Event report: Community Development Day

On 30 September, Birmingham City University hosted the Minding Black Histories in War Times Community Development Day, in which academics, community researchers, and funding representatives came together for a day of discussions and presentations.

When first proposed, we presumed it would be a chance to bring black history groups together to share their experiences. Happily, over the course of the project, it became apparent that many of these connections had already been made. As a result, the focus of the day shifted to be a chance to have a sustained conversation around some of the questions and challenges about practice, public engagement, and impact, especially in terms of the design and delivery of co-produced/community-led research projects.  This was most certainly the case, as everyone who attended – whether they gave presentations or not – offered valuable contributions around themes of education, sustainability, and effective engagement.

The day’s agenda may be viewed at this link [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lVtLZACKXP2efOF-ZTIViN_QFmh5fheQ7OziLWfgMKM/edit?usp=sharing]. A Storify of tweets made during the day can be found here [https://storify.com/charloween/minding-black-histories-in-war-times-community-dev]. Discussion between presentations was interesting and passionate; the vast majority of participants were still in the room almost an hour after the event had ended, for informal chat and networking.

A key outcome of the event will be starting up a network, to be collectively administered, where community organisations can stay in touch, share resources and research, publicise events, and build more extensive connections. The optimal platform for this is yet to be decided, but it is in progress, and will be shared with participants in due course.
Miguel Jose, of the African Community Heritage Hub (the community partner on Minding Black Histories), invited four of his youth volunteers to join us at the Community Development Day. These young people are in the process of creating material for our exhibition next month; they used their technical skills to take photos and video during the day. Most gratifying, however, was that during the second workshop, which took place in the week following the Development Day, they reported that they had not been aware that so many different people were working on popularising stories of black soldiers and black histories of the First World War. These volunteers are exactly the kind of people we hope this project will reach, and their response is exactly the kind of revelation we hope to provoke.

Dr Charlotte Stevens
Research Assistant
Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research
Birmingham City University