here in Brussels we are trying to keep our brains melting in the heatwave.
Our @kajafarszky goes on maternity leave in September and we were discussing what will happen before then. So I figured it’s a good opportunity to share what is happening in case anyone wants to get involved. As always, you can dive in by leaving a comment below with ideas, letting us know if you want to be involved etc.
The events in POPREBEL:@Noemi and I discussed setting up the exchange program. We figured a good way to do this is to reach out to and partnering with coworking spaces to organise local events in the countries we have decided to focus on as a first step. The topics that were preferred by our community managers connect well with some of the topics touched on during the coworking event: Provision for childcare, family/work-life balance, coliving and coworking spaces adapting to local needs offering valuable services (for which we have follow up editorialised content from the documentation coming soon).
Poland:
work & employment + family/work-life-balance,
reproductive rights (e.g. abortions, contraception, etc.)
Czechia
health and social care and
the housing issues
Serbia (t.b.c)
Activities in NGI: Here it makes sense to pick up on the solarpunk and role of tech for/within context of deep green transition topics, Open Source Software.
We also have the topics/discussions we have had that are relevant to an international audience, and for which it would be good to run follow up activities (perhaps also within the POPREBEL exchange program: food businesses, remote/new work post covid, coworking sector, digital services & infrastructure, the future of work and life in the context of the green transition.
New covid reality adaptation projects We are continuing/going further in our activities to engage people already in the community into meaningful covid community responses. We have several projects which realy could help people if we can channel enough energy/get them off the ground.
3.a Policymaking: Alternative Regional Development. We want to engage policymakers to engage with citizens in exploring alternative local economic development models to facilitate thriving communities/ enable the green transition. We are doing a series of events that we will now start heavily promoting. Upcoming:
3.b Project and Business development: OCI LAB Our P2P business incubation program lead by @zmorda has been running since the autumn and the first batch of graduates will be announced soon There are several overlaps in terms of thematics with the NGI topics and , but we need to think of different activities that are more focused on building/hacking/business development.
Outreach to our broader networks: We have our mailing list, but we also have our social media followers etc. And we now have both the forms technology and a regular newsletter. For people who don’t have accounts e.g facebook or Twitter followers, it is a nice and easy onboarding to account creation and posting. For people with accounts it allows them to just sign in and then post to a specific topic or category through the form. This means that we could invite people to e.g a survey that serves a double function of engaging them into some activity. Using Edgeryders Forms
In progress , Khouloud is working on the post with the insights that we are gathering from the project leaders here is the stucture may be you want to add some sections :
Brief description of OCI Lab, the curriculum of the incubator, the link to the different documentation of the labs ( that already exists on the platform)
The mentors ( link to their profile on the platform)
The project leaders selected and the finalists ( link to their profile on the platform)
The updates of the finalist projects
a Testimony of some project leaders regarding the experience
I think also a section with your own thoughts on what the Oci. Lab’s key contributions are and what we should focus on moving forward ( copie-collier de nos conversations sur fb)
Hei! thanks, some thoughts about the call for participation for POPREBEL (we need a public call and offers anyway if we are to contract services):
the partners are invited to join as event organisers - with an opportunity to create new conversations around topics of interest in their local community… what else?? to be articulated in the invitation.
the participants at events are invited to join as expert contributors on a topic they care about or on which they are organising an initiative for change. As a result of the event, they will connect with resources and support from the local cowork space (a sounding board; maybe a desk?), and from abroad (an exchange program with peers from Brussels/ Stockholm/ Timisoara and other Reef partners… -travel & board covered by ER, as part of the community journalism program?; a desk in the Reef / Blivande spaces for 1 week)
we should consider having the call in En as well as the other languages, but specify that the events can be entirely local, in the local language. or not, maybe they should be in English for more easily accessible documentation and follow up
what is the budget per event:
a. for partners and co-organisers in the focus countries - to cover some work time
b. Edgeryders covered tasks: international outreach, community management, online platform support…?
timeline:
partnership building: September
buildup to the events and online conversation: until end of October
online sessions: end of Oct/Nov
exchange program: 2021. due to covid19 it’s unlikely people are eager to travel or host this year.
Many thanks for this thread – it brings me hope that the Polish community will be revived. @Wojt and I are working on coding the existing material these days and there is a lot of promise there.
I have three concerns and would like us all to reflect on them:
Since in POPREBEL we need to be able to compare the country conversations, it is important that we try to keep the topics the same, as much as possible. So, I worry about this idea: Poland: work & employment + family/work-life-balance, reproductive rights (e.g. abortions, contraception, etc.) while Czechia: health and social care and the housing issues
1.1. Why would we have this “division of labor”?
1.2. Besides, I see a lot of mentions of both issues “assigned” to Czechia in the Polish conversation.
It is imperative that we have these conversations, as much as possible, in “native” languages. I see the point of having also a general conversation in English, but it should be subsidiary. There is no ethnography without “natives” using their own language.
Point (2) is also related to the goal of building a cross-national conversation cum network. Again, it is something I support as a great tool for getting people together to try to solve their problems, but this objective needs to be counter-balanced by a more ethnographic goal of trying to understand people on their own terms. And most importantly perhaps, many people we want to engage and hear from do not speak English.
On the tech side, we just finished a series of improvements to the Open Ethnographer software.
The other main task on the tech side is now to finish the rework (or even complete rewrite) of the Graphryder software in 2021. This is also the last tech-related deliverable for the current H2020 projects.
Otherwise I’m planning for quite some tidy-up and documentation starting in October, to arrive at an IT environment that won’t need my constant attention in order to function.
Yes, it seems legit. Maybe, instead, let’s try to find some topics that are relevant to the project, pop up on some forums but are not very popular on others. I will try to have a look at our shared codebook and find such areas and get back to you.
Yes! If we make the event just for English speaking people it will cripple our representativeness even more. I can do some translating afterwards.
That’s a very good point, yet I see some value in comparing if/how different ethnic backgrounds may result in finding different solutions to some of the shared problems these cultures are facing. That’s ethnographic work for sure.
Ok, I’m no community manager, rather new to the project and we’re not even halfway through with coding the contents of the Polish forum, but if I may suggest something:
I’d put some intentional focus on the changes that the Covid pandemic brought in these areas, these issues will probably emerge spontaneously, so just in case.
I’d broaden this to sexual discrimination, considering the recent LGBT protests here. We already have quite a few posts on LGBT from last year, but the topic is and probably will remain quite vocal for the next few months.
I would also appreciate topics such as work-life-balance and sexual rights for the Czech community. We have only a few contributions that rise the issues of sexuality, gender, and the connected rights. The question is probably: who (and where) will be recruited for such contributions.
@Richard@Jan@amelia@Jirka_Kocian
Yeah, I tried to reboot some conversations on sexuality, gender and connected rights and struggles on the Polish forum some 7 day ago. There was no reply until this day.
Maybe it’s too early to draw any conclusions, there may be many reasons for that (people may still be on holiday, on quarantine with no internet access, fighting mutated zombie populists, etc.) but at this time I have little hope that revisiting old threads will yield any substantial results. This pertains to the Polish community, I don’t know what the situation is like with you guys.
I very strongly support sexuality/gender and related rights being a key theme. This can be framed as an issue of ‘the family’ but it needs to go beyond work/life balance to issues such as changes to traditional gender roles, the role of the family in the community/nation and perceived threats to the latter, if we are to generate discussions that are relevant to populism.
Hi @Wojt I can confirm. I had tried the same earlier this year and those who contributed stories last year are not coming back it seems. Some of them are middle aged people living outside of major cities, so not the usual Edgeryders demographics.
I believe the new conversations and event will have to engage new people, as per our strategy to reach out to more motivated, English speaking people (even though the conversation will happen in Polish).
As a last resort we can also send everyone in the Wellbeing PL the calls for participation using this method. But we need to make sure there is a key hook or rewarding experience that is promised in the calls.
@nadia and @noemi Please send me a link for the meeting. After talking to @Richard and @Wojt I composed a list of issues to discuss today. I apologize this is so late, but a school year has already started here and I have been teaching.
Here is the list:
POPREBEL
(reflections for the September 3, 2020 meeting)
JK
What are our goals? Divergence and complementarity between “UCL” and EDGE:
“UCL” goals:
2.1. Detailed, textured picture of people’s lives as a background for their political choices
2.2. Comparative frame: different countries have different cultures (hypothesis). Ergo it is not advisable to have separate topics. Besides, the housing issues, for example, are prominent in the Polish conversation as well.
2.3. Native languages (ethnography)
2.4. Rising issues: LGBT – we need them.
Edge’s goal: (in general): “organizing an initiative for change.” BUT, in the grant agreement we have only one “substantial” deliverable, D2.7., whose description reads as follows: “Report: an ethnography of European populism [34]A report on populism in Europe from the voices of a cross-section of citizens, researchers and other relevant stakeholders.”
Practicalities:
4.1. Need to reactivate community in Poland
4.1.1. Is there a way to activate dead threads/conversations?
4.2. Resources:
4.2.1. 6k for Polish community manager (Noemi?)
Questions:
5.1. What is the “exchange program”? What is its goal?
