Sweden
the district of Västra Hisingen in Gothenburg
12-02-2016
2016-02-12 - 2017-12-17
16-12-2017
12th.
The applicant is the district of Västra Hisingen in Gothenburg, Sweden. Västra Hisingen is divided into two very different areas; Biskopsgården and Torslanda. This work has been done in Biskopsgården, which is a multicultural strong and socioeconomic weak area. In the last few years, there have been many shootings in the area, some of them with a deadly end. The trust in the society among the people is low. Safety has become the most important question among the inhabitants. This work – "Life without violence"- started with the goal that every child should have a good start in life.
Community empowerment.
"Life without violence" is a citizen dialogue about complex issues, with a focus on making it possible for children to grow up in a society without violence. The methodology we have used has been developed in cooperation with and support from SALAR (Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions).
"Life without violence" focus on the small children's possibilities to live a life without violence. Violence is a complex issue in the society and the method uses community engagement and dialogue to mobilize the citizens to be a part of the solution. The aim of the practice is to engage people that usually don´t get listened to, to increase trust among them and to decrease violence in a long-term perspective. The aim has been to listen in "360 degrees" to different perspectives of the question "What is important changes needed to be made so that children can grow up in Biskopsgården and live a life free of violence?". Parents from two preschools were interviewed. They all got the question who else we needed to talk to that had an important perspective to add, and we were sent to politicians, managers, ex-criminals, shop owners, teachers and civil servants. All together 80 interviews were done.
Later they all got invited to five dialogues where the work was to find viable suggestions that could make a change. About 60 people attended each meeting. All together over 120 people took part in the process. Seven suggestions were in the end of the process handed over to the counselors and the director of the district of Västra Hisingen. All of the ideas are now being completed, many of them in cooperation with the citizens.
The interviews were mobilizing for the rest of the work. When we trust in people and share responsibility, people get empowered. To make sure that the participants suggestions are realistic, and to strengthen their legitimacy, it is important for both policy makers and officials to be engaged too. It´s necessary to find solutions together with people that are concerned. When professionals, politicians and citizens meet and have dialogues at the "same level" it´s a good experience for everyone involved.
This is an innovative method and approach that helps us to have citizen dialogues about complex issues in the society that we need to talk about together and the importance of listening in "360 degrees" to understand the complexity of the issue. The use of interviews as a method to reach other groups of people than we usually do. The relation that was build up during the interviews was mobilizing and made it easier for people to join later in the process. We also used pre-interviews with keypersons in the community so that they would give their "approval" of the work. In this way they could let others take place in the dialogue instead.
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