Listen and Expand
The community launch event invited all users (residents, workers, visitors) of greenspace in Dublin 8 to engage in a one-day workshop at Inchicore Community College, located in the heart of the study area.
This Pathways to Greening event included an arts workshop for families and children focusing on their favourite trees in Dublin 8 and an open mapping workshop using participatory techniques to enable individuals and groups to map the greening strengths, opportunities and deficits in the area.
Participants also engaged in a ‘lunch dialogue’ where structured facilitated conversation was held during a communal lunch. These workshops created an opportunity to map out desires for, and expectations of a community greening strategy, how this could be achieved, at what scale and who needed to be involved.
The maps produced during the workshop were posted on social media to elicit further responses from those unable to attend the event. This online survey was open from March 2020-November 2020 and garnered 170 responses. The questions posed were the same as those examined during the workshop:
- what works well in terms of greening in the area (greening strengths)?
- what has potential (greening opportunities)?
- what is not working so well (greening deficits)?
Nine community maps (viewable in the slideshow below) are the product of collaborative engagement by more than 80 participants. Individual responses during the workshop and in the online survey were collated and synthesised by the research team. These recommendations are an important output and are collectively owned by the community. By sharing them we can build a picture of how and where green infrastructure in the area works and what can be improved.
Mapping Green Dublin 