Short description The aim of community mapping is to create a feeling of positive ownership of a space to citizens. The community mapping is often a starting point to discuss what is worth preserving, what might be changed and what is missing in a neighbourhood and leads to an engaging discussion on change (might be by architecture, social, legal etc.). The community mapping we did in BerlinWedding is part of a bigger programme to help the local citizens to strengthen ownership, create action plans to identify better and overall to make the area safer, cleaner and more attractive. Our organisation is working on this in the frame of our participatory programs. The project is for an experiment in modern participatory approaches but as some of our staff is living in the area it is an attempt to help to develop our community. The first step of the map me happy approach is to make public events in the community with a real map of the area and collect places connected to positive emotion in the
community. As public even the target group are literally all citizens, never mind age, gender or nationality. The participants learn about other perspectives on the public space they inhabitate, they learn about ownership of public spaces and how to prevail or increase the wellbeing in their surroundings. The practice ultimately increases the capabilities to create action plans, articulate thoughts and contributing to decisions making. The narrative developed is highlighting, especially in deprived areas, the positive perspectives of what is around people. They will map places which smell, listen, or feel good, places where they get inspiration and positive thoughts. The people will create counter narratives, to the mainstream ones, often describe those areas a dirty, unsafe, and unliveable, which are often transported thought media. Beside providing outsiders with new perspectives, the narratives is also aimed on building a community, when people realise, they are not the only ones liking the area (or at least some parts).
23
