Words by Sally Churchward. Image by: Taiko Bennett
Placemaking is a practice that builds good quality, restorative, equitable places for all of us to live, work and play in.
The Young Placemakers mentorship programme is a Southampton National Park initiative, delivered as part of the YouCAN partnership and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.
The programme is designed to inspire, upskill and resource the city’s emerging community leaders to become agents of change in their own neighbourhoods.
One such young person is Megan Parker.
Megan has a history of activism. Last year, while still at university, she launched an online and social media project to highlight sexual violence in public spaces in Southampton.
She gathered testimony from victims and survivors of sexual violence in public and combined their words with images of places in the city where assaults had taken place. Amongst other things, she went on to create postcards with the images on one side and words on the other as part of an exhibition for the London College of Communication, where she studied photojournalism.
She also organised a rally for women’s street safety in Southampton last year.
Although Megan had been very proactive, working alone on these projects limited her reach and impact. She was excited to get involved in the Young Placemakers programme as a way of levering greater and swifter change.
She took access to green spaces as the starting point of her project – focusing on the safety aspects of accessibility.
“With Young Placemakers, I wanted to make green spaces accessible for everybody – from my perspective as a young woman who commuted through a lot of the green spaces in the city every day, it was important for me to feel that people could actually use them,” she says.
“I love the idea of doing the spaces up and doing things for the environment but I wanted to make them accessible to everyone from that perspective too.
“I was coming from an accessibility point of view – making it so that people can access those spaces, learn about them, learn about the impact of the environment because it’s made safe for them.
“I also felt it was important to think about educating people on how to stay safe in public spaces, especially for young people. The SNPC team were really enthusiastic about that and that really appealed to me.”
Megan has a timeframe in which to complete her YP project and a budget of £1,000, not to pay for her time, which she gives voluntarily and in abundance, but to cover the costs of the resources she wants to create.
There are two main strands to Mega’s project. One is to create signs to go up on the Common and in the city’s parks, including information such as where the nearest police station and bus stop are, and how to exit the area quickly. The other is to produce a comprehensive guide to a huge range of reporting and support services.
“It will be a really comprehensive resource of loads of places where you can get support around sexual violence, racial discrimination, domestic abuse, mental health and so on. It will include things like how to report a hate crime, how to access sign language or an interpreter, information about Ask for Angela and Ask for Annie, signposting different personal safety apps like Hollie Guard.” she explains.
“It’s coming from a feminist standpoint but it is completely inclusive of everyone – and to be clear, when I talk about women, of course that includes trans women.
“The campaign is focused on societal conditions and systemic conditions around sexual harassment and violence in public spaces. It’s inclusive of all communities and doesn’t single out any demographic. It’s not about blaming any community or demographic.
“The aim is to make these places feel safer and to help young people feel empowered to use them.”
“As well as functioning as a practical resource, it’s also a way of celebrating and spotlighting the work these organisations do to help people and to know there are so many people out there looking after you. Not fearmongering but empowering, to say ‘I know where we can get this help’”.
Megan works full time and the YP mentorship support has meant she has had a representative at council meetings to put her voice forward even when she can’t attend in person. One of the initiatives this has led to is Southampton Park Rangers receiving Active Bystander Training from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.
“My mentor attends meetings for me when I can’t and helps me network and make connections,” says Megan. “She’s been really helpful in helping me to access the council and people I need to speak to.
“People have been really proactive with listening to what I have to say, which is amazing. When I was trying to do something before I joined the YP programme, I found it was really hard to be heard and seen. Through the campaign, I’ve come in contact with so many survivors and victims of SA in public places. They’ll say to me the things they want done and the things they want changed, but no one is listening to them, so it’s really great to get those people heard as well.
“It’s quite a large issue and it’s important to be able to bring a spotlight to that issue.”
Megan hopes that ultimately her work with the YP project will help more people feel safe and empowered to use green public spaces in the city and to contribute to those places actually being safer.
“My project is inclusive of every community, because every community deserves to feel safe in these spaces,” says Megan.
“I want to use this campaign to shift the focus on what women can do in these spaces. It’s not about ‘ not wear this or do this’. It’s celebrating the community work that’s being done to tackle the issue instead of putting the blame on women.
“I really hope it means young people will feel a bit more empowered to get out there and use the public spaces.”
- Reproduced with permission of Southampton National Park City. For more information about Southampton National Park City, visit southamptonnpc.com
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