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Ballymun Partnership and the SOLAS Development centre, with funding from the Ballymun Anti-poverty Network, have launched this action based piece of research into community participation in Ballymun. 10 local women from Ballymun were trained as researchers to carry out this piece of work, entitled
Is Anybody Listening?. (This work and the process involved in it build on other pieces of work previously completed in the Partnership, particularly, "Community Participation in Local Development Structures", completed in 2005 - see Downloads Section)
The Partnership partnered with the Solas Development Centre to carry out this piece of work. Solas Development Centre is a community education centre based in a flat in Balcurris. It offers support and education for women from Ballymun in a supportive and casual environment.
The work was commissioned in late 2005 by the Community Development Working Group of the Partnership with support from the Ballymun Anti-Poverty Network to train up 10 local women as researchers. The focus of the research was to find out about the nature and the level of community participation in Ballymun at the moment. This work was put out to tender and a researcher was appointed to oversee the research training, the research process itself and compilation of the findings into a document.
Is Anybody Listening? was the title of this campaign. The ten women completed the research and the findings and subsequent recommendations are included in this document. 472 questionnaires were completed by local people. During the course of the research, a video booth was set up in the shopping centre where 52 interviews were conducted with residents of Ballymun. A selection of these are to be found on the accompanying DVD.
The women who completed this research have been involved in this process as it has evolved. They were involved in deciding how to disseminate the information and the nature of the launch. While conducting the questionnaire, many residents expressed that they would like to find out what happened to their answers. In response to this, it emerged as a priority to be as inclusive as possible during the dissemination of any findings from the research.
- It was agreed that a launch would be held to share the findings of this research.
- It should be held in the Shopping Centre as one of the few places in Ballymun that the whole community are comfortable in.
- This launch should not be a meaningless event but should have a purpose, and to meet this aim, groups operating in Ballymun would be invited to host a stand to share with the community the services they provide.
- It was agreed to share the views of the individuals from the video booth and some summary statistics from the findings with the whole of Ballymun by delivering a DVD to every home in the community.
- Every home in the community received an invitation inviting them to the open day and launch in the Ballymun Shopping Centre.
- 100 Posters were posted up around the community advertising the event.
- The ten researchers delivered all this material into homes and were involved in posting up posters. This gave them the opportunity discuss the background to the work with residents.
This work and the process involved in it build on other pieces of work previously completed in the Partnership, particularly, "Community Participation in Local Development Structures", completed in 2005.
For Ballymun Partnership, this is the start of a process of working in partnership with other organisations and agencies, and the Solas Development Centre to attempt to find ways for people from Ballymun to participate more in their community at levels which suit them, and to build the capacity of an existing vibrant and active community in Ballymun.
During the coming months, the working group will be working to develop and build on the work of the SOLAS Development Centre to do more work of this nature.
We will be communicating directly with members of the Ballymun community about how they can get involved in their community and influence decision makers.
We will be encouraging the management structures of other local development  agencies to implement the recommendations arising from workshops with their own community representatives.
We will be looking to support individuals who are in roles where they represent the Ballymun Community.
We will be holding a formal evaluation of the process in September to inform our future work and also support our submission to the Task Force on Active Citizenship.
We welcome any feedback on this process you would like to give. Please contact mairin@ballymun.org if you have comments you would like to make or require any further information.
The Is Anybody Listening report is available in the Downloads Section of this site or by clicking here.
Note: The document is in Portable Document Format (.pdf) and requires Adobe Acrobat® Reader®. If you do not have Acrobat® Reader®, click on the button to download it from the Adobe web site.
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