We’ve been trying something new at Bridges. Popping up on high streets and town centres in Bristol to talk to people about community life and the issues that are impacting them. Here our Managing Director, Stephen Frost, describes why we’ve been doing this and what we’ve learned.
“What’s all this then?”, “What are you selling?” and “What are you up to?” are all phrases I’ve come to love over the last few weeks. They mean that someone has noticed a flipchart stand, with a handwritten ‘What do you think?’ at the top, has landed on their high street and is curious enough about why to get into a conversation with a stranger about it. Once they’ve taken that first step many then stay for over 20 minutes sharing their views on their community, democracy and the issues that impact them.
For this work, Bridges has adapted a street engagement approach developed by Common Ground in Devon. The flipchart stand includes a series of questions that we ask people to vote on, including:
- Do you feel like you belong in your neighbourhood?
- Do people from different backgrounds get along well?
- Do new arrivals feel welcome?
- Does your voice matter in shaping the local area?
- How important is a strong community?
These prompts provide a starting point for the conversation, which is then guided by curious questions. We are aiming to understand why someone thinks a certain thing and explore what led them to reach a particular view. This deep listening can make people feel safe, heard and open to considering different perspectives. Importantly, it also means you can learn a lot about people and communities in a short space of time.
“…deep listening can make people feel safe, heard and open to considering different perspectives.“
Doing this in Avonmouth, Bedminster, Broadmead and Filwood, we’ve now spoken to more than 70 people from a wide range of backgrounds — from teenager to care worker, bus driver to pharmacist, and locals with long roots in a neighbourhood to relative newcomers. It has been, on the whole, a pleasure to listen to different perspectives and life experiences. Across all of these conversations there has been agreement on the value of a strong community and the need for more opportunities for proper conversations that allow people with different views or life experiences to hear from each other.
Not everything people had to share was positive though. Alongside the hope, there was real anger and disillusionment: with politicians seen as distant and self-interested, with a welfare system some felt locked people into dependency and social media blamed for stoking division and distrust. Several people worried about young people having “no respect these days” while others felt overlooked by decision-makers who, as one person put it, “don’t have a clue what goes on here.”
“…people who hold lightly-held views are the ones most likely to shift when a conversation is genuinely non-judgemental and involves real listening, rather than argument”
Despite seeing the value in disagreeing well, not everyone is ready to hear a different viewpoint. This has been particularly true on the topic of immigration and people seeking sanctuary. We heard a range of views on this from across these areas: from warmly welcoming of new people and celebrating Bristol’s diversity, to strongly resistant to changing demographics and convinced that the UK needed to ‘put locals first’. Most were happy to explore these views, but some, on hearing stories from our work with sanctuary seekers, simply walked away. It has been a reminder of how hard some bridges are to build, especially where misinformation is widespread and people often absorb just one worldview on their social media feeds.
But we also saw the opposite happen. One man in Filwood spent time talking through his worries about the pace of demographic change in his area and by the end of the conversation, said he’d thought about it differently and felt more positive. It’s a small moment, but it’s exactly what the evidence says should happen: people who hold lightly-held views are the ones most likely to shift when a conversation is genuinely non-judgemental and involves real listening, rather than argument. Larger Us’ recent report on the power of conversations, which draws together the research on this, calls this group “the movable middle” and it’s a large part of why we think this work is worth doing.
“Many people we spoke to worried local ties were weakening, even as they agreed a strong community is everything”
So why has Bridges been doing this? Firstly, we want to reach people who wouldn’t normally engage with our work and learn from them. Secondly, there is a growing evidence base showing that conversations like this can shift attitudes on a wide range of topics, not through persuasion or argument, but through feeling properly heard. Finally, we’re developing our new strategy and these conversations are informing our next steps, including testing our view that high streets have untapped potential in supporting conversations across difference. If you’ve got this far, and are reading this before the 24th August, then we’d welcome your view on this strategy: take our survey.
The most powerful moments in these conversations have often come when people share stories about how their neighbours look out for each other and how those ties are fraying. In Bedminster, one man told us that in 19 years living on his street, he was the only person who ever spoke to an older man nearby who otherwise had no one. In Filton, a carer originally from Ghana described the contrast with home, where extended families stay close with how isolating he found life in the UK by comparison, with all the extra strain that puts on health and care services. Many people we spoke to worried local ties were weakening, even as they agreed a strong community is everything. If streets are made for talking, this summer has taught us that rebuilding those ties can start with something as simple as a flipchart and a willingness to listen.
Photo credit: William Chang on Unsplash