Community Mapping
Within the LACA learning model, the Community Mapping Challenge represents A=ANALYSE.
This method enables young people to learn about climate change; analyse their community from the point of view of sustainability, create a vision for the future and advocate for change.
The objective of this Challenge is to blend offline research, mapping, analysis & reflections in the community with an online mapping tool.
The aim is to identify local environmental and climate issues, as well as resources, key players, initiatives and potential solutions, and allow for different perspectives to be debated. Digitalising the offline versions of the situation analysis leads to an innovative, sophisticated, action- and vision-based mapping tool to reflect the existing needs of young people and youth workers in European communities.
You want to learn how to create a Community Map using Miro? Follow our tutorial.
All information, the description of workshop formats and the explanation of creating a Miro Community Map is written in the Community Mapping Toolkit (Intellectual Output No 2).
Through the Community Challenge “Community Mapping” our project partners in Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Latvia and Serbia implemented a 2-day challenge, analysing their communities, cities or regions. Analysis implied environmental and climate issues, primary and secondary research, photo safari, stakeholder interviews and the creation of the open source maps of their community.
Here are the community maps created by Community Challengers in Italy, Portugal, Croatia, Serbia, and Latvia:
Loano, Italy
Aizpute, Latvia
Croatia
Kazdanga, Latvia
Portimao, Portugal
Danube Region
Case Study: Loano, Italy
Loano is a municipality of 10.768 inhabitants situated in the western, northern coast of Italy. It’s the centre of a wide area of towns and cities that lives off tourism and experience a rise of residents in summer.
Our participants, all students in the main high school of the city, started their research by asking what the meaning of community is, and what are the upsides and the downsides in the topic of sustainability in their area.Then, they validated their assumptions and collected new data by interviewing residents.
The result is a conceptual map in which around a circle there are the best qualities of the territory and the defects produced by a bad management of ecological problems, and from which the possible consequences and solutions spread.
In the centre, there is a real map of the city and in particular, the areas to which they feel most connected: the school, the youth centre, the promenade along the beach, and also the places where the problems are concentrated or most evident are highlighted, as well as good qualities they heard about from the residents. Finally, the spaces where the Community Challengers actions were held are also present.
Case Study: Portimao, Portugal
During the local workshops, a group of high school students joined the Community Challengers project and before developing their project, creating a Community mapping was mandatory.
To start this project, the participants began by researching and collecting as much information as possible about the population living in the city, the main environmental problems already identified and which local associations were dedicated to the environment.
After collecting that information, the participants went on walks around the city of Portimão, to interview locals and identify potential environmental problems.
This mapping activity gave young people a different perspective on Portimão’s environmental problems, while also allowing them to identify resources and potential solutions.
The activities where art was used to draw attention to environmental issues were carried on tourist spots and in places where there is a high concentration of inhabitants to create the greatest possible impact.