Four of the six community groups worked with our training partners the Cobra Collective to explore the impact of their research, join us in celebrating the four participatory videos from Integrated Research and Development Centre (IRDC), Reading HongKongers, Slough Anti-Litter Society and Together as One.
The Slough Anti-Litter Society (SALS) is a collective which encourages social responsibility, collective action, and embracing sustainable practices, to create a cleaner and greener Slough. Through activities such as community litter picks, upcycling fashion events, clothes swaps, repair cafés, the group are bringing their community together, improving health, welfare, and their local environment.
SALS worked with Professor Keiichi Nakata and Dr Rosa Walling-Wefelmeyer to establish community attitudes and behaviour towards littering, through organising, listening and digital technology methods. The group developed a framework with the intention of utilising data to encourage behaviour change among locals, hold businesses to account, and subsequently apply pressure on the local council to allocate appropriate resource and funding to combat issues of concern.
You can find out more about this project and SALS’ work in their participatory film here.
Together as One is a youth-led charity in Slough which was created to help combat prejudice and violence in the town in the mid-1990s, aims to bring communities ‘together as one’ through training, youth work, and creative projects.
Through the CLRP, Together as One partnered with Professor Ciara McCabe and Postgraduate Sena Demir Kassem to investigate the positive impacts of participating in an urban beekeeping project on the wellbeing of young people. The project taught the group about the essential role that bees have in our natural environment, and they participated in the full process of beekeeping, as well as activities such as making a beeswax candle.
Rob Deeks, CEO of Together as One, commented on working with Cobra Collective, saying: “The participatory video process was an incredibly empowering experience for the young people we work with. From collaboratively shaping the script to capturing our stories on camera, it was truly inspiring to see ideas come to life. The process fostered creativity, teamwork, and a strong sense of ownership. Cobra Collective did a fantastic job of capturing the young people’s voices and experiences.”
You can view their film here.
The Integrated Research and Development Centre (IRDC) is a community organisation based in Reading which aims to address health and environmental challenges in minoritised communities in the town, including the Nepalese communities.
The IRDC, as with the other groups whose films we’re hosting here, has been a partner with University of Reading (UoR) and the British Science Association (BSA) as part of a Community-Led Research Pilot (CLRP) since 2022, in which organisers and participants co-designed and delivered their own culturally relevant and responsive research. This has been supported through evaluation from the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) and with participatory filmmaking from the Cobra Collective.
IRDC Leader Baburam Banstola, Community Researcher Krishna Neupane, with other IRDC members, worked closely with Professor Hong Yang and Dr Deepti Angra, to develop a project focused on improving gardening practices through Nepalese customs, composting management, and food waste recycling.
The IRDC shared feedback on the participatory video process: “The video captured the group’s strong voices on how they learned and earned new science-based knowledge, understanding the value of experiments contributed to creative thinking, through observations and interactions answering their questions”.
“The process fostered creativity, teamwork, built confidence, and a strong sense of ownership. Cobra Collective did a fantastic job capturing the gardeners’ voices, experiences, and learning.”
Their film, created shares the story of the project from the IRDC’s perspective, with insight into research methods, purpose, principles, and outcomes:
You can view their film here.
Reading HongKongers (CIC) was founded in 2022 to support Hong Kong nationals who have settled in the Berkshire area through the government scheme of British National (Overseas) (BNO) visa route, supporting them with a diaspora network and helping them to integrate into the local community.
The HongKongers have been supported by Dr Deepti Angra to investigate the impacts of community gardening on belonging, identity, cohesion, biodiversity and mental wellbeing. Additionally, they aimed to find out the possibility of cultivating native Hong Kong plants and crops in Reading.
Pandora Liu, Community Organiser with Reading HongKongers, commented on working with the Cobra Collective approach, saying: “Storytelling is indeed a powerful tool for revealing the deeper processes and implicit meanings that often require time to uncover. The participatory video serves as an effective medium for sharing our stories, allowing every member to express their feelings and experiences related to a project. This method not only amplified voices but also fosters a sense of community and connection among the members.”
They share the story of their organisation and this research in the film here.
If you would like to know more about the Community Led Research Pilot, get in touch at [email protected]
The approach to participatory video from the Cobra Collective is fast-paced, engaging, and beneficial for community groups in terms of both process and outcome. The communities are the owners of the narrative, the script, the collecting of footage, and the resultant Intellectual Property, as well as being active partners in the editing, crediting, approval and dissemination processes.
Several methods are employed to enable this. Cobra Collective facilitate workshops with the groups to discuss the project – including pivotal moments, challenges, and solutions/resolutions – whilst also considering how this would fit into the narrative arc of a film. After this is established, the groups develop the script in their own words and with their own key messaging, and decide what other footage can accompany the narration or interviews.
The groups then shoot the footage themselves, using equipment supplied by the Cobra Collective, having had technical video training focused on certain shots and framing which could be incorporated to complement the other content of the film.
The technical training involved helps to enable future community-led filmmaking projects, and the ownership of narrative is particularly vital if communities are to share their aims and experiences of research engagements in an open and honest way.
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