In the third week of March 2020, our Job Shadowing was supposed to take place in Birmingham. It had a special importance for us because we were to be able to see in practice what the community connector work is like, which we are inspired by when we improve our good practices to give mediation in Łódź a new dimension in terms of creating neighbourhoods and building an active community.
We wanted to accompany Sam - Birmingham ULG coordiantor and community connector - in his fieldwork, to learn about his ways of working with the community and to find out what his recipe is for building social capacity in the chosen urban area. It was also important to know how the community cooperates with the City Hall, so that their voice is actually heard, as in the case of the Master Plan for the surrounding reservoir. The date of our departure was planned in such a way that we could participate in the opening of a place created by Sam and his organisation, where the residents of the area could meet and share their various experiences, services or skills: EAT - MAKE - PLAY. We wanted to see how such a place works in practice, because as part of the revitalisation of the centre of Łódź we will create local activity centres which we would like to become a place for exchanging knowledge and experiences between generations.
Unfortunately, COVID stands in the way of our plans. The world has closed. Flights were stopped. And life moved behind closed house doors. A municipal volunteer service was launched in Łódź to support seniors and other people who are particularly vulnerable to the severe course of the infection. In Birmingham, the place that Sam was creating has become a food distribution point for people who, because of Covid, lost their jobs and were left without a livelihood. However, in all this multitude of unexpected events, we have managed to arrange an hour and meet where most of the activities have moved, in virtual space.
The meeting with Sam was attended by four people from Łódź: Marta Ignaczak - a member of our ULG, one of the creators of the model of mediators (Social Lighthouse Keepers and Area Hosts), who is responsible for improving good practice in our team, Natalia Rydlewska - a member of ULG, communication offcer of our network, who together with Marta is involved in the implementation of new solutions in the Lodz reality, Rafał Lewonowski - a member of ULG, one of the mediators testing new solutions and competences in cooperation with the local community in a selected part of the city and Anna Baklińska - a member of ULG, who will participate in creating Local Activity Centres in Łódź.
Before the start of the meeting, together with other ULG members who were unable to attend, we prepared a set of questions to Sam, which were intended to provide us with solutions that would allow us to move forward with improving and testing the new roles of mediators. Not all of them were ultimately asked directly, but all of them were answered, as this was due to the course of the conversation.
During our online meeting, we talked about what Sam's working day was like before the pandemic started, including, above all, in terms of cooperation with the local community. Sam explained the project of Master Plan around the reservoir and the role he played in the community's own concept of how to use this space, which was finally deposited in the City Hall. He told us also how he motivated people to act and maintained their interest in the subject. We also talked about his cooperation with the City Council and whether this affected how he was perceived by the local community. We also wondered together how the concept of a mediator whose role is held by the local leader and not by an employed staff member could be applied to Łódź.
We dedicated a part of the meeting to learning about the concept of EAT - MAKE - PLAY and the "shop" based on this idea. - a place for local activities. The principles of its functioning are based on sharing economy. Sam plans to make it the so-called third place for the local community. He has spent the last few months creating this place both from a physical perspective (renovation of the place) and preparing the residents to the principles of its functioning, which allowed building a community involved in the project.
This conversation definitely opened our minds to new ideas and solutions, which, after appropriate processing and adaptation, we will be able to use both in the work of the local community organiser (the new function of a mediator created within the framework of improving good practice) and at the moment of developing models of functioning of local activity centres.
We realise that this is only a small part of what we could experience during Job Shadowing. All of us who took part in this meeting are of the opinion that nothing can replace contact with another person, experiencing emotions, getting to know people and meeting them in their natural environment.
