Let It Grow: Social media as a tool for grassroots democracy and community building

by: Georgi Stankov

"A small group of thoughtful people 
could change the world.
 Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." 
 Margaret Mead

In The Garden Association we encourage small groups to use social media for communication and advertisement of their ideas to a broader audience. The new media can be the voice of the voiceless, the tribune of the ordinary people.

In our vision the new media approach is a very powerful tool for democracy, activism and education. For this reason we develop this blog in order to show how blogs can be used by organizations and informal groups.

In a world where the traditional media is restricted by corporate interests, political and economical dependence, censorship, auto-censorship, and so on, blogs and social networks are like a freedom flow that cannot be stopped. 

Let me prove this by giving you examples of two off- and online communities, using social media. The first one is a small group of residents of a small London street. The second one is a community with whose development I am directly involved.

Case study 1: Make South Vale Safe 

The initiators for the campaign explained the situation in this way: 

"South Vale is a residential street in Crystal Palace, London SE19, in the Borough of Croydon. It's a narrow street and traffic speeds down, often driving with two wheels on the pavement. Many young children live here, and to try to prevent a very possible tragedy, we are campaigning to make the road (and pavements) safe." 

The locals were concerned about the danger every morning when they took their children to school, walking on the narrow pavement area of the street, while cars and trucks quickly drive on it. So the people from South Vale started their fight for a safer street environment for their children. In the beginning of 2008 they made a campaign blog! 

Via their blog, the residents of South Vale could exchange information, reach many visitors and keep chronicle of their activities. Its content abounds in personal stories like this. 

The blog traces the numerous meetings and hard negotiations of the activists from "Make South Vale Safe" with representatives from the local Croydon Council and other decision-makers. Sometimes they were fruitless, but the activists did not surrender. In the meanwhile a lovely dog died on the street.

The people from South Vale received support from Home Zones - an international team working for more homelike and pedestrian-friendly residential areas, - and from London Play. With the organizational and financial help of London Play, the people of South Vale made Street play project. 

The project was the campaign's peak. For a first time the Croydon Council agreed the road could close for part of the day. More than 100 children and parents participated in this event.

The residents of South Vale proved that children must be at the heart of the urban environment, not in the periphery. 

Photos from the Street play: 

Case study 2: Chernichevo

In 2007 I created my first blog, called Chernichevo. It might sound immodest, but I will emphasize that this was the first local history blog in Bulgaria. The blog explores the history, the cultural heritage, the landmarks, and the current life of a small Eastern-Rhodope village. Its unique content made it a valuable source of information. With time the blog become a category which inspired several more similar blogs. 

In two years many people wrote to me and I had established contacts with scholars from the Bulgarian Academy of Science, students, and many people from the diaspora. For many visitors this blog became a link to their past, ancestors, and origin. The next logical step was to create a Facebook group, which united all these people and gave them opportunities to share and communicate. So I did it in May 2009.

Gradually the online community started work offline. 

The local people from Chernichevo and those from the diaspora, living in the near municipality center Krumovgrad, decided to restore the  village Community center! And they managed to do this on the 20th of March 2010. I know it is a small step, but I am so proud of them! This is the grassroots democracy, this is the community building I wish to see everywhere! 

I am very pleased that the people from Chernichevo and its diaspora feel the blog and the FB group as their own. I remember one of them shared a link to a blog post and noted "Welcome to our blog!" This expression of "our" makes me believe we found the way! We are hundreds of dispersed people who share a sense of common identity.  

In fact, I do not have a strategy how to develop the community further. I am learning - a community builder in the making. I have some ideas, so... to be continued! 

The revival of the Community center in Chernichevo:

Note: The burning of juniper's fire in March is an ancient local tradition which aims to exorcise the winter and the evil forces.

* * *
Bonus:
Performance of women's amateur group from Chernichevo, recorded during the traditional village fair in 2011:

From the archives: anti-traffic campaign from 2004

by: Georgi Stankov

It was the spring of 2004, and I was the campaign organizer of the project "Regional campaign for human traffic prevention, towns of Haskovo and Dimitrovgrad" of Maxima Foundation - Haskovo.

Introducing cyclists to the route

This project was part from Care International Bulgaria's project "Traffic prevention from, to and through Bulgaria", financed by Vienna municipality. 

Project's aim was to make the local youths aware about the human traffic. I had planned and organized an informational and preventive campaign. One of the hits in the project activities was a bicycle race in Haskovo.

The winners

The competitors had to travel several kilometers in the rough terrain of the hill Yamacha.

The boy with the black sweatshirt finished at 1st place. His name is Lyubomir. 

Behind him is the participant with second best result - Veselin. 

I do not remember the name of the third guy. 

A special prize for the youngest participants

On the photo in left are the wonderful twins Ralitza and Pavel Ilievi from Haskovo. At the time of the race they were 12-years old.

Young, but experienced and well equipped, they won everyone's respect. 

- - -

A friend of mine scanned these photos from my archive. Thank you, Tamara!

* * * * * 

Impressive Dutch video clip about human trafficis!

Interview with Conor

Last month we were lucky to have Conor Holton-Burke teach SAT math to students applying to US colleges soon. Most of my friends and relatives were really surprised and wondered why he would do that while on vacation, so I decided to interview Conor. Enjoy:

Lydia: How did you come up with the idea to do volunteer work while in Bulgaria?

Conor: When I initially decided to visit Bulgaria, I hadn't fully considered what I was going to do with my time. I knew I wanted to play a lot of tennis, but one cannot play tennis all day long. When I eventually thought about making my time in Bulgaria worthwhile, volunteering was honestly the first thing that came to mind, but I needed to find something that suited my skill set. My good friend Nasko (Atanas Atanasov) recommended that I could help Bulgarian students prepare for the SAT given my extensive standardized testing experience, so he put me in contact with you!

Lydia: Volunteering seems to be a hallmark of US culture. Why do people in USA volunteer? What do they do?

Conor: It is absolutely true that most students in the US spend a fair portion of their week volunteering. Though some volunteer purely out of the goodness of their hearts, most American students volunteer primarily because it serves their best interest. Students use their volunteer work to bolster their college, internship, grand, fellowship, and job applications; it has gotten to the point that any application would appear barren without at least some mention of volunteer work. Additionally, students are often taught from a young age that it is our duty to give back by volunteering as a way of giving thanks to the lives of privelege we were lucky enough to be born into. In my expereince as the philanthropy chair of my fraternity, I witnessed students volunteering in all kinds of ways: we organized a food drive, cleaned up a highway, restored a stream on several occasions, helped build a house in conjunction with habitat for humanity, helped pick up trash in our town center, etc. One of the most common ways for US students to volunteer, however, is by teaching. Many of my friends are just now entering yearlong English Teaching Assistantships in various countries or returning from summerlong Teach For America programs.

Lydia: Do you plan to do more volunteer work back in the US or in some other country?

Conor: I absolutely plan to volunteer back here in the US. This next year, I will be working at my former school (Whitman College), as I apply for medical schools. I'm hoping to work with the same organizations I worked with while I was philanthropy chair of my fraternity (doing the same sorts of activities I mentioned in my previous answer). If I'm lucky enough to become a doctor, I hope to spend a majority of my working life volunteering in places where doctors are most sorely needed, but that's a long ways off.