Five Ideas from Brighton for Socially Sustainable Cities

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Brighton is known for being a progressive city, electing the UK’s first Green Party MP and installing one of the country’s best shared space developments on New Road. Brighton also hosts it’s own CityCamp each year – an ‘unconference’ which brings together “local government, businesses, community organisations and academia to reimagine the ways in which collaboration and web technologies will shape the future of [the] city.”

We’re thrilled to be CityCamp Brighton’s Media Partner this year. If you find yourself in Brighton or the surrounding area on March 22nd to 24th and are interested in cities as places for social innovation, we encourage you to come along! Tickets are free and you can register your spot here. In advance of the event, we thought we’d take a look at the top-prize winning idea from CityCamp Brighton in 2012, as well as some other interesting proposals.

Gig Buddies

Gig Buddies took home the top prize during last year’s CityCamp. The idea was for a volunteer scheme that connects people going to gigs with people with learning disabilities. In the UK, carers typically wouldn’t work any later than 9PM, making it difficult to enable those with learning disabilities to have a social life in the evenings. Gig Buddies exists to overcome that challenge:

You will be paired up with somebody with a learning disability who has similar interests to you, to attend events, explore new music together and share your passion. You don’t need to have experience of working with disabled people – but you need to be committed, a good listener, interested in promoting people’s rights and wellbeing and keen on live music!

The prize money awarded at CityCamp was used to take the idea to implementation, with Gig Buddies now employing a project manager and getting its formal launch during this year’s event. Numerous ideas are generated at each CityCamp, and many go on to become tangible initiatives. The following proposals were also recognised during last year’s event.

CommuniTOY: This proposal was for a social project which uses toy recycling as a creative activity. Young people at the Brighton Youth Centre take unwanted toys and recycle and re-engineer them into something new, learning craft skills in a creative environment, and sharing their creations online and at events.

Digital Natives After school club: Young people are often digital natives, but are they digital creatives? This idea was for an after-school club to teach children how to use the internet and computers to create and build things.

Father Friendly City: Brighton-based The Men’s Network entered this project, looking to build an online community for fathers in the city to share advice and tips, as well as provide opportunities for networking.

SpeakOut: This project proposed teaching a group of people with learning disabilities how to use film and photography for the purpose of capturing user feedback, teaching how to edit video footage effectively for an online audience.

CityCamp Brighton runs from March 22nd to 24th. Tickets are free – you can register your attendance here.

Top image via yellow book