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Written by Paul Slatter
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Jun 08, 2007 at 10:47 AM |
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Resident University started when residents from The Hague in Holland and Balsall Heath in Birmingham, England met. Both groups were leading campaigns to deal with gangs and drug-dealers, prostitutes and pimps in their neighbourhoods. They realised they had much in common. They formed an alliance called Residents for Regeneration (R4R). Their aim: to support the largely unrecognised experts in making neighbourhoods better places to live... the people that live there! | In The Hague and in Birmingham, residents found that it was no use just relying on the authorities to sort things out. Local people had to take a lead or nothing would have got much better. Residents, they said, should be treated as potential experts in neighbourhood renewal and neighbourhood management. R4R grew as resident groups in other countries joined. From Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy and other cities in England and Holland, residents had the same experience. Whilst city authorities across Europe seem to have run out of ideas, residents are making sustainable regeneration happen in many diverse neighbourhoods.
R4R held its first European Resident University, in Holland in 2004. The aim: ‘to let people living in neighbourhoods learn from each other and to let professionals hear what they have to say.’ The second R4R Resident University met in Birmingham for three days in September last year.
Groups in Birmingham have decided to make the Resident University an ongoing programme. The city's Chamberlain Forum is organising a series of seminars, study trips and other activities aimed at sharing and developing the know-how of neighbours in the city. |  At the Resident University in Birmingham in 2006 |
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Last Updated ( Oct 28, 2007 at 04:12 PM )
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Resident University 
