Community Projects
Safe to Grow Up & Grow Old
Tackling Vandalism & Graffiti in Garnethill
The majority of our community are fed up of the constant tagging & graffiti around Garnethill. For many, the recent vandalism of the mural in Garnethill Park, has been the last straw! We recognise that current strategies to keep the streets and parks of Garnethill pleasant and safe places for everyone, just aren’t working.
In 2024 GMC were approached by the team at Generations Working Together to come up with an intergenerational project to tackle these on-going problems at a community level, where both young and old people can have their say.
Over the past year we worked as an #intergenerational group to discuss & propose creative ideas on how we as a community can make Garnethill a safer and more pleasant place to live for everyone.
Working with SWG3
We were very excited to be working with the experts from SWG3 on this project. SWG3 & their charitable arm Clydeside Initiative for Arts have a huge amount of experience in this field. We have been tapping into their expertise & problem-solving skills, and now hope to create long-lasting street art in our community, by working with young people and taking a step away from the tagging and vandalism that we currently see across Garnethill & the city centre.
‘Art is for everyone. We believe in its power to transform, change and inspire. Through our wide range of creative projects, we’re able to harness the accessibility and joy of street arts to encourage social change, provide opportunity and inspire creativity within communities’.
SWG3 have worked with many community groups city-wide on projects such as ‘murals created with love’ by residents in Govan and Partick, to larger scale commercial commissions at sites across Scotland, always with the mission to bring social change, opportunity and inspiration to communities, the city and beyond.
You can read more about SWG3 and their innovative community projects here. https://swg3.tv/arts/urban-art/projects/in-the-community/
Next Stages
Watch this space as our plans to improve Garnethill’s walls and streets come to fruition for 2025!
You can also watch a short video here of what we’ve got up to so far!
Breaking down barriers with GWT
We will be working closely with Generations Working Together (GWT) who received funding from The Community Knowledge Fund* for this intergenerational research project.
GWT are working with 4 community organisations across Glasgow (including ourselves) to look at how communities can break down barriers between the young and old to help create resilient, safer communities that are safe to grow up and grow old in. We will be exploring perceived fear of crime, ageism, empathy, and social connections between people of all ages.
*About the Community Knowledge Fund
The new Community Knowledge Fund works involving communities more meaningfully in research and innovation and has many benefits: it encourages conversations and helps spread knowledge, it builds new relationships and ways of working, and it increases understanding of what is important to people. However, there’s often a disconnect between the institutions leading research, and the people and community groups who are working to create change in their communities. There is work to do to bridge the gap and strengthen the connections between communities and the research and innovation system.
