Fostering a More Resilient Savannah A Practical ‘How To’ Guide for Building Community Resilience
Humans of Savannah-Chatham The “Humans of -” movement began in New York and from there spread to different cities across the world. As an effort to connect individuals from various communities of the Savannah-Chatham area the Humans of Savannah-Chatham initiative showcases stories of residents who may otherwise go unnoticed. The idea is to break out of the common misconception that “Savannah” is limited only to the downtown area with our team interviewing people from Downtown Savannah to Daffin Park. Using dedicated social media platforms, a photograph and quotes from each interview are posted for all to see and appreciate.
Create a list of questions to ask people.
Pick a location and watch people to understand the setting. When you feel comfortable, respectfully approach a group or couple.
Tell them about Humans of Savannah and ask if they’d like to participate. Make sure it is okay to take and post their photos.
Have a conversation with and photograph the group or couple.
Post quotes or excerpts with the photos.
“Her guilty pleasure is helping people. If she doesn’t see someone to help, she’ll go find someone to help. She used to take in my friends if they didn’t have a place to stay. If she sees someone who needs help, that is her thing.”
“I eat a lot of burgers. To be honest half my diet is probably hamburgers...”
“My guilty pleasure? Eating lots of junk food.”
“Tracy is a very helpful person and if the world is ending he would helping out people because he is a very nice person” says Cynthia; while Tracy said that “Cynthia would be on his side”
“We spend so much time together taking care of our granddaughters that we basically don’t have any secrets.”
What worked: Taking time to scope out settings and understand how to approach people. Being conscious of people’s time and comfort zones. We recommend understanding the location well before barging in and hunting for stories. Know your audience and know your place.
What didn’t work: Sometimes our timing was off and people were busy with their days or just not around. If people were focused on their own activities they were not interested in engaging outside questioning.
Ideas for the Future
Humans of Savannah is a great approach to increase empathy among Savannah-Chatham residents because it utilizes multiple digital platforms to project stories across the area. Anyone with the passwords can carry on Humans of Savannah-Chatham. The first post 896 people within 48 hours. We would ideally like to see an organization in the SavannahChatham area continue the project. Facebook posts can be scheduled ahead of time, so in reality, stories collected in one day can be scheduled out over a future period without having to perform interviews too frequently.
Where to find Humans of Savannah-Chatham Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ HumansofSavannahChatham/ Instagram: @HumansofSavannah_Chatham Email: HumansofSavannahChatham@ gmail.com
The People’s Tour
The purpose of the People’s Tour is to draw people out of their own neighborhood bubbles to other areas of the community. The tour is led by one or more passionate neighborhood residents who guide a group through their neighborhood while sharing stories about the history of the area and their personal stories and experiences. The tour allows people to see neighborhoods in a way that they’d never be able to see otherwise — through the eyes of the people who live there. The goals of the tour are to form a “people’s history” of the community, to spark human interaction, and to build relationships and empathy throughout the community that will ultimately make the community more resilient.
Identify community leader(s) you'd like to act as tour guides and indentify what group of people you'd like to attend the tour.
Contact tour guide(s) to make sure they’re on board and brainstorm with them about tour stops.
Invite everyone that you’d like to attend the tour.
Execute the tour, modified as you see fit.
Follow-up with the tour guide and tour attendants to thank them for their time and to get their feedback about the event.
What worked Our tour guide was someone who had lived in the community for quite some time, therefore he knew everyone in the neighborhood and had a large database of knowledge to pull information.
What didn’t work The event takes a fair amount of time to plan and advertise. Because we only had 1 week to put together the prototype of the event, our participants consisted mostly of SCAD students because they were able to adjust to a last-minute schedule.
Ideas for the Future We imagine this to be a regular (monthly or a few times a year) tour, where people from every neighborhood sign up to give a free tour of their neighborhood to other Savannahians. The tour would focus on a different neighborhood every month. It would be advertised around the city in neighborhood association meetings, coffee shops, Monday Means Community, at the farmer’s market, etc. The tour guides would tell the tour attendants about their neighborhood’s history, its people, and their personal community stories all from their front porches, or while walking around the neighborhood with the attendants. If the tour guides feel comfortable, they could even open their homes to the tour attendants to enjoy refreshments and chat with each other. If Emergent Savannah were to manage these tours, the tours could be thought of as an extension of their Monday Means Community series, with each tour focusing on a certain topic or theme. Or, the tour itself could become the topic for the next Monday Means Community meeting at the Sentient Bean. Over time with the information gathered from the tours, Emergent Savannah could build a ‘database’ of sorts, forming a ‘People’s History of Savannah.’ This database could eventually serve as an open source for ideas and inspiration for other neighborhoods, communities, or cities. We also imagine that in addition to these tour modifications, a couple physical materials could be factored in to enrich the experience.
The first of which would be a written ‘manual’ for the tour guides with recommendations on how to host the tour. The manual would prompt the guide to think about the unique history of their neighborhood, what they think is special about their community, etc. The manual could also include cards for the facilitator that act as conversation starters, warm-up questions, and wrap-up questions. The second of which would be a take-away for tour attendants, which could be a map that highlights local businesses, initiatives, and organizations in Savannah with information about how to get more involved in their community. Lastly, in order to provide incentives for community leaders to conduct the tours, they should be recognized publicly as “community heroes” either in Monday Means Community meetings, in a local newspaper, or in any of the platforms used to advertise the next upcoming tour.
Friend-O-Matic The Friend-O-Matic is intended to provide an inviting and safe space for strangers to build connections around Savannah. Two chairs separated by a sheet of fabric act as the stage for random people to sit and have a conversation. We provided a range of personal questions for strangers to ask each other. By participating in the Friend-O-Matic, citizens of Savannah can talk about themselves to build confidants around town in order to be more empathetic when more complicated issues arise.
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Materials A: 3/4” x 36” PVC (8 pc) B. 3/4” x 24” PVC (6 pc) C: 3/4” tee PVC (4 pc) D: 3/4” coupling PVC (4 pc) E: 3/4” 90o elbow PVC (4 pc) F: 24” x 80in Fabric panels (3) G: 51/2” x 41/4” Question cards H: Kitchen chairs (2)
PVC pipes and connectors can be found at local hardware stores and painted silver.
Fabric for panels made out of donated flat bed sheets. Middle panel has a small pocket on either side for the question cards
Two chairs found at goodwill and repainted in bright colors.
What worked: The 36 questions were perfect conversation starters. Most people eventually began asking their own questions. The bright colors of the panels and chairs played a big role in attracting people. Creating a barrier between the two participants helped alleviate self consciousness when talking about personal subjects. Intended for strangers, but worked for a couple to create a stronger relationship.
What didn’t work: We didn’t stop people from meeting each other before sitting down. A stronger connection was made by participants that talked without knowing what the other looked like.
Ideas for the Future
The Friend-O-Matic creates a space for people to open up to each other in a non intimidating setting. This environment is created by the bright colors and the familiar chairs. We chose this form, but it could be replicated in different ways with the same environment in mind. One way something similar was done in the past is SoulPancake’s “Take a Seat; Make a Friend,” pictured to the right. In the future, the Friend-O-Matic can be used to create connections between young and old; community leaders and citizens; students and teachers; or members of an organization. We found that members of the community are apathetic because they don’t know each other. People feel connected through social media, but don’t continue that connection away from screens.
Take a seat; Make a friend
We envision Friend-O-Matic being utilized as a community building activity at events like Emergent Savannah’s Monday Means Community, First Friday Art March, and any of the numerous festivals set up in Forsyth or Daffin Park.
and high schools around town. It can show young adults that they have more in common than they think. If they can create strong friendships at an early age, they might grow up and participate as citizens of Savannah with more empathy and trust in one another. Sitting teachers and students in the Friend-O-Matic can help elevate the respect each has for the other. One example of something simlar being used in grade schools is the “Buddy Bench” (pictured above.) When one student is feeling lonely or left out, they sit on the bench, making their feelings known to the other students. Other students see the student sitting alone on the bench and respond by asking them to play.
More formal and controlled uses of the Friend-O-Matic could include setting it up at a city meeting to use as an ice breaker. Policy makers would be given a set of specific questions to ask their constituents, in order to create more transparency to build trust. When used in a controlled environment, some sort of commitment made at the end could show that the policy maker is devoted to his district. In order to build a better Savannah, the Friend-O-Matic could be set up in middle
Buddy Bench
Community Board The Community Board is a public digital information hub project on public walls. Its purpose is activating the community and keeping citizens informed about local issues, people and organizations in the community, and opinions of other citizens. The transparency of information will build empathy and create a more resilient city between citizens. It can align the goals of the community by promoting and sharing common goals and worries. Citizens can learn from each other by sharing their thoughts to be displayed in a public setting.
Pick a local topic and research organizations and people working on the selected topic.
Extract the key information and update the Information located in the Illustrator Files.
Open Adobe After Effects File and the information will be uploaded automatically. Adjust details on the video and export video in Quicktime and H264 format.
Find an outdoors place that is dark enough to project the video on the wall. Set up the projector and laptop.
Project and empower the community!
What worked: The animation, big titles, and bright colors of the video projected on a wall at night made the information more visible for people walking around the block. The Facebook event and the electronic music event held next door, brought people to the scene.
What didn’t work: Textured walls and small text makes readability difficult. Not having a livefeed section reduced the people’s engagement with the board and didn’t allow them to share their thoughts. The selection of the topic, space, and information displayed was not relevant to the younger audience.
Ideas for the Future The Community Board is a new and free platform to share and bring information to the citizens in a fresh and interactive way. In the future there can be various Community Boards around the city projecting information at the same time, therefore, covering the city with information. The interactivity could be expanded to permanent digital boards with activities where locals can learn about changes or events in Savannah. Empathy is a big part of the Community Board. It allows citizens to express themselves by sharing their thoughts and displaying them live in a public platform. This can start conversation to align the city vision. The Community Board can become an on-line platform (website) were citizens and organizations can share their information and thoughts about a local issues and topics, answer other’s comments, and propose topics for the Community Board. This on-line platform will become the information hub for all the data displayed. The live-feed comments can be easily incorporated by setting up an original hashtag such as #sagathoughts and by using some platforms that provide “social walls.” Usable platforms that are already on the market include seenspire.com, walls.io, and tagboard.com. The Community Board and on-line platform can become a common place for organizations to stay connected and display their work to encourage people to take action and become part of these organizations that are changing the city. In a long term vision, the Community Board can hold an event based on the information displayed. This event can
Langkawi Magikal Festival
Paris information Panel for valentines day
include conferences and projections of locals. It also has the opportunity to form partnerships with local events such as farmers’ market and local music events to target a more diverse group people. The project is a great opportunity to integrate the four concepts of the project, and some other projects that are already happening in Savannah. We observed that during our first projection that if you set up the Friend-O-Matic next to the billboard, people waiting for the activity, will be able to have fun, get informed, and share their thoughts while watching the Community Board. Humans of Savannah-Chatham, can be displayed in the Community Board and share the stories of different people telling their stories about the main topic selected. With The People’s tour, it can be a great opportunity to promote the event, and at the same time, show the story about the leader who will be guiding the people.