26 October 2006
I travelled to KWMC where I met with Chris Pickering, Director of Future Learning, a social enterprise providing training opportunities in Knowle West. Chris told me about his involvement with Knowle West Web and how he has worked closely with Kevin and Diane Jeffries to support them in putting local people on line.
Chris talked about Knowle West and said that the day has gone when you could get local people to go into spaces for training. He told me that he thinks that local people want less consultation and more action. He said that, instead of trying to get people to attend training sessions, the emphasis needs to be on going into people’s homes to work with them.
Chris told me that he has recently obtained funding from UKonline for someone to go around door-to-door to do training in internet and email and also to help people work out how they can use digital technology to ends that are useful to them. He said that Steve Woods of Bristol Wireless has been doing this to a certain extent already.
Chris said that there is a big proportion of the local community that is technologically disadvantaged and that this also means there is great potential in terms of the impact door-to-door work with the community could have, and the extent to which it could be beneficial to that community.
Chris suggested that one of the challenges was about bringing together people from communities that are, and those that are not, technologically disadvantaged, without being patronising. Chris added that the idea scenario is to support local people to be involved in such processes themselves, but that the challenge here was in finding people who are enthusiastic enough to do so.
Chris told me that he thought it was really important that Bristol’s Digital Challenge bid includes what already exists and what has already been done. He cited Knowle West Web as an example, saying that it would be far better to work with Knowle West Web rather than attempt to bring in new businesses to replace them.
Chris then explained a bit more about Bristol Wireless, telling me that basically Bristol Wireless was a group of highly skilled technical people who can build and maintain networks. However, he underlined that it is important that people realise and understand the philosophy of that network as being about enabling local communities to support themselves and use the internet as a community communication tool.
Chris then explained the history and funding background to Knowle West Web, and how the rationale for the funding from, for example, Vivaldi, had been about widening access to the internet. He talked about the internet shopping at Somerfield scheme which Stewart at the Mede had also told me about. He also told me about Don Jenkins, who had worked at the Park and had run courses about recycling computers with funding from the Local Learning and Skills Council. The courses were long accredited courses aimed at people who were excluded. This work also led to the current Knowle West Web project remit, as the kit from this project is what is now used there, and it was through one of these courses that volunteers such as Kevin became involved.
Chris then said that he thought it was sometimes hard to work in Knowle West unless you are known, or known to be known. He said that he thought this might be to do with how fixed the local community is, in comparison to areas with more transient populations, such as in BS2. He told me that he thinks there is a system in Knowle West of family based governance, which also is significant.
Chris told me that he is therefore interested in how he can work with the local community to develop a small skill base, as with KWW, and then for local people involved to share their skills with other local people.
Chris said that he thought there were issues with spaces like The Park, in that they don’t always seem to be very welcoming. He talked about the tall fence that is around the perimeter and saying ‘Keep Out!’. He also talked about how the changing emphasis at the Park can lead to confusion, for example, it was once more focussed on adult education, but now seems to be more focussed on work with excluded young people. He said it appears to be becoming more like the old school that it was and there is a need for it to be joined up with the other organisations that are based there and elsewhere in the local community. He talked about the increases in rent at The Park for organisations like KWW, and how perhaps The Park was too young as an organisation to have a clear strategy about why such organisations as KWW might be an important asset to the wider aims of The Park.
Chris then talked about the Knowle West Web site and how all the systems are there for it to be a cooperative space. He said that anyone can contribute to it due to the functions and features that are built into it, as it uses open source software.
Chris then explained to me something of his own experiences and told me that he had first learnt to use the web to build social networks, through using it to plan family camping holidays. Through this use he realised the potential of it. He said that it would be useful to find other similarly practical and useful ways in which local people might chose to use the web, so that such activities could be the basis of extending skills. He went on to say that many people, through necessity are interested primarily in opportunities to learn skills that have an obvious and direct link to making money.
Chris said that his main interest was in the wireless network and that he wants to make sure that there is sufficient consultation between those who build it and the community that will use it. He said that it is important that access to such a network is free or else people will be excluded from using it.
Connecting Bristol is the city’s response to the Digital Challenge.
