Launch of our Talk Kit Website

If you navigated from the Inclusion London home page to here, then you would have seen something slightly different. We have included a linked image to our brand new Talk Kit website. Last year Inclusion London worked in collaboration with Catalyst, CAST, Ability Net and On Our Radar (OOR) to create Talk Kits. It was a resource library designed to ‘help organisations listen to and learn from the communities they support.’ It was a way of creating talkative communities, allowing local people to tell their own stories in their own way. Several Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) were part of this initial research phase working with the technology and gauging engagement. One such DDPO that worked on this was Camden Disability Action (CDA), the work that they did during the research phase resulted in CDA working with On Our Radar on developing and running a community journalism website of their own. Camden Disabled Voices (CDV) is a space dedicate to ‘community insights from disabled Camden residents.’

 

We received a wonderful message from Colin Brummage, CDA’s CEO, who sent a member of staff onto the previous round of community journalism work: “Inclusion London pulled a master stroke running that training and introducing On Our Radar.”

Colin continued to say, “[On Our Radar] have utterly transformed our organisation in terms of tech skills and journalism. This community reporting is going to be a game changer for how we identify disabling barriers and build a movement to bring change in Camden. I would recommend all DPOs to work with them.”

Owing to this fantastic relationship that CDA and OOR had developed, CDA went on to fundraise to embed community journalism as an approach at their organisation. Colin added that, “It’s going to capture all of those injustices that play out every day. You just want to keep following the stories. We have trained 5 more journalists today and the hotlines go live tomorrow so anyone can contribute. The critical success factor has been Tom who came back from the Inclusion London training just buzzing.”

The process has highlighted the power and possibilities that lay within community journalism, especially for those in DDPOs and adjacent sectors. Through the fast paced ‘sprints’ nature of the project it was helpful in highlighting how things can happen quite quickly and because of the size of DDPOs they can adapt and be more agile in their approach. These organisations are small enough that they can work at pace, rather than being stifled by bureaucratic processes, allowing greater levels of fluidity.

Our friends at ‘X by X Bromley’ were able to gather a wealth of information on their ‘Day of Community Conversation’. Capturing the voices, frustrations, and experiences of Disabled people in Bromley using a number of different methods, providing more accessible options for people to share their stories. Several quotes that were shared during this day of conversation will be transformed into moving graphics by a professional animator in this co-produced piece.

Throughout the journey of this project, participating and engaged DDPOs were provided with captioned video modules about how to approach community journalism, how to incentivise and how to go about reporting on the stories most important to them. This became not only a training course in community reporting, but rather, leadership. Enabling the DDPOs with the knowledge and equipment to go forth and do the work themselves as CDA have been able to do.

 

It has been a pleasure learning from our digital partners and participating DDPOs. It uniquely illustrates that while this training was created with Deaf and Disabled people in mind, it has positive and far-reaching implications for those outside our sector and even outside the United Kingdom. The relatively low costs needed to start your own community journalism means putting the power of sharing stories back in the hands of those that experienced it themselves.

Please make use of this amazing resource and share widely with those that you think would also benefit from learning more about community journalism.

You can see a video describing the Talk Kit project below: