Roots and Futures Blog

Exploring the roots of communities old and new in Sheffield


2022-23 Roots and Futures project publications and resources now available to download and share!


R+F policy briefing.pdf

Briefing for Policymakers

This two-page briefing introduces the Roots and Futures project and summarises out key top-level recommendations for policy- and strategy-makers in Sheffield. We are also working directly with policymakers in 2023

107960 Roots and Futures Final.pdf

Community Voices Booklet

This booklet reports the findings of our consultations with over 550 members of Sheffield's under-served communities that took place in 2022-2023

New for 2024 - audio version!

Our digital toolkit shares approaches for equitable heritage work with under-served communities.

The toolkit is being tested by our partners including The Green Estate and Broomhill Library in 2023

June 2024

Sheffield Caribbean Sports Club: Archiving a Legacy for our Future Generations 

A new project by Dr Courtenay-Elle Crichton-Turley and The Sheffield Caribbean Sports Club 

The Roots and Futures team has been working for the last few months with the Sheffield Caribbean Sports Club (SCSC). The club, which is an established community asset has done incredible work in promoting diversity and inclusivity through sport in Sheffield ever since its foundation in 1967.

The club wanted to share their heritage more widely and give the young people they work with an opportunity to have their voices heard within the city in a meaningful and fun way. Through this partnership we have explored what heritage and identity are, what the young people thought Sheffield did well and not so well when celebrating/including/sharing our city’s cultures and how we could becoming a more inclusive city.

These conversations also lead us to learn about the wonderful collection of photographs, documents, stories, memories and awards the club has collected since it was established. Having these properly archived and showcased supports the club to present a large section of its local communities’ cultural and social histories, many of which not visible in Sheffield 

This work has been funded by a University of Sheffield knowledge exchange grant which will support local community members at the club to learn how to professionally archive heritage resources.. The grant will also pay for the materials needed to undertake this. Our project meets the club’s need by ensuring that their history is maintained by those who are passionate about it and have been a part of its creation, while also providing opportunities for young people to learn skills which could facilitate heritage career opportunities in the future.

Over the following months we will be working with Ella Barret, an archivist for the Bantu Archive which is managed by Sheffield And District African Caribbean Community Association (SADACCA), to begin this exciting journey. Along with this initial work, we have also started working in partnership with Dr Montaz Marché, lead researcher on the Caribbean Cricket Archive at UCL. This project is a new digital archive compiling the oral histories of Windrush Generation cricket players from the Caribbean. The project is holding workshops across the country to collect stories and shape the digital archive to meet the community’s needs.

To find out more about the project please contact

Project Lead: Courtenay-Elle Crichton-Turley c.crichton-turey@sheffield.ac.uk 

For further information on the Windrush Cricket Project please go to: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/research/research-projects/windrush-cricket



To download the app and to find out more about the history of the Jewish community in Sheffield, you can also access the project website at

https://jewishheritagesheffield.co.uk/

June 2024

Jewish Heritage Walking Trail (Sheffield) 

A new project by our Sheffield Uni colleague Dr Carmen Levick

The history of the Jewish community in Sheffield goes back to the beginning of the 18th century. It produced a rich and vibrant heritage and culture which had a determining impact on the social, economic and cultural life of the city.

 In collaboration with local communities and Llama Digital, this project, led by Dr Carmen Levick, has produced an audio-enhanced walking trail that explores locations associated with the community, using stories, images and soundscapes to offer an immersive experience of creative walking. 

You are invited to experience these stories, voices and sounds while walking in the footsteps of a diverse community that had a decisive impact on our city. This walk will take you through the streets of Sheffield’s city centre, from Figtree Lane to West Bar Green, from Campo Lane and North Church Street to Silver Street and Lee Croft. 

As you walk, stories and sounds will be triggered through GPS technology to paint a picture of a time long past but one of crucial importance to the development of the Jewish community in Sheffield and of the city itself as a multicultural space. You can start your walk at any point on the map, but in order to enjoy a chronological history of the Jewish community in the city we invite you to start in Figtree Lane and listen to stories of the earliest recorded moments of the community, when in the 1780s two brothers, Philip and Isaac Bright, decided to make Sheffield their home. 

Content about each location is triggered automatically using GPS and includes audio commentaries and music. 

April 2024

Impact - Making a Difference with Research

Roots and Futures has been asked by our past funders, the AHRC, to summarise the impact we think our project has had so far. Over the past three years we've asked all our partners what different working with us has made. You can find out more about what our community partners said in response in the Roots and Futures film. But we have also started to achieve things that help our local strategy-maker and policy-maker partners, delivering what we call 'Policy Impact' in the academic world.


This is how we would describe Roots and Futures' policy impact so far:

Roots and Futures is a place-based heritage project that uses participatory action research to support communities underserved by heritage policy to share their needs with decision makers and create meaningful changes at a local level.  Our demonstration of how city-wide heritage decisions can be more inclusive has provided credibility for Sheffield's grassroots-led heritage strategy, leading to its adoption by the City Council in 2023. Our findings have also influenced Sheffield's new City Goals and forthcoming Culture Strategy by articulating how different communities understand and value places, culture and heritage and by enabling decision makers to reach voices and views which they would not otherwise have heard.


March 2024

Heritage and Wellbeing Conference 2024

The Roots and Futures team attended the 2024 Heritage and Wellbeing Conference at Delapré Abbey, Northamptonshire! 

We particularly enjoyed Tré Ventour-Griffiths' paper 'Being Black, Being (Un)Well: Health and Heritage, a Colonial Epistemology?'

We presented a workshop called CHaT (Cultural Heritage and Trauma) that raised awareness of how heritage can be traumatic and the steps that can be taken to help participants feel safe. 

In a space where heritage was being celebrated as healing, it was important to recognise there is also potential for harm.

One activity recreated the experience of racial exclusion, tokenism and survey fatigue to highlight how underserved communities can feel both ignored and fetishised at once in heritage work.

Here, Rhonda is introducing the first interactive part of the workshop!

February 2024

Sheffield's new City Goals

Sheffield City Council have created a set of new City Goals which outline aspirations for the future.

Roots and Futures participated in the City Goals project with the aim of communicating the importance of heritage, raising awareness of the experiences of those underserved by heritage policy in the city and ensuring that the perspectives we have gathered from our participants were represented. Many of our partners also participated directly in consultations too.

The Goals are an initial step towards city-wide changes. By focusing on what they city could be in the future, they also highlight a lot of things that are not good right now.

Roots and Futures' is reflected in 'A Caring and Safe Sheffield' which includes recognition of the importance of histories, heritage and cultures and the need for all voices in the city to be heard on this. We're looking forward to continuing our work alongside the City Council to ensure the goals result in real benefits for people currently underserved by heritage policy. 

February 2024

International Centre for Historical Research in Education Seminar Series

Izzy Carter gave a presentation on Roots and Future work so far to the seminar series of the International Centre for Historical Research in Education at UCL, London.  

While she was speaking, the amazing Lottie Hoare illustrated the event. With Lottie's permission we are able to share her illustration here!

Grace Torrens MA Dissertation.pdf

January 2024


Brilliant new research project by Sheffield University Cultural Heritage MA student Grace Torrens!

Grace's MA dissertation project was a collaboration with Roots and Futures to explore the effectiveness of current youth engagement with heritage in Sheffield.


We are working on a summary of this project for policymakers and plans for publication. Please acknowledge Grace if you want to reference this document or use any of our data. 

October 2023

A New Project Begins...

One theme emerged time and time again from the many findings of Roots and Futures 2022-23 conversations: the importance of young people's opinions about heritage. Participants thought we should be speaking to younger Sheffielders about their heritage need and priorities, and finding ways to ensure these were fed into heritage policy and education policy. We were asked to find ways to create a future for the past. 

In October 2023, Roots and Futures have begun work to design a new project that works directly with young people through schools, youth clubs and youth advocacy groups. We will be exploring opportunities with new partners Create Sheffield, Sheffield Anti Racist Education and the Sheffield City Council Youth Cabinet.

More updates will appear soon...!


October 2023

Autumn update!

The team have been busy this autumn with new consultations, writing up the summer's work and progressing different strands of the Roots and Futures project. Here's two of the activities researchers Rhonda and Terezia have been up to!

Audio-recording the project toolkit

The Roots and Future's toolkit shares our approach to equitable consultation with underserved communities. We have written two versions of the toolkit:

In October, the team starting recording a third version of the toolkit - in audio format! The audio file is available here.


Consultations with Young People


To mark Black History Month, the team delivered sessions with students at Tapton School. We delivered sessions to two different groups - Key stages 2&3 and Key stages 4&5 - focusing on cultural heritage, diversity of lived experiences of heritage and our project with the Black Ladies Group from Park Library. 

We also included a consultation with the students about their heritage needs, which revealed that exam students felt they were missing out on the school's hertiage activities due to scheduling issues. Teaching staff immediately agreed to run the 2024 heritage day earlier in the year so everyone can attend!


August 2023

Roots and Futures x TAP

During summer 2023, Roots and Futures welcomed two student interns as part of the Transforming and Activating Places project. Yannawadi Tammaraksa and Alex Robinson undertook mini-projects with the support of Rebecca Maddox from Sheffield City Council to progress the work of the Sheffield Cultual Holdings Report. This 2021 report reflected critically on racism embedded within Sheffield statues and street names. 

Find out more, and read Alex and Yannawadi's complete reports on this website here.



June 2023

AHRC Place Programme Launch - Glasgow

Terezia and Lizzy took part in the panel discussing 'approaches' in place-based research...

We focused on ways research and research funding can help empower communities to have a voice in place-based decisions - in our case in heritage policy in Sheffield

...and we distributed our Community Voices booklet and showed the project video 

We had some great conversations with other AHRC place project teams, policymakers and funders

June 2023

Congratulations to the AHRC Place Programme on the release of their new report!

The report explores how place-based research using Arts and Humanities methods can unlock new research potential and make a difference to people's lives. 

The power of place is described through "meaning", "approaches" and "processes". This creates the acronym MAP - a great way to sum up research focused on place!

Roots and Futures appears as a case study, alongside the other projects funded by the AHRC place scheme in 2022-23.

Place report phase 1.pdf

June 2023


We were proud to once again support Welcoming Cultures at the Millennium Galleries!

June 2023

Roots and Futures team present at the Oral History Society Conference 2023 'Making Histories Together'

Lizzy introduced the project, focusing on the growth of equitable collaborations and facing challenges posed by time and financial resources

Izzy talked about methods, drawing out how oral histories (among other evidence) created an evidence base for the project

Jonathan reflected on the project within the context of University and National knowledge exchange priorities and agendas

May 2023

Focus on our funders

Roots and Futures has been supported by a range of funders since 2020. 

As a Knowledge Exchange project - where we prioritise the positive impact of our work on communities - we have been supported by The University of Sheffield's Partnerships and Regional Engagement Team, the QR-Policy Fund, the Higher Education Innovation Fund and the National Productivity Investment Fund

We've also benefited hugely from research funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Oral Histories booklet.pdf

May 2023

Park Library Black Ladies Group oral histories 

Roots and Futures co-created this oral histories project with the Park Library Black Ladies Group. The ladies reflected that they had never been asked to share their histories before. They valued opportunity to have their stories shared in ways that they wanted them to be shared, displayed in the spaces they wanted them displayed and, most importantly, to have them saved for future generations. The project is shared here with their full permission.

CONTENT WARNING: Racist language and accounts of experiencing racism


May 2023

Festival of Debate 2023

As part of the 2023 Festival of Debate, Roots and Futures collaborated with US artist Jennifer Vanderpool on a symposium about creating thriving post-industrial cities. Hear Rob Cotterell from our partners SADACCA speak about African and Caribbean heritages in Sheffield from 2:40:50.


April 2023


New partners for Roots and Futures!

In 2023 Roots and Futures received funding from the QR-Policy Support Fund via The University of Sheffield to grow the project in these ways:


Terezia Rostas, project lead of Welcoming Cultures in traditional Roma dress with two women from the Sunrit cultural association in their traditional costumes

Terezia Rostas (centre) project lead for Welcoming Cultures at their 2022 event at Millennium Galleries, Sheffield

March 2023

Welcoming Cultures awarded NLHF funding

Welcoming Cultures has been awarded National Lottery Heritage Funding to support a team of community champions to undertake cultural inclusion work in Sheffield. The team will also run their very successful Welcoming Cultures event at the Millennium Galleries over one weekend in June 2023. 

Roots and Futures is one of two partners of Welcoming Cultures alongside Sheffield Museums Trust.

February 2023

We welcome two new Roots and Futures researchers!

Rhonda Allen

Rhonda is an experienced youth prevention worker and carnival organiser. She is also a Race Equality Commissioner in Sheffield, and one of the directors for Skills Lab, a project that works with young people to empower them to succeed in every aspect of their life through mentoring and self-reflection.

Terezia Rostas

Terezia is the Founder of Care for Young People's Future and a lover of all aspects of cultural heritage. She is passionate about advocating against inequalities. Terezia is the project lead for Welcoming Cultures and was a Roots and Futures project partner before she joined the research team.


Participants at the first of our evaluation workshops at the ISRAAC centre in September 2022. Image credit: Jon Bradley.  

November 2022

Evaluating our consultation findings

On 23 September, the Roots and Futures team invited all partners and people involved with the project so far to explore the findings of our summer consultations with underserved communities in Sheffield. 

Consultation themes

19 people attended the event, including members of the core project team. Before the event, the project team had begun to evaluate the consultation findings. We started by working independently to identify key themes from each consultation event. We then compared our notes to check for commonalities. This helped to limit the extent to which our own biases could influence the evaluation process. 

We identified 13 recurring themes: 

This is not an exhaustive list of priorities from our consultations, nor can these themes be used to represent the views of all communities within Sheffield. Nevertheless, they provide a starting point for future consultations that engage everyone across the city with an interest in heritage.

What did we ask workshop participants to do?

We shared these themes on cards at the workshop, as in the image below. We asked participants to select the themes most important to them and their work. Each theme card included a description written by the project team, with space below for adjustments by participants, depending upon how they understood this theme in relation to themselves and/or their work with underserved communities. The cards also invited participants to identify who needs to do more to address the issues represented by the theme, and to share their expectations for this work in practice. 

A complete theme card on the subject of Methods by one of the workshop participants. 

What did we find out?

The most selected themes were belonging, education, place, and Sheffield’s identity. In comments and alternative descriptions of these themes, participants highlighted the need for change to be led from the grassroots, with underserved communities supported and empowered to focus on the issues most meaningful to them.

These are some of the comments we received relating to the theme of belonging:

‘To reflect the society in all their activities. Make all groups visible.’

‘Do what Roots and Futures tries to do. Hear the stories of others and celebrate them.’

‘To work on creating open spaces and resources, so people belong by sharing and still maintain the strength of their personal cultural identity whilst respecting that of others.’

As these comments show, the themes often overlapped, with place, visibility, access to resources, and consultation and participation also reflected in these responses. 

We had also offered eight options for the question of who needs to do more to address the issues raised by each theme. These were universities, Sheffield City Council, National Government, community organisations, funders, heritage organisations, individuals, and Roots and Futures. The responses showed a strong belief in collective responsibility, with most participants ticking all options. This shows emphatically the view that it is everyone’s responsibility within the city to make these changes happen. 

Feedback concerning young people was the main exception, with participants suggesting schools, academy trusts and Local Education Authorities as alternative organisations responsible for engaging young people. This seems to reflect a sense that these organisations have a stronger role to play than local or national government.

What are our next steps?

Our next steps are to embed the findings of this workshop into our project outputs; an action plan for local policymakers that outlines key recommendations for a more representative heritage strategy for Sheffield, and a community-facing toolkit to support equitable cultural heritage partnerships with underserved communities in the future. 

September 2022

Consultation methods: some reflections

This blog post reflects on the experience of undertaking engagement work with under-served communities while critically reflecting on both historic and current issues raised about methods of consultation. 

This image shows members of the Black Ladies Group, based at Manor and Castle Development Trust, whose perspectives in conversation with researcher Dr Courtenay-Elle Crichton-Turley have helped to inform the content of this post. Image credit: Dr Courtenay-Elle Crichton-Turley

When the latest phase of Roots and Futures began in January 2022, one of the first tasks of the research team was to scope out past and current heritage projects. We found that much similar work had already been undertaken in Sheffield, but that projects left a limited legacy. 

We identified these common issues:

What are we learning about these issues from our consultations?

Identifying and understanding these issues was only the first step. During our consultations with under-served communities across Sheffield, participants have added further criticisms to past and current consultation approaches. Some of the recurring issues raised across the communities we have spoken to include: 

‘No one was interested in our stories, there has been change since George Floyd was killed’.

‘It’s a long time coming, but I also see it as an opportunity because if we aren’t sharing, we aren’t speaking up then it’s never going to change, but I am so angry it has come to this before we were asked and considered’.

‘We have not been invited to share our stories. The community reaches out to institutions rather than the other way around.’

‘Inclusive approaches need to be more about effecting change and less about box ticking. It’s important to build momentum too, rather than just hosting one-off events.’

How are we responding?

As a research team, we are passionate about supporting under-served communities to share their perspectives of heritage in the city. In response to criticisms around consultation work, we actively reflect upon what Roots and Futures can do differently. Yet, with only 12 months of funding and a small core team who do not work full-time on the project, we face the same systemic pressures of funding, time and resources that have restricted the capacity of community heritage projects for the past decade. 

To improve the project’s legacy, we have worked towards building:

We also continue to share consultation materials with community partners, and are currently considering options for making this data more publicly available at the end of the project. 

At an institutional level, the University of Sheffield’s new Centre for Equity and Inclusion is seeking to address similar issues to those highlighted in our consultations. Connecting postgraduate researchers of colour, academics, racial justice organisations and local community hubs, the Centre will provide mentorship, training, and funding opportunities to explore and support equitable partnerships between the University and local stakeholders.

Our efforts as a project only scratch the surface of the problems that hinder sustainable and meaningful heritage engagement, but we recognise that this is a process. Roots and Futures is not immune to the pitfalls of past community heritage projects. We understand that engaging with criticisms of consultation approaches must continue to be a part of our partnerships and conversations with underserved communities. Our work is not just defined by what we are doing, but how we are doing it.

A tram at Sheffield railway station

Tram at Sheffield railway station.
Image credit: Phil Beard. Flickr.

August 2022

A new network for place-based research

In January 2022, Roots and Futures received support to expand our partnership work thanks to a new Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) network: The Place-Based Research Programme Hub. The programme is led by Professor Rebecca Madgin at the University of Glasgow and supports nine different place-related projects across the UK. 

To listen to an introduction to the programme by Professor Madgin, follow this link to the University of Glasgow’s ‘Spotlight’ podcast.

What are the aims of the programme?

The AHRC programme recognises the importance of place for current and future government research and regeneration plans. It aims to:

Which other projects are involved?

The projects funded by the scheme explore the importance of place in different ways, from uncovering Nottingham’s ‘hidden heritage’ through a new Cave Heritage Centre, to creating a new public art strategy and policy for Exeter. While their research varies, these values are at the heart of each project: 

The projects also respond to the need to work collaboratively with communities, local government, and heritage and cultural organisations to ensure effective and lasting local change. As Professor Madgin said:

“Bringing together arts and humanities researchers and policy makers is essential to ensure decision making at every level takes into account the full breadth of our lived and felt experiences.”

You can find out more about the projects on the UKRI’s website, or click on the drop-down arrow to the right to read a brief description here on the blog.


AHRC Place-Based Research Projects

Active communities arts development: social prescribing, sustainable strategic planning and breaking down barriers across sectors in North Lanarkshire

Led by Dr Marisa de Andrade at The University of Edinburgh.

This project will ensure sustained access to the arts for all ages in North Lanarkshire and use it to help tackle education, health and socio-economic inequalities.

City of caves: regenerating the heart of Nottingham through ‘hidden heritage’

Led by Dr Christopher King at University of Nottingham.

City of caves will help put Nottingham’s heritage at the centre of a major redevelopment of the important Broadmarsh site, ensuring that residents and visitors are able to benefit from it for years to come.

City change through culture: securing the place legacy of Coventry City of Culture 2021

Led by Professor Nick Henry at Coventry University.

This project will evaluate whether Coventry City of Culture 2021 has made a (lasting) difference to the city, working with the Coventry City Council insight team to inform future strategy and planning within the council.

Creative peninsula

Led by Professor Thomas Trevor at University of Exeter.

This project will examine the contribution that arts and culture can make to local economic development and social change, using this to inform policy development in local authorities in Devon and Cornwall, including a new public art strategy and policy for Exeter.

Cross-pollination: growing cross-sector design collaboration in placemaking

Led by Dr Katerina Alexiou at Open University.

Cross-pollination is a creative approach for bringing people together to share resources and knowledge to design initiatives. This project will train representatives from three partners based in Wales, Scotland, and England, in the approach, and support them to use it to develop partnerships and initiatives to address place-making in their local areas.

Design innovation and cultural resonances (resonance): place-based collaboration

Led by Professor Lynn-Sayers McHattie at Glasgow School of Art.

Building on the work of previous AHRC funded projects, Resonance will draw together creative economy practitioners and creative and cultural organisations in a series of productive civic exchanges, exploring nuanced local knowledge and cultural assets to inform decision-making.

Feeling towns: the role of place and identity in governance and local policy

Led by Professor Nicky Marsh at University of Southampton.

Feeling towns will help local and national government, as well as national bodies such as Historic England, to create, put in place, and evaluate strategies for civic pride. It will also work with Historic England to develop and test new approaches to evaluation which will support their High Street Heritage Action Zone initiative.

People, heritage and place: using heritage to enhance community and wellbeing in Saltaire, Bradford

Led by Professor Andrew Wilson at University of Bradford.

This project will support management and development of the Saltaire World Heritage Site, encouraging public engagement with planning for the site, stimulating tourism in the area, and enhancing education about the site.

What are the programme’s next steps?

Members of each project team will be getting together in mid-September to share their findings so far. This is an exciting opportunity for the Roots and Futures team to see how projects are progressing in other places and what we can learn from them to adapt our ways of working in Sheffield. To stay updated on all projects, visit the University of Glasgow’s website.


Sheffield's skyline, view from South Street

Sheffield's skyline from South Street. Image credit: Isabelle Carter.

July 2022

Roots and Futures is back!

People’s stories and memories of the places in Sheffield that are most meaningful to them are still at the heart of our work, but now we are exploring how those perspectives can be better represented in local heritage policy. Over the next few months, this blog will share some of our initial findings.

Since the publication of the Roots and Futures report in August 2021, the team have been developing the next stage of the project.

In January this year, we received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Place programme to expand our partnerships with the diverse communities of Sheffield. 

Our partners

Our team has grown since 2021. We are now working in collaboration with eight organisations whose members represent diverse communities across the city. Our community partners are: Astrea Academy Sheffield, Care For Young People’s Future, Chilypep, Heeley City Farm, Manor and Castle Development Trust, SADACCA (Sheffield And District African Caribbean Community Association), SOAR, and Zest.

To support the inclusion of diverse perspectives in local heritage policy, we have also partnered with Sheffield City Council and Joined Up Heritage Sheffield (JUHS), building upon the work already done by JUHS to develop a grassroots-led Heritage Strategy for the city. 

Discovery Conversations event discussion time

This image shows some of the Roots and Futures team contributing to a ‘Discovery Conversations’ event in April, where we invited project partners and people involved with and interested in heritage policy from across the city to share their ideas for the project’s next steps. Image credit: Lizzy Craig-Atkins, 5 April 2022, City of Sanctuary, Sheffield.

Our aims

Last year, our work in Netherthorpe, Upperthorpe, Neepsend and Kelham Island showed that sharing histories of people and places could bring health and wellbeing benefits to local people. Now, we want to make sure that those benefits are enjoyed by all of the city’s residents by creating long-term strategies for more inclusive, place-based heritage policy. 

Through our partnerships with diverse communities, we aim to find out:

In the next blog post, we’ll share some updates about the new place-based research network that includes Roots and Futures. In the meantime, you can follow our work on Twitter by searching #rootsandfutures or following our project lead, Lizzy Craig-Atkins (ecraigatkins).  


Roots and Futures Blog 2021

27 May 2021

Introducing Roots and Futures

The first phase of Roots and Futures began in Spring 2020 with the development of an interactive app. The app was created to show us how local people engaged with North Sheffield's archaeological past. In this interview with the Archaeology podcast network, our Principle Investigator Dr Lizzy Craig-Atkins, outlines the first phase of the project's aims.

App users followed the Historic Buildings Trail shown in the image below, exploring the stories behind the buildings around them and the history that archaeological excavations had revealed beneath their feet. We asked users: how many of these historic buildings do you already know? How many more can you find? The app is still available and free to use, so why not take a look?

The Historic Buildings Trail map available to access on the Roots and Futures app.

The app also invited users in Kelham Island, Netherthorpe and Upperthorpe to contribute to the ‘Your Sheffield Map’, uploading photographs and memories that reflected their personal view of each neighbourhood’s history and heritage.


Between May and July 2020, the app attracted 1,078 unique users, with 20 users sharing photos or stories directly. These posts led to some interesting revelations about how individuals and communities see the history and 'heritage' of their local area.


Word cloud: 'road', 'industrial', 'played', 'works'
This image shows the word cloud generated by responses to the question: Tell us why you love what you have uploaded or the story behind the memory' on the Roots and Futures app.

What did we find out?

Interactions with the app showed us that:


What are our next steps?


Unexpectedly, interactions with the app also showed us that it had therapeutic benefits for users, who tended to be older people. In the second phase of Roots and Futures, we want to build on these findings and engage diverse audiences more proactively, to ensure that the health and wellbeing benefits associated with the project are enjoyed by older people of colour.

In next week's blog post, we will discuss how we have used what we learned from the project's first phase to inform our approach to community consultation in the exciting second phase of Roots and Futures.

In between regular blog posts, we welcome any input from the community and local organisations. Please use this Google Form to make any comments or suggestions, or email us at rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac.uk

الترجمة العربية

التعريف بروتس آند فيوتشرز

بدأت المرحلة الأولى من روتس آند فيوتشرز في ربيع 2020 بتطوير تطبيق تفاعلي. تم إنشاء التطبيق ليوضح لنا كيف تفاعل السكان المحليين مع المعالم الأثرية القديمة لشمال شيفيلد. توجز لنا الدكتورة ليزي كريج أتكينز، في هذه المقابلة مع شبكة بودكاست لعلم الآثار، المرحلة الأولى من أهداف المشروع.


تتبع مستخدمو التطبيق أثر المباني التاريخية الموضحه في الصورة أدناه، واستكشفوا القصص المرتبطة بالمباني المحيطة بهم والتاريخ الذي كشفته الحفريات الأثرية التي تحتضنه الأرض تحت أقدامهم. سألنا مستخدمي التطبيق: كم من هذه المباني التاريخية تعرفها بالفعل؟ وكم عدد المباني التاريخية التي تستطيع أن تجدها؟ لا يزال التطبيق مُتاحاً ومجانياً ، فلما لا تُلقِ نظرة؟

[التعقيب على الصورة] الوصول إلى خريطة المباني التاريخية متاح عبر تطبيق روتس آند فيوتشرز.

كما دعى التطبيق المستخدمين في جزيرة كيلهام، ونيذرثورب، وأبرثورب للمساهمة في ‘خريطة شيفيلد الخاصة بك’ وتحميل الصور والذكريات التي تُمثل وجهة نظرهم الشخصية عن تاريخ كل حي وتراثه.

جذب التطبيق خلال الفترة ما بين شهري مايو ويوليو 2020، حوالي 1078 مستخدم مميز، مع مشاركة 20 منهم بالصور أو سرد القصص مباشرة. أدت هذه المُشاركات إلى بعض الاكتشافات المثيرة للإهتمام حول كيفية رؤية الأفراد والمتجتمعات لتاريخ و‘تراث’ منطقتهم المحلية.

[التعقيب على الصورة] تُظهر هذه الصورة سحابة الكلمات المستحدثة من الإجابات على السؤال: أخبرنا عن سبب اعجابك بما قمت بتحميله أو القصة المرتبطة بهذه الذكرى على تطبيق روتس آند فيوتشرز.

ماذا وجدنا؟

أظهرت التفاعلات مع التطبيق ما يلي:


ما هي الخطوات التالية؟

 

أظهرت التفاعلات مع التطبيق وبشكل غير متوقع، أن الأخير له فوائد علاجية لكبار السن من المستخدمين. وبُناءاً عليه، فإننا نريد في المرحلة الثانية من روتس آند فيوتشرز، البناء على هذه النتائج وإشراك جماهير متنوعة بإتباع نهج استباقي لضمان تمتع كبار السن من أصحاب البشرة الملونة، بفوائد الصحة والرفاهية المرتبطة بالمشروع.


سوف نناقش في مدونة الأسبوع المقبل، كيف استخدمنا ما تعلمناه خلال المرحلة الأولى من المشروع، لإثراء نهجنا في التشاور مع المجتمعات المحلية في المرحلة الثانية والمشوقة من روتس آند فيوتشرز.

نرحب بأي مُداخلات من المجتمع والمنظمات المحلية، في الفترات الفاصلة بين مشاركات المدونة المنتظمة. كما يرجى استخدام نموذج جوجل Google Form لتقديم أي تعليقات أو اقتراحات ، أو مُراسلتنا على البريد الإلكتروني على:  rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac.uk


Street art dog graffiti

Photo uploaded to the Roots and Futures app.

.تم تحميل الصورة على تطبيق روتس آند فيوتشرز

3 June 2021

Roots and Futures: Phase Two

The second phase of Roots and Futures is currently taking place over Summer 2021. It focuses on developing consultation activities with local communities.

As the first blog post explained, we now want to find out more about what ‘heritage’ means to local people, and to engage older people of colour more proactively with the project.

Before we could start the consultation, we had to ask several questions about our approach:


What are our consultation methods?

sticky notes jamboard consultation ideas

Google Jamboard image of our ideas for consultation methods from our second team meeting. 

.نموذج يعرض صورمن بحث جوجل لمقترحاتنا حول طرق الاستشارة بناءاً على الاجتماع الثاني للفريق

We decided to use a range of consultation methods to create fun and inclusive opportunities for individuals and communities to share their stories of the past. Local people can get involved in the project through arts and crafts activities organised by Zest, guided tours of Weston Park Museum, following the interactive Roots and Futures heritage trail, and chatting over hot drinks in the ‘tea tent’ based in Zest Gardens every Tuesday morning. Look out for a blog post in the next couple of weeks for more information about our first consultation activities!


What are our consultation questions?

sticky notes Jamboard consultation questions

Google Jamboard image of our ideas for consultation questions from our second team meeting. 

نموذج يعرض صورمن بحث جوجل لمقترحاتنا حول الأسئلة التي سيتم طرحُها من خلال عملية الاستشارة بناءاً على الاجتماع الثاني للفريق.

These are some of the core questions we outlined for our consultation approach:

Asking these questions in conversation with local people, we want to explore how Roots and Futures can support communities to explore connections between the history of the places around them and their cultural identities, and how these stories can improve the health and wellbeing of North Sheffield.

We aim to make this an adaptive and responsive project, so our questions and methods are open to change based on the insights of community partners and the results of the consultation activities. 


In the next blog post, we will look at the process behind the University’s work with community partners in more detail, asking how we can address racial equality in partnerships between the University and community-based organisations,

We welcome any comments or suggestions, so please complete this Google Form or email us at rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac.uk to let us know what you think!


الترجمة العربية

 روتس آند فيوتشرز – المرحلة الثانية

يجري حالياُ خلال صيف 2021، المرحلة الثانية من روتس آند فيوتشرز. وتُرتكز المرحلة الثانية من المشروع على تطوير أنشطة الاستشارة مع المجتمعات المحلية. 

كما أوضحنا في منشور المدونة الأولى، نريد الآن أن نتعرف على المزيد حول ما يعنيه ’التراث’ للسكان المحليين، وأن نُشرِك بشكل استباقي كبار السن من أصحاب البشرة الملونة في المشروع.

قبل بدء علملية التشاور، كان علينا أن نطرح العديد من الأسئلة المتعلقة بالنهج الذي سنتبعه:

ما هو نهج الاستشارة الذي سنتبعه؟

قررنا استخدام عدة طرق للاستشارة لخلق فرص ممتعة وشاملة للأفراد والمجتمعات الذين يرغبون في مشاركة قصصهم من الماضي. يمكن للسكان المحليين المشاركة في المشروع من خلال أنشطة الفنون والحرف اليدوية التي تنظمها زيست، والجولات المصحوبة بمرشدين في متحف ويست بارك، واتباع المسار التراثي التفاعلي لروتس آند فيوتشرز، والدردشة في ’خيمة الشاي‘ في حدائق زيست صباح كل يوم ثلاثاء. لمزيد من المعلومات حول أنشطتنا للاستشارة الأولى، ترقب منشور المدونة خلال الأسبوعين القادمين!

ما هي الأسئلة التي سيتم طرحُها من خلال عملية الاستشارة؟

هذه بعض الأسئلة الأساسية التي حددناها لنهج التشاور الخاص بنا:

نريد أن نستوضح الطريقة التي تُمّكن روتس آند فيوتشرز من مساعدة المجتمعات المحلية على استكشفاف الروابط بين تاريخ الأماكن من حولهم، وهوياتهم الثقافية وذلك من خلال طرح هذه الأسئلة على السكان المحليين أثناء تحاورها معهم، وسؤالهم عن الكيفية التي يمكن أن يتم بها رواية مثل هذه القصص لتحسين الصحة والرفاهية للسكان في شيفيلد.

نهدف لجعل هذا المشروع متكيفاً ومتجاوباً مع المجتمعات المحلية، لذا فإن أسئلتُنا ونهج الاستشارة الذي نتبعه قابل للتغيير بُناءاً على رؤى شركاء المجتمع ونتائج أنشطة الاستشارة.

سنُلقي نظرة في منشورالمدونة التالي على الخطوات الكامنة وراء عمل الجامعة مع شركاء المجتمع بمزيد من التفاصيل، متسائلين كيف يمكننا أن نعالج المساواة العرقية في الشراكات بين الجامعة والمنظمات المجتمعية.

نرحب بتعليقاتكم واقتراحاتكم، لذا يرجى تعبئة نموذج جوجل Google Form أو للتواصل معنا ومشاركتنا بآرئكم يرجى مراسلتنا على البريد الإلكتروني : rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac.uk


10 June 2021

The community partner agreement

This blog post focuses on the community partner project agreement created by Dr Alex Mason, a Knowledge Exchange Project Manager at the University of Sheffield. Roots and Futures is one of the first projects to use this agreement, which is still a work in process. The agreement aims to directly address racial equality in partnerships between the University and community-based organisations, holding the University accountable to community partners to ensure that it delivers on the aims outlined at the start of collaborative projects.


To find out more, listen to this 10-minute interview with Alex about his work. 

Don't have time to listen to the full interview? Follow these timings to find the section you are most interested in.

0:44-1:42: Alex’s role in the Knowledge Exchange team at the University of Sheffield

1:52-2:35: Alex’s research background and expertise.

2:56-5:13: The aims of the Partnership Agreement.

5:28-8:33: The Partnership Agreement in practice.

8:50-11:19: Identifying the benefits of the Agreement and its evaluation.


Alternatively, you can read the transcript below.

Interview transcript

IC: Isabelle Carter

AM: Alex Mason

IC: Hello everyone and welcome to the first interview for the Roots and Futures blog. In recent weeks, the blog has focused on the latest phase of the Roots and Futures project, which involves a series of consultations with community groups in North Sheffield in partnership with Zest.

Today, Dr Alex Mason, a Knowledge Exchange Project Manager, is here to talk about how his research and experience has shaped our approach to working with partners on the Roots and Futures project. 

Just to get us started Alex, can you tell us a bit about your role in the Knowledge Exchange [KE] team at the University of Sheffield?

AM: Hi Izzy, thank you very much for having me and yes, no problem. I’ve been working in Knowledge Exchange for about a year and I’ve got three major areas that I focus on. They are student Knowledge Exchange: trying to extend KE activities to students. Place and place-making: generating projects between researchers and artists that focus on place and our experience of place. And finally, and probably primarily, looking at dismantling racial inequities between universities, researchers and community groups, particularly local community groups. That’s my main role within the Roots and Futures work; thinking about how we can make the relationship between all the different stakeholders more equitable basically. So, that’s my main kind of work.

IC: Awesome, that sounds great. Can you tell us a bit about how your research background and expertise really feeds into this work that you’re doing?

AM: Yeah, sure. So, I’m based in the School of English, or at least I was, where my focus was on race and higher education. So, analysing through literature racialised experiences of the University. I also had a particular emphasis on the built environment and architecture, which is kind of why I focused on place and place-making and racial inequities in KE. So, that’s kind of informing the more practice-based work I’ve done in Knowledge Exchange and on Roots and Futures. A lot of the thinking behind my work there is based on the theory I was developing, I suppose, in those three or four years.

IC: That’s great, thank you. For Roots and Futures you’ve been really instrumental in setting up and creating a Partnership Agreement that will really inform our work with community partners. I wondered if you could tell us a bit about the rationale behind the Partnership Agreement? What is it?

AM: Yeah. It comes down to – a lot of it comes down to accountability. A lot of research shows that historically universities have exploited racialised communities in partnership work. Normally, partnership work is seen as being an inherently good, positive thing because you’re opening up the university to previously excluded groups. But more recent research has shown that actually that can often perpetuate issues. It could be because universities tend to jet their own aims and ambitions and to take the resources that they want, and don’t really commit to any sort of long-term relationship, so it’s quite an extractive process. And it’s really difficult to counteract because the university has the power, it has the resources, and so this community Partner Agreement is part of a broader process of trying to make the University more accountable. 

The Agreement is designed that, in initial conversations between the different stakeholders who want to come together for a project, they’ll sit down and go through this Agreement that’s made up of several different sections, and answer the questions that have been laid out within it. Prompt considerations around things like financing, so ensuring that the community groups get paid. Things like who will own the resources and materials once the project is over – things like that. By documenting it, it ensures that if the university don’t stick to their word effectively, then the community group has a document – a resource – that they can prove that there was an agreement that hasn’t been followed through. Without that, a lot of these conversations are informal, they’re not noted down, and so it becomes very difficult if the community group has a complaint for them to do anything with it. And this document itself is not legally binding, it’s a small measure that’s trying to even just make the University think about being accountable. It’s a small step forward, but one that I hope will protect the community group a little bit more than they are currently. 

IC: And you’re still developing this Agreement, it’s very much a conversation isn’t it between the University and the partners? I wondered if you could say anything about how it’s been received so far? How is it working in practice?

AM: Yeah, it’s definitely iterative. I think one of the main things for me is that I didn’t want to just replicate another kind of bureaucratic process. In fact, that’s one of the things that I’ve been trying to counter in my work because there is normally so much documentation for community groups to work through, when they collaborate with the University, that that in itself becomes exclusionary. So, I didn’t want to add just one more thing to that. So, I’ve been obviously applying my theory-based work from my PhD thesis and some of my more experiential work. I’ve also consulted with many different racial justice activists in the city, you know the kind of community hubs informing this, but with all that being said, the actual Agreement – how it looks at the moment – I’ve formulated on my own. 

So, I want to test and see how does it work in practice? Does it serve the people that I want it to serve? And if not, I’m happy to throw it out because it needs to be materially helpful. With that in mind, it’s been important to get feedback from different groups. I launched it with SADACCA [Sheffield And District African Caribbean Community Association] the central African Caribbean hub in Sheffield. Their response was very positive, and I think one of things it shows actually is that there is such a culture about how relationships with universities are supposed to go, that even some of this stuff has been news to SADACCA. And from what they’ve said, they are pleased with how this Agreement raises some of the issues that they’ve definitely experienced, and it’s given them a bit of a means by which they can voice some of the negative experiences that they’ve had. So, from what they’ve said, that’s been helpful.

I’ve now started introducing it, as with this project Roots and Futures, to other organisations like Zest because it also needs to serve more than just one organisation. It needs to be flexible enough that it can fit with various different types of projects, with different types of stakeholders and interests and concerns. The response there – I mean, it is very early days for this project at the moment – but I think what it has highlighted is that some of this stuff is quite new. There is an unfamiliarity with where it fits in the normal kind of partnership process. At the moment it has been about teasing out when is it most effective to introduce? I think as early as possible because it should be the foundation for a relationship. So, at the moment we are just teasing that out: where does it work in the process? And hopefully from there we will find that there is a space for it and that actually it is helpful, so that is an ongoing conversation. My hope is that, after this project has finished, I can get some feedback from everyone that was involved in Roots and Futures and then refine it further and continue to develop it, and then hopefully it will then be utilised in more projects. It has been a slow development, but hopefully increasingly so it can go to more and more different projects.

IC: That’s brilliant, thank you Alex. I wondered if, just to end, can you maybe talk a little bit about what you see as the overall benefits of bringing the Partnership Agreement to this work between the University and community partners. What do you see going forwards for this approach?

AM: I think actively speaking, as I said, it offers accountability to the community partners who feel like they can hold the University accountable. And as I say, that is a difficult notion otherwise – it is not an easy thing to do. The Agreement itself is not going to wholly solve that problem, but perhaps it is a step in the right direction, I hope. That aside though, I also think it opens up the conversation about these issues. In some ways, that’s why it is meant to be there from the initial starting point of the collaboration, because it forces you to ask each other and decide on really important issues that sometimes are agreed informally, sometimes are not brought up at all, but that research has shown are really important to both the healthiness of a partnership, but also in terms of protecting these community partners on important issues. So, by having that down and having to work on this document, you are forced to reckon with these questions. So, I am hoping it surfaces and foregrounds these as issues that have to be thought through. I see that as being quite an important aspect of the Agreement. 

I am now working on ways to evaluate its success because evaluation is another issue. Evaluation tends to come down to how many people attended an event, so how big an event was, how much funding did it manage to get, which does not really lend itself to assessing racial equity and things like that. So, I am just working on ways to now almost test the efficacy of the Agreement, so that’s something that comes more at the end, this is more the beginning and the duration. Now, I need to try and develop an evaluation at the end, to try and make sure that we can really show that this has helped, and we can assess projects keeping in mind racial equity, more than just looking at figures of who turned up to an event. That is again something that I will be working with people from Roots and Futures on, and they will be probably the first project to engage with this evaluation form and help me develop that. I think that is in the short- to medium-term what I will be looking to do with it. 

IC: That’s brilliant. Thanks so much, Alex and thanks for talking to us today about your work. We will feature some updates on the blog about how the Partnership Agreement is going over the duration of the project. So, thanks very much and thanks to everyone for listening.

AM: Great, thank you.


In the next blog post, we will share the findings of our first consultation activities, which took place on Tuesday 1 June and Wednesday 9 June. In the meantime, we welcome any comments or suggestions, so please complete this Google Form or email us at rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac.uk to let us know what you think!

الترجمة العربية

اتفاق شراكة المجتمع

تركز هذه المدونة على مشروع اتفاق شراكة المجتمع والذي تمت صياغته من قبل الدكتور أليكس ماسون، مدير مشروع تبادل المعرفة في جامعة شيفيلد. وتُعد روتس آند فيوتشرز أحد المشاريع الأولى التي استخدمت هذا الاتفاق، والذي لا يزال العمل به قيد التنفيذ. يهدف الاتفاق إلى معالجة المساواة العرقية بشكل مباشر عن طريق الشراكات بين الجامعة والمنظمات المجتمعية، مما يجعل الجامعة مسؤولة أمام شركاء المجتمع المحلي ويضمن تحقيقها للأهداف المحددة في بداية المشاريع التعاونية. 

لمزيد من المعلوما ت حول هذا الاتفاق، يمكنكم الاستماع إلى المقابلة مع أليكس عن عمله والتي استمرت حوالي 10 دقائق علي الرابط التالي: 10-minute interview

إذا لم يكن لديكم الوقت الكافِ للإستماع إلى المقابلة كاملة، يمكنكم البحث عن محتوى المقطع الأكثر اثارة للإهتمام بالنسبة إليكم عن طريق استخدام التوقيتات الزمنية الواردة أدناه:

0:44 - 1:42 دور أليكس في فريق تبادل المعرفة في جامعة شيفيلد

1:52 - 2:35 الخلفية البحثية لأليكس وخبرته

2:56 - 5:13 أهداف اتفاق الشراكة

5:28 - 8:33 اتفاق الشراكة في الممارسة العملية

8:50 - 11:19 تحديد فوائد الاتفاق وتقييمها


سنُشارككم في منشور المدونة التالي بنتائج أنشطة الاستشارة، والتي جرت يومي الثلاثاء 1 يونيو، والأربعاء 9 يوليو. في غضون ذلك، للتواصل معنا واعلامنا بآرائكم وتعليقاتكم، يرجى تعبئة نموذج جوجل Google Form أو مراسلتنا على البريد الإلكتروني على العنوان التالي:  rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac


22 June 2021

The consultation begins!

In this blog, I will outline how our ideas for the consultation have worked in practice, who we have managed to engage so far, and some of our early findings about local perspectives of the history of Sheffield.

The tea tent in Zest Gardens.

خيمة الشاي في حدائق زيست.

Activity days

Our first activity day took place on a hot and sunny Tuesday at the start of June at the Ponderosa park and Zest Gardens. Families followed a paper version of the Historic Buildings Trail taken from the Roots and Futures app, created postcards to write down their memories of Upperthorpe, Netherthorpe and Kelham Island, and chatted over drinks in the tea tent. 

Display boards with historical photographs of local places like the Ponderosa, also helped to spark discussions about North Sheffield’s past.

Since then, another activity day has taken place, and the tea tent has provided a pop-up social space in Zest Gardens every Tuesday. 

The historical photographs we displayed and postcards of Sheffield memories.

الصور التاريخية التي عرضناها والبطاقات البريدية لذكريات شيفيلد.

The activity days saw families with young children representative of North Sheffield’s diverse population engage with the project, as has the tea tent, with visitors tending to be almost entirely women aged between 40 and 55.

We are currently struggling to engage older people of colour directly through Zest. To combat this, we aim to ask questions about people’s parents and grandparents, so that we can still find out about their histories through the eyes of their children.

Early findings

Our early findings have indicated a sense of disengagement with local museums. A guided tour of Weston Park Museum planned for 9th June did not take place due to a very low level of interest. This is what local people have said so far about museums in the city (please note that these are not direct quotes, but based on our conversations with communities):


"We need to look at the wider global connections of this area and the rest of the world, Weston Park does not highlight this well".


"I don’t feel it shows my culture at Weston Park Museum – or in any of the museums – there is a lot more stories and information that could be shared". 


"There definitely is a need for more cultures to be displayed – if I was given unlimited money to create a museum, I would build a building from my culture, I am from Iran and we have lots of beautiful glasswork, buildings and textiles". 


We have found that people want to hear more personal stories of Sheffield’s cultural heritage, from the long history of people around the world working in local NHS hospitals, to the growth of the city’s diverse food culture. 


"I would love to hear more local personal stories of the histories of people in this area, it makes it so much easier to relate to people when you hear their story rather than just a generic history".


We also found that people want more active and creative ways to interact with the past, through arts and crafts, music, food, art, QR code trails, and activity days. This was encouraging for our ongoing consultation approach.

Finally, there is a real calling for place-based histories. People want to use the spaces around them, like the Zest Gardens and the bandstand at Weston Park, to tell their stories. I’ll end on a note from a local community member, who remarked:


"History needs to not only be in a museum, but also in our parks around us".


The next blog post will continue to log our consultation activities and findings, in the meantime, please contact us with any suggestions or comments via this Google Form or email us at rootsandfuture@sheffield.ac.uk.

الترجمة العربية

بدء التشاور!

في هذه المدونة، سأوجز كيف استطعنا عملياً أن نحقق أهدافنا بشأن التشاور، ومع منا استطعنا التواصل حتى الآن لإجراء المشورة ، وسأُقدم بعض النتائج الأولية التي توصلنا إليها حول وجهات النظر المحلية لتاريخ شيفيلد.


الأيام المخصصة للأنشطة

مع بداية شهر يونيو، بدأنا يوم الثلاثاء أول يوم نشاط لنا في منتزه بونديروسا وحدائق زيست، وكان الجو جاراً والشمس مشرقة. اتبعت العائلات نسخة ورقية مطبوعة من تطبيق روتس آند فيتوتشرز لمسار المباني التاريخية، وصممت بطاقات بريدية لتدوين مذكراتهم عن أبرثورب، ونيذرثورب وجزيرة كيلهام، وتبادلوا أطراف الحديث فيما بينهم أثناء تناول المشروبات في خيمة الشاي. وقد ساعدت منصات العرض للصور التاريخية عن الأماكن المحلية مثل بونديروسا، في تشجيع النقاشات حول ماضي شمال شيفيلد.

منذ ذلك الحين، تم تنظيم يوم نشاط آخر، حيث أتاحت خيمة الشاي كل يوم ثلاثاء، مساحة اجتماعية منبثقة في حدائق زيست.


شهدت أيام النشاط إقبال  ومشاركة العائلات من مختلف الأصول والأعراق في شمال شيفيلد مع أبنائهم الصغار في المشروع، كما حدث في خيمة الشاي، حيث كان معظم الزوار من النساء التي تراوحت أعمارهن ما بين 40 و55 عاماً.


غير أننا نواجه حالياً بعض الصعاب في إشراك كبار السن من ذوي البشرة الملونة بصورة مباشرة عن طريق زيست. ومن أجل التغلب على هذا الأمر، فإننا نهدف إلى طرح الأسئلة حول الآباء والأجداد، وذلك حتى نتمكن من معرفة تاريخهم من خلال أبنائهم.


النتائج الأولية

أشارت النتائج الأولية والتي تم التوصل إليها إلى إحساس بعدم الارتباط بالمتاحف المحلية. فقد تم إلغاء الجولة الإرشادية لمتحف ويستون بارك والتي كان من المزمع القيام بها يوم 9 يونيو وذلك بسب انخفاض مستوى الإهتمام بمثل هذه الأنشطة. وهذا ما قاله السكان المحليون حتى الآن فيما يخص المتاحف في المدينة:


" نحن بحاجة إلى إلقاء نظرة على الروابط العالمية الأوسع بهذه المنطقة وبقية العالم، ويستون بارك لا تُسلط الضوء على هذه الأمور بطريقة جيدة"

"أنا لا أشعر بأن متحف ويستون بارك - أو غيرها من المتاحف - يُمثل ثقافتي والأنماط المرتبطة بها، هناك العديد من القصص والمعلومات التي يمكن مشاركتُها"

"بالتأكيد هناك حاجة إلى التعرف على الثقافات الأخرى- إذا تمكنت من الحصول على أموال طائلة لإنشاء متحف، فسوف أبني مبنى يعبر عن ثقافتي، أنا من إيران ولدينا العديد من الأعمال الزجاجية الفنية الجميلة، والمباني والمنسوجات"

لقد أظهرت نتائجنُا أن الناس يرغبون بسماع المزيد من القصص الشخصية عن التراث الثقافي لمدينة شيفيلد، من التاريخ العريق عن الناس من جميع أنحاء العالم والذين يعملون في المستشفيات المحلية للخدمات الصحية الوطنية، إلى إثراء ثقافة البلد المضيف فيما يتعلق بالأطعمة والمواد الغذائية التي تتلاءم واختلاف الأذواق في المدينة: 


"أود الإستماع إلى المزيد من القصص الشخصية المحلية التي تتناول تاريخ الأشخاص في هذه المنطقة، فالإستماع إلى القصص الشخصية يخلق ارتباطاً عاطفياً عند المُتَلقي و يسمح بتكوين روابط مع الأشخاص والتفاعل معهم بطريقة أسهل بكثير من سردها على أنها وقائع تاريخية عامة"


كما أظهرت نتائجنا أيضاً أن الناس تريد المزيد من الأساليب الأكثر نشاطاً وإبداعاً للتفاعل مع الماضي، وذلك من خلال الفنون والحرف اليدوية والموسيقى والطعام ومسارات رموز كود الإستجابة السريع والأيام المخصصة للأنشطة. لقد كان هذا الأمر مشجعاً جداً للنهج الذي اتبعناه فيما يتعلق بالمشاورات المستمرة.

أخيراً، هناك دعوة حقيقة إلى أن تشمل السجلات التاريخية تحديد للمواقع التاريخية. حيث أبدى الأشخاص رغبتهم بإستخدام المساحات المحيطة بهم مثل حدائق زيست ومنصة الفرقة الموسيقية في ويستون بارك، لسرد قصصهم. لذا سوف أُنهي هذه المدونة بملاحظة من أحد أعضاء المجتمع المحلي، والذي قال: " يجب أن لا يقتصر التاريخ على الآثار الموجودة في المتاحف، بل يجب إنشاء معارض للتاريخ في جميع الحدائق المحيطة بنا"


ستستمر مشاركة المدونة التالية في تسجيل أنشطة الاستشارة والنتائج. في غضون ذلك، يرجى مراسلتنا مع أي اقتراحات أو تعليقات عبر تعبئة نموذج جوجل أو عبر البريد الإلكتروني على العنوان التالي: rootsandfuture@sheffield.ac.uk


Map of our consultation area showing the location of the tea tent in Zest Gardens and Edward Street Park.

خريطة منطقة الاستشارات الخاصة بنا والتي توضح موقع خيمة الشاي في حدائق زيست وحديقة شارع ادوارد

8 July 2021

Bringing heritage to communities: the tea tent

Every Tuesday since the start of June, Alison (Zest) alongside Courtenay (Ecus) have pitched the tea tent in the Zest Gardens or Edward Street Park, near to Netherthorpe Road. The interesting and insightful conversations that have taken place in the tea tent have made this our primary approach to speaking with local communities. 

What are the benefits of this approach?

We have identified three key advantages to using the tea tent:

So far, the tea tent audiences have reflected the diversity of the local population, although people still tend to be younger than the age groups we are trying to engage. We continue to attribute this partly to a sense of social disconnection following the COVID-19 lockdowns.

What are the implications of this approach?

The tea tent has highlighted the importance of bringing heritage to communities. This connects to the disengagement with local museums mentioned in the previous blog post, which has been consistent across our consultations. Museums take heritage out of place, but communities want to experience a sense of place when engaging with the past to strengthen their feelings of belonging and ownership towards their local area. 

This raises questions for the direction of future heritage engagement. Should resources be directed towards the people who run activities that come and go, but that communities find meaningful and prefer? Or should they be used to create long-standing exhibitions that have the longevity and materiality that appeals to funding bodies? 

The communities of North Sheffield have their own suggestions for approaching place-based heritage. The next blog post will discuss these ideas, as we continue to reflect on our consultation findings. In the meantime, please contact us with any suggestions or comments via this Google Form or email us at rootsandfuture@sheffield.ac.uk.


الترجمة العربية

تقديم التراث إلى المجتمعات: خيمة الشاي

قامت كلاً من أليسون (ممثلة عن زيست) وإلى جانبها كورتيناي (ممثلة عن ايكوس) بنصب خيمة الشاي كل يوم ثلاثاء منذ بداية شهر يونيو في كلٍ من حدائق زيست أو حديقة شارع إدوارد بالقرب من طريق نيذرثورب. أدت المحادثات الشيقة والثاقبة التي جرت في خيمة الشاي إلى إعتماد هذا النهج  بشكل أساسي في محادثاتنا مع المجتمعات المحلية.

ماهي فوائد هذا النهج:

لقد استطعنا تحديد ثلاث مزايا رئيسية لاستخدام خيمة الشاي:

حتى الآن، عكست جماهير خيمة الشاي تنوع السكان المحليين، على الرغم من أن معظم الحضور يميل إلى أن يكون أصغر سناً من الفئات العمرية التي نأمل في إشراكها معنا. لا نزال نعزو هذا الأمر جزئيا إلى الشــــعور بالانفصـــــال الاجتماعي عقب عمليات الاغلاق لكوفيد-19.

ما هي الآثار المترتبة على هذا النهج؟

سَلطت خيمة الشاي الضوء على أهمية جلب التراث إلى المجتمعات. يرتبط هذا بعدم ارتياد وزيارة المتاحف المحلية المذكورة في منشور المدونة السابق، والتي كانت متوافقة مع مشاوراتنا. تأخذ المتاحف التراث من مكانه المميز، ولكن المجتمعات ترغب في تجربة الاحساس بالمكان عند التعامل مع الماضي من أجل تعزيز شعورها بالانتماء والملكية تجاه مناطقها المحلية.

هذا يُثير تساؤلات حول اتجاه التواصل مع واحياء التراث في المستقبل. هل ينبغي توجيه الموارد نحو الأشخاص الذين يديرون الأنشطة التي تأتي وتذهب، ولكن هذه المجتمعات تراها ذات مغزى وتُفضلها؟ أم  ينبغي استخدام الموارد لإقامة عروضاً طويلة الأمد لفترات طويلة وتتمتع بالأهمية المادية التي تروق للجهات الممولة؟

لدى مجتمعات شمال شيفيلد اقتراحاتها الخاصة للتعامل مع التراث القائم على الأماكن . سيناقش منشور المدونة التالي هذه الأفكار، حيث نواصل النظر في نتائج المشاورات التي توصلنا إليها. في غضون ذلك، يرجى مراسلتنا مع أي اقتراحات أو تعليقات عبر تعبئة نموذج جوجل أو عبر البريد الإلكتروني على العنوان التالي: rootsandfuture@sheffield.ac.uk


Memory sharing at the tea tent in Zest Gardens.

     مشاركة الذكريات في خيمة الشاي في حدائق زيست

20 July 2021

Approaches to place-based heritage activities

Our consultations have highlighted a demand for interactive, place-based activities that bring heritage to the communities of North Sheffield. But how do the people we have spoken to think this could be achieved in practice? This blog outlines some of the most popular methods of engaging with the past suggested by local people so far. 

Oral history 

The people we have spoken to see oral history as a way to access more diverse and relatable stories about their neighbourhoods over time. This method of engaging with the past also relates to the preference for outdoor activities that we have identified throughout the project, with members of the community expressing an interest in hearing stories about the personal experiences of individuals first-hand on history walks or at memory sharing events in local spaces.  

I would love to hear more local personal stories of the histories of people in this area, it makes it so much easier to relate to people when you hear their story rather than just a generic history.

It would be wonderful to work with the elderly community and for those who are able to hold memory share walks where they take us to an area and chat about what was there and what it means to them – to hear from them directly. And for those who aren’t able to go on the walks, either hold memory sharing events at a café or somewhere they can sit down – even in this park. 


Memory sharing at the tea tent in Zest Gardens.

 مشاركة الذكريات في خيمة الشاي في  حدائق زيست.

Material culture

A demand for activities that make use of historical objects and artefacts was also apparent in discussions between local people and the consultation team. This connects to the more personal stories that the people we spoke to want to hear.

I would also love exhibitions on people’s objects – what they love, why they love it, why they have it. 

This approach to heritage is also more inclusive and respectful of the storytelling traditions of different cultures. 

The Kaftan is a part of our traditional dress – each of the lines within the design mean something in our culture…Textiles are incredibly important in our culture and they tell a story.

Sensory activities

Activities focusing on touch, taste and smell were popular suggestions during consultations, and reflect an interest in the sharing of cultural traditions and experiences. 

Cultural food with a walking history tour would be a lovely day – sharing stories, sharing food culture, and learning about each other.

In the halls of the [Edward Street] flats you had coal cupboards…they always had this smell about them. I remember that smell even now, it really shows how important sensory experiences are in memories. More sensory activities should be included in learning.

The park at the Edward Street Flats, another of our consultation locations.

الحديقة الموجودة عند شقق شارع إدوارد ، أحد مواقعنا للإستشارة.

Each of these three methods are interlinked and show a clear preference among the people we have spoken to for participatory approaches to heritage engagement. We will continue to reflect on the implications of these findings as the consultation develops even further. In the meantime, please contact us with any suggestions or comments via this Google Form or email us at rootsandfuture@sheffield.ac.uk.

الترجمة العربية

المناهج المتبعة للأنشطة المتعلقة بالتراث القائم على المكان

سلطت مشاوراتنا الضوء على طلب الأنشطة التفاعلية القائمة على المكان والتي تجلب التراث إلى مجتمعات شمال شيفيلد. ولكن السؤال الأهم هو كيف يعتقد الاشخاص الذي تحدثنا إليهم أن هذا يمكن تحقيقه عملياً؟ توضح هذه المدونة بعضاً من أكثر الطرق شيوعاً للتواصل مع الماضي حسب ما اقترحه السكان المحليين حتى الآن.

التاريخ الشفهي

يرى الأشخاص الذين تحدثنا إلهم أن التاريخ الشفهي هو وسيلة لمعرفة المزيد من القصص المتنوعة وذات الصلة عن أحيائهم على مر الزمن. تتعلق هذه الطريقة من التواصل مع الماضي أيضاُ بتفضيل الأنشطة التي تتم في الهواء الطلق والتي حددناها خلال هذا المشروع، حيث أعرب أفراد المجتمع المحلي عن اهتمامهم بالاستماع إلى القصص حول التجارب الشخصية للأفراد مباشرة عبر الجولات التاريخية أو ندوات مشاركة الذكريات في الأماكن المحلية.

أرغب في سماع المزيد من القصص الشخصية المحلية عن تاريخ الأشخاص في هذه المنطقة فهذا يجعل الأمر سهلاً جداً للتواصل مع الأشخاص عندما تسمع قصصهم بدلاً من معرفة التاريخ العام.

سيكون من الرائع العمل مع الأشخاص المسنين في المجتمع وأولئك الذين يستطيعون تنظيم جولات للسير لمشاركة ذكرياتهم أثناء التجول حيث يأخذوننا إلي منطقة ما ويتحدثون إلينا حول ما كان  وماالذي يعنيه لهم - للاستماع إليهم مباشرة. ولأولئك الذين لا يستطيعون التنزه أو السير على الأقدام، فبإمكانهم عقد الندوات لمشاركة الذكريات إما في مقهى أو في مكان ما حيث يمكنهم الجلوس - حتي في هذه الحديقة.

الثقافة المادية

لقد كان الطلب على الأنشطة التي تستخدم القطع والتحف التاريخية واضحاً أيضاً في المناقشات بين الأشخاص المحليين وفريق الإستشارة. وهذا يرتبط بالقصص الشخصية التي يريد الأشخاص الذين تحدثنا إليهم سماعها.

أحب أيضاً المعارض التي تعرض مقتنيات الأشخاص - أرغب في معرفة ماالذي يحبونه، ولماذا يحبونه، ولماذا يمتلكونه.

يعتبر هذا النهج تجاه التراث أيضاً أكثر شمولية واحتراماً لتقاليد سرد القصص في الثقافات المختلفة.

القفطان هو جزء من لباسنا التقليدي - حيث يعني كل خط داخل التصميم شيئاً ما في ثقافتنا... تعتبر الأقمشة والنسيج مهمة بشكل مذهل في ثقافتنا حيث تخبرنا كل قطعة قصة مختلفة.

الأنشطة الحسية

كانت الأنشطة التي تركز على اللمس والتذوق والشم من الاقتراحات الشائعة خلال المشاورات وعكست رغبة بمشاركة التقاليد والتجارب الثقافية.

ستكون ثقافة الطعام مع جولة تاريخية سيراً على الأقدام فكرة جيدة لقضاء يوماً رائعاً - حيث يتم مشاركة القصص، ومشاركة ثقافة الطعام والتعرف على بعضنا البعض.

كان يوجد مخازن من الفحم في أروقة شقق [شارع إدوارد] ... لطالما كانت تفوح منها هذه الرائحة. لازلت أذكر هذه الرائحة حتى الآن، يُظهرهذا حقاً مدى أهمية التجارب الحسية عند استرجاع الذكريات. يجب أن يشمل التعليم المزيد من الأنشطة الحسية.

كل هذه الأساليب مترابطة وتُظهر تفضيلأً واضحاً بين الأشخاص الذين تحدثنا إليهم حول اتباع مناهج تشاركية في التعامل مع التراث. سنواصل تدبر الآثار المترتبة على هذه النتائج بطريقة أفضل مع تطور المشاورات. في غضون ذلك، يُرجى الاتصال بنا بشأن أية اقتراحات أو تعليقات عبر نموذج جوجل Google Form أو مُراسلتنا على البريد الإلكتروني: rootsandfuture@sheffield.ac.uk 


11 August 2021

The Roots and Futures Exhibition

On 25 August 2021, Kelham Island Museum will open the digital Roots and Futures exhibition to the public. At each stage, its design has followed the suggestions of the people who have interacted with the Roots and Futures project since Spring 2020. From 25 August, you can follow this link to access the exhibition online.

The exhibition features street art like this mural in Kelham Island by Joanna Whittle.

يعرض المعرض فن الشارع مثل هذه اللوحة الجدارية في جزيرة كيلهام والتي تم رسمها من قبل جوانا ويتيل.

What does the exhibition contain?

The exhibition explores the aspects of local heritage that project participants identified as the most meaningful and interesting to them, either through the photographs and stories they uploaded to the Roots and Futures app, or the memories shared with the project team during consultation activities this summer. 

Informed by these interactions, the exhibition revolves around five core themes: places, things, stories, artwork, and people. It showcases the history of places like the Sheffield Infirmary, the city’s restaurants and food culture, and the links between the people of Sheffield and the rest of the world created by the generations of residents who have moved to the city and made it their home. 

This is a photograph of a church parade, shared with us by a user of the Roots and Futures app. Personal photographs like these, and the stories behind them, feature in the exhibition.  

هذه صورة لإستعراض الكنيسة، والتي تمت مُشاركتها من قبل مستخدم لتطبيق روتز آند فيوتشرز. تعتبر مثل هذه الصور الشخصية والقصص التي تدور حولها سمة بارزة في المعرض.

How is the exhibition structured?

It is a digital exhibition, with eight QR codes placed around Kelham Island Museum. Visitors are invited to walk around the museum and scan the codes to find out more about the history of this part of North Sheffield. 

The structure of the exhibition follows the suggestions of local people by offering different methods of engagement with the past.

How will the exhibition be presented to the people we spoke to? 

The day before the exhibition is officially launched, the museum will open its doors first to the members of local communities connected to Zest, with a trip to the museum forming part of an activity day during the summer holidays. We hope that events like this will show that the museum is welcoming and inclusive of all local people.

Future directions

The digital format of the exhibition means that it can be translated to an outdoor setting. From our consultations, we have found that connecting heritage activities to place is incredibly important to encouraging more people to engage with the past. In the future, we hope to bring this exhibition to local communities by placing QR codes in popular local spaces like the Zest Gardens.

الترجمة العربية

معرض روتز آند فيوتشرز ( الجذور والعقود الآجلة)

سيفتتح متحف جزيرة كيلهام في 25 أغسطس 2021 معرض روتز آند فيوتشرز الرقمي للعامة من الناس. اتبع تصميم المعرض في كل مرحلة، اقتراحات الأشخاص الذين تفاعلوا مع مشروع روتزآند فيوتشرز منذ ربيع 2020. واعتباراً من 25 أغسطس، يمكنك تتبع  هذا الرابط this link لتتمكن من مشاهدة المعرض عبر الإنترنت.

ماذا يحتوي المعرض؟

يستكشف المعرض جوانب من التراث المحلي والتي حددها المشاركون في هذا المشروع على أنها الأكثر أهمية وإثارة للإهتمام بالنسبة إليهم، سواء كان ذلك من خلال الصور والقصص التي قاموا بتحميلها على تطبيق روتز آند فيوتشرز، أو من خلال الذكريات التي تمت مشاركتها مع فريق المشروع وذلك أثناء أنشطة التشاور خلال هذا الصيف. 

يتمحور المعرض من خلال هذه التفاعلات حول خمسة مواضيع أساسية وهي: الأماكن، والأشياء، والقصص، والأعمال الفنية والأشخاص، والتي بدورها تعرض تاريخ الأماكن مثل مستوصف شيفيلد، ومطاعم المدينة وثقافة الطعام. إلى جانب عرضها للروابط التي تجمع بين سكان شيفيلد وبقية العالم والتي أُنشأت من قبل أجيال من السكان الذين انتقلوا إلى المدينة وجعلوا منها موطناً  لهم.

كيف يتم تنظيم المعرض؟

هذا المعرض رقمي ويضم ثمانية رموز استجابة سريعة موزعة حول متحف جزيرة كيلهام. الزوار مدعوون للتجول في المتحف ومسح هذه الرموز لمعرفة المزيد عن تاريخ هذا الجزء من شمال شيفيلد.

يتّبع تنظيم المعرض اقتراحات السكان المحليين من خلال تقديم طرق مختلفة للتفاعل مع الماضي.

كيف سيتم تقديم المعرض للأشخاص الذين تحدثنا إليهم؟

قبل يوم من بدء العرض رسمياً، سيفتح المعرض أبوابه أولاً لأعضاء المجتمعات المحلية الذين لهم علاقة وارتباط مع زيست، وذلك عن طريق القيام برحلة إلى المتحف تشكل جزءاً من أيام الأنشطة التي يتم عقدها أثناء فترة العطلة الصيفية. 

التوجهات المستقبلية:

يعني الشكل الرقمي للمعرض أنه بالإمكان ترجمة مثل هذا الحدث إلى معرض في الهواء الطلق. فقد وجدنا من خلال مشاوراتنا أن ربط الأنشطة التراثية بالمكان هو أمر في غاية الأهمية لتشجيع المزيد من الأفراد على التفاعل مع الماضي. ونأمل في المستقبل تقديم مثل هذا المعرض إلى المجتمعات المحلية من خلال وضع رموز الإستجابة السريعة في الأماكن المحلية والشعبية مثل حدائق زيست.

17 August 2021

The Roots and Futures survey is live!

To find out more about what the people of North Sheffield think about the history and heritage of the city, we have launched the Roots and Futures survey. If you live in Upperthorpe, Netherthorpe, Neepsend or Kelham Island and would like to participate, please follow this link.


The survey questions

The survey poses a series of open questions, including:  

The questions are based on those asked by the consultation team at our weekly tea tents, but shortened and simplified to account for the digital, rather than conversational, approach.

Sharing the survey

We have advertised the survey via posters in local spaces like the Upperthorpe Library and shared it via email with community groups connected to Zest. We aim to use it to access more perspectives from people in the north of Sheffield, broadening our understanding of which aspects of the area’s history are most important to local people. 

The survey will be live until the end of August 2021. 

The second phase of the Roots and Futures project has now come to an end, but members of the project team still welcome feedback on any aspect of our work. To contact us, please email rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac.uk

الترجمة العربية

الدراسة الاستقصائية لروتز آند فيوتشرز حية مباشرة!

لمعرفة المزيد حول ما يفكر به سكان شيفيلد فيما يخص تاريخ المدينة وتراثها، قام مشروع روتز آند فيوتشرز بإطلاق الدراسة الاستقصائية الخاصة بالمشروع. إذا كنت تعيش في أبرثورب ونيذرثورب ونيبسيند أو جزيرة كيلهام وترغب في المشاركة، فالرجاء اتباع هذا الرابط: link 

أسئلة الدراسة الاستقصائية

تطرح الدراسة الاستقصائية سلسلة من الأسئلة المفتوحة للنقاش، بما في ذلك:

تستند هذه الأسئلة إلى تلك التي تم طرحها من قبل الفريق الاستشاري في خيام الشاي الأسبوعية التي عقدناها، ولكن تم اختصَارُها وتبسيطها لمراعاة النهج الرقمي، بدلاً عن أسلوب المحادثة.

مشاركة الدراسة الاستقصائية

لقد قمنا بالإعلان عن الدراسة الاستقصائية عن طريق الملصفات الجدارية في المناطق المحلية مثل مكتبة أبرثورب وتمت مشاركتها أيضاً عبر البريد الإلكتروني مع المجتمعات المحلية ذات الصلة بزيست. ونهدف إلى الوصول إلى المزيد من وجهات نظرالناس في منطقة شمال شيفيلد من خلال هذا الإعلان ، مما يوسع من فهمنا لجوانب تاريخ المنطقة الأكثر أهمية بالنسبة للسكان المحليين.

ستكون الدراسة الاستقصائية حية ومباشرة حتى نهاية شهر أغسطس للعام 2021.

لقد وصلت المرحلة الثانية من مشروع روتز آند فيوتشررإلى نهايتها، ولكن لا يزال أعضاء فريق المشروع يرحبون بآرائكم حول أي جانب من جوانب عملنا. للتواصل معنا، يُرجى مراسلتنا على البريد الإلكتروني المذكور أدناه:

rootsandfutures@sheffield.ac.uk