Mapping Ynys Môn with Children and Young People
Professor Flora Samuel, University of Cambridge
Whilst community engagement in urban areas may be a neglected area of research, the situation for research on community engagement in rural and ‘left behind’ areas – let alone ones where Welsh is widely spoken - is even worse. Even less systematic research has gone into the study of community consultation with children and young people. This is becoming increasingly important in Wales where young people can now vote at the age of 16.
Developing tools to undertake inclusive community engagement in planning is a key objective of the Public Map Platform - a £4.6 million research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the Future Observatory in the Design Museum and led by Cambridge University in partnership with Cardiff, Wrexham and Bangor Universities [https://publicmap.org/en].
The case study for the project is Ynys Môn in North Wales where, over the summer of 2024, the project team experimented with the development of inclusive engagement techniques across four Lle Llais/Voice Place festivals of mapping with children and young people, attracting some 1200 participants to four different sites across this spectacular UNESCO Geopark island. The Rural Roaming Room, a version of an ‘urban room’, consisting of five ‘looms’ of differing sizes, designed with the help of children from the island by Invisible Studio and Pearce+, was transported to each site, forming the focus of our activities. As the looms travelled around the island, they grew a skin of stories, found objects and drawings of favourite places.
The focus of the Lle Llais experiential journey was to encourage participants to go on a journey through the senses and to record their observations about their environment in digital maps with the help of our team of community mappers, some of whom are young people themselves.
We have yet to analyse data collected from the sites, but we have already learnt a great deal in the process of honing the design of the Lle Llais experience across the different sites. We have found that in the context of Ynys Môn:
- Engagement is more successful with school parties than with drop-in visitors. Children are more focused when they in school mode and they bounce ideas and enthusiasm off one another.
- The only way to get teenagers and young adults involved in engagement is by putting them in the driving seat, either providing thought-provoking entertainment as in the case of a local choir or employment as facilitators for the mapping activity. Opportunities for work experience, paid or unpaid are rare on the island and young people need opportunities to build life experience and CVs.
- The inclusion of creative practitioners – bards – in animating the events was vital in attracting participants to engage and in encouraging them to think more deeply about their places.
- It is vital to give a great deal of thought to making engagement inclusive. This includes the making of inclusion plans that enable people with different kinds of challenges to plan their visit. Creating a comfortable space, apart from the main activities, with attractive colours, bean bags and fidget toys acted as an invitation that everyone was welcome in the space.
- Undertaking engagement in places of great natural beauty is uplifting and enjoyable for all.
We suspect, though we have yet to analyse our data, that for Welsh speakers, operating in Welsh results in a stronger sense of connection to the environment than when operating in English. These are just some of the fascinating findings that are emerging from the project.