EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Multi-ethnic resident participation in Schilderswijk

Multi-ethnic resident participation in Schilderswijk

Introduction

How is the pilot project ‘Resident Participation’ developing, and how are residents from the various target groups connected to it? How do those involved see (the encouragement of) resident participation in Schilderswijk?

Description

Since 1 January 2001, the municipality of The Hague has been conducting an experiment: the pilot project "Resident Participation" in the Schilderswijk district. This project seeks to encourage optimal, multi-ethnic resident participation with the aim of promoting community development. The University of Tilburg did an interaction study in real time on the urban capillaries of public administration at district level.

Conclusions

The experiment proves to be a process of trial and error.
Getting the people in the district active depends on three factors:
1. Support for the idea that action is really necessary;
2. Politicians and professionals who take the right approach in promoting this;
3. A social movement in the district that people can become a part of.
In the case of the Schilderswijk, the third factor seems to be key.
If connections come about in the framework of the pilot, this usually involves the private domain or group domain and rarely the public domain. " Bridging", which involves the building of bridges between groups in the community, lags behind ‘bonding’, which involves the building of relationships within one’s own group, though the latter itself is not even something that can be taken for granted.
Extra attention should be paid to the ‘pioneers’ who serve as important role models and whose involvement could have a magnetic effect. More attention should be paid to creating and maintaining viable coalitions between municipal initiatives and active citizenship.
Achieving "optimal, multi-ethnic resident participation with the aim of promoting community development by multiple, open and intercultural networks" in three years is not realistic.
The "neighbourhood meeting points" are intended to serve as places where concrete ideas for multi-ethnic resident participation can take shape. Due in part to poor communication, few in the district know about the neighbourhood meeting points. Even some of the real ‘networkers’ do not know about the neighbourhood meeting points. Consequently, the number of visitors to the neighbourhood meeting points is limited.
Other achievements that are often associated with the pilot project are connected to prevention projects in Schilderswijk: the Moroccan "neighbourhood fathers" (‘buurtvaders’), the night surveillance initiative (‘de nachtpreventie’), the public square surveillance initiative (‘de pleinpreventie’) and the neighbourhood intervention teams (‘buurtinterventieteams’).

Contact info

University of Tilburg
Frank Hendriks, tel. +31 13 466 9111

Publication date

01/05/2003

Researcher

Frank Hendriks, Stijn Valgaeren and Bram Foederer

Cities

The Hague

Links

Tilburg University

Interviews with residents from the Schilderwijk (PDF, Dut, 370 KB)

Multi-ethnische bewonersparticipatie in de Schilderswijk (PDF, Dut, 1.2 MB)