Our Journey
A quick look at everything we've achieved since embarking on our Parklife journey here at Fordham Park.
1
We split into three groups - the art group, the creative writing group and the litter picking group. We made a video of a hedgehog going through the woods and the forest using a 360 camera, we made a cottage poem and we painted artwork bringing to life what it could look like.
Creative Research
2
Delegates from our local council joined together to listen to our manifesto. This included changes that needed to take place to impact safety, litter and engagement of the youth in our local park. The session started with the Parklife team presenting our creative research, which was followed by a Q&A session and a pledge writing activity, which were then followed up with. This helped us connect with the local community and bring change.
Advocacy Day
3
Following up on pledges from the council
The pledges were created from our short term and long term goals which were safety, litter and engaging young people. We collaborated, worked together and communicated by emailing the pledges back out to those who had attend the advocacy day to remind them about what they said they would do.
4
Meeting the mayor of Lewisham
Meeting the mayor of Lewisham was an important step that we have taken in order to achieve some changes in the park. During the meeting we used a shortened script from advocacy day in order to further advocate for our worries. We used the video to persuade and got some neutral response. They explained that the council doesn’t have enough resources to implement all of these changes, however we got to the point of agreement about a possible water fountain.
5
Building the water fountain
We prepared for the meeting with snacks and all of our creative work, and then the Lewisham Council came to school - we introduced ourselves and the project, explained how we want to change the park using our creative work. We asked them questions, and they took note, they said ‘no’ to a few, and discussed other points. We asked for the fountain and they built it.
6
Lewisham People’s Day
We went to Lewisham People’s Day to celebrate the work that we had created and spread awareness about park life. This helped our confidence to stand up for our park and show others the significance of what we had done.
7
We went to visit the local NHS workers to the park and discussed the flower garden that had been mentioned before in our meetings with Sarah Lang. The flower garden is being predicted to create
Meeting the NHS
8
Interviewing the police about park
We were asking a lot of questions like how often does crime happen in the park, also we discussed the perception versus the reality of the park. We were discussing the statistics on how often crime happens and also the security of the park.
9
Major school survey about safety
We conducted a major school survey to determine the areas that cause the most fear. We discovered that the underpass caused the most feelings of lack of safety. We used this data to create our quiz.
10
Create an interactive quiz
The interactive quiz was first supposed to be made to raise awareness about our local green space. It was made as a Netflix film in order to engage as many as possible and make them realise the difference between perception and reality. However, later on we used it in our own climate conference in order to explain to the participants that were attending that although this relates to every park, it is better to check the reality rather than base our lives around possibilities.
11
Climate conference
We started practising how to project our voices, we used what we’d already been doing to encourage other schools, and made a stand and a powerpoint to show how we’d changed the park - and then we added a quiz to stop them getting bored.
12
World Book Night
We collected together our best poems about Parklife, and then practised performing them to each other in a safe and kind way. We got in contact with the people who ran the local library and asked to present our poems to them and the local community. We were quite nervous when we presented the poems, but everyone was very appreciative. The local people asked us lots of questions about the project, and we were able to answer them very fully. It was a good experience to feel their interest and curiosity. They invited us back to do more events. It was a great connection to make.
As you can see, we've had a great time bringing our very own Parklife Project to life...
...but everyone's journey is different! You'll have opportunities to plan and execute different types of events, and conduct different types of creative research depending on what your park needs. Ready to find out more?
