Case Study: how we supported SNUG to increase their community engagement
Building on our research that connecting to nature can help facilitate climate action, we teamed up with SNUG, a community orchard in Crowcroft Park to help connect residents with nature.
Check out what we got up to...
So, who are SNUG?
SNUG stands for Sustainable Northmoor Urban Greening and is a project of Longsight Community Art Space in the Northmoor area of Longsight. One of SNUG’s main projects is based out of the Orchard Garden in Crowcroft Park.
What did they need our help with?
A high percentage of the community in Longsight speak Urdu, so one of SNUG’s primary barriers was in communication. We wanted to use this project to explore incorporating Urdu translation into their sessions, social media and advertising. SNUG were also keen to learn more about the wonderful world of social media to reach more of their community, so we ran a workshop to pass on our knowledge.
“I think the biggest challenges that we have faced are to do with communication, particularly for me, because I don't speak Urdu, I don't speak Bengali, I don't speak Romanian. So, engaging those different communities is a challenge.”
How did we make it happen?
SNUG ran four workshops from the Orchard themed around connecting with nature:
Photographic Sun Printing (Cyanotype Printing)
Herb Recognition and Tea Making
Nature Pattern Making (Tataki Zome)
Indoor Salad Gardens
To ensure we reached a wider percentage of the community, we translated all text used in our promotional materials. To enable residents to fully engage when they attended these sessions, Saman - who is a director at Longsight Community Art space and speaks fluent Urdu and Punjabi - attended each session as a facilitator and translator. To ensure our measurement and evaluation at the end of the project would include everyone, we also created translated surveys and Saman facilitated our interviews that were in Urdu. We also helped to design and install a multilingual welcome sign for the Orchard Garden.
To help SNUG amplify their work and reach new people, we led a social media workshop where we introduced SNUG to a handful of social media platforms - such as Instagram and Twitter - and their intended uses. We spoke to SNUG about their ideal aims when using social media and the different ways they could share content, who their target audience was and shared technical knowledge to help them use each platform. We also provided SNUG with a new logo and a suite of design templates in Canva, which they could use to create posters and social media cards as needed.
Check out the survey we used in the workshops here!
Check out one of our translated posts, and SNUG’s Instagram here!
What did we learn?
We wanted to make our surveys as accessible as possible and had planned to use an image-based survey using smiley faces at each session. However, to gain deeper insight we decided to use one translated survey at the very end of the project. If we had used image-based measurement we would have lost some of the detail within participants responses.
Another learning that might sound obvious was that having a translator present at every workshop made a huge difference! Saman was able to help other team members communicate with participants, explain activities and make people feel comfortable in the space.
“Having you here was immensely beneficial for us. Saman could communicate with us in Urdu and Punjabi while understanding our feelings, and sentiments. You have also helped us build relationships with others and express our thoughts to them.”
As well as providing translation to aid understanding, one of our primary learnings was that having trusted and representative members of the community involved in the project is essential to make everyone feel welcome.
“When people see white people in this space, they feel reluctant because they know that they won't be able to converse in their own language ... And I think it has made a big difference because, like, the first day, our engagement rates have been, like, 10 to 15 people coming in every session.”
What was the impact?
A total of 34 residents came along to the workshops
100% of people we surveyed said they would take part in other workshops delivered by SNUG
100% of people we surveyed said they would go to the Orchard to spend some time in nature
More people stayed to take part in the activities than before
“I really enjoyed the tataki zome since it was something new but also the salad gardening since by reusing the plastic I feel good I saved the environment.”
“Just so happy this space is here and to be making new local friends / neighbours. I feel more connected to the area.”
We’re supporting SNUG to continue including translation in their upcoming beginners growing course with Sow the City. Keep your eyes on their Instagram for more details!
