During 2023 and 2024, The Village storytelling Centre collaborated with the Open University and Verture formerly Sniffer) a climate change institute. This work consisted of a community research project to investigate the perception of local residents in Pollok about the impact of the hot weather in the area and their opinions about the green spaces.

Different activities were organised during this period of time. The first one was a focus group organised during the summer of 2023  in our office at Langton Halls which gathered different people from Pollok. In this activity, the theme of the research was introduced and the first collections of people’s opinion and thoughts about the theme was made. After that, three members of the community volunteered their time as community researchers. They received training by Open University and Sniffer in order to gain skills in how to collect the information from local residents. 

After the gathering of information by the community researchers, The Village Storytelling Centre created four different stories that represented the main messages and points of what people from Pollok had said about hot weather and green spaces in the area. These stories mixed real quotes from people with fictional characters and situations. These stories were transformed into comic formats with the work of the illustrator Jillian Mendoza. Each style in the four stories represented different tones and emotions according to its messages. The idea was to reach different audiences in the community to spark discussions about the topic. 

On the 12th of November of 2024, in Pollok Community Centre, we organised an event in which we launched the stories from the community research. Different people from the community, including local residents, members of our community groups, and people working in the area, came to the event and gave their thoughts and opinions about the theme of the research as they looked at posters printed with the illustrated stories. The event was opened with a community performance by Helen and Irene, both participants of our weekly adult groups at The Village, and Trinidad, one of our community storytellers. The performance combined some of the messages of the stories and research, but also personal experiences of the performers and their relationships with green spaces in Glasgow. 

This project was a beautiful combination of academic research, community participation and creativity. We hope that this work will keep inspiring discussions and thoughts about hot weather and green spaces in Pollok, in order to reflect how to improve our area.