on how public funds can be used to address local needs’ This is a really exciting opportunity for us to hear from our communities about ideas they have to address some issues that they as a community face. We put out an open call for ‘project ideas’ to our local community of Park Users asking them to submit a bid for an idea that would benefit both the community and their shared spaces. Although we have a small budget of £15,000, shared between St Columbs Park House and Garvagh People’s Forest, we are delighted to say that we have received in excess of 75 bids in total.”

IDEAS

Grainne said that the three key criteria for submitting a bid was that they were safe, legal and viable and that there was a connection with St Columbs Park. “There are some amazing ideas that range from the Praxis group becoming Climate Ambassadors in the Park, Oakgrove PS who want to create a forest school area in their grounds, to a 15-year-old young person who wants to use artwork to highlight environmental issues within the park and many, many more.

“You can view all the bid ideas on www.commoningpossibilitiesderry.co.uk and of course remember to cast your 5 votes when you’re there.”

The Participatory budgeting process provides a budget of up to £500 per project bid but the decision to fund doesn’t lie with St Columbs Park House, Grainne explained, but with the community. The project will host a community vote event, where all idea creators will present their idea and the community will have the opportunity to vote. The bids with the most votes will be awarded funding to help their projects happen.

Voting is now open through until tomorrow (Saturday) and you can see all of the ideas on St Columbs Park House Facebook page in the lead up to the event.

The winners will be announced on Monday December 20.