Community Places Community Spaces is a campaign developed by Young Women Lead that was officially launched last week on the 20th September.
In response for the need for safe community spaces and places in Paisley & Renfrewshire, the campaign is designed to highlight all of the places available in the area that could inform people safe places they can take refuge. Young Woman Lead is a leadership programme run by YWCA Scotland for women and non-binary people aged 16 – 30. The result is a website that shows the user a detailed interactive map and directory of safe spaces and services available to vulnerable groups, especially women and non-binary people. This is also a project that two of our very own young leaders/volunteers have been heavily involved with and we couldn’t be prouder of them!
We spoke with the two of our young volunteers who helped to design and bring this amazing project to life and asked them further about where the idea came from and how they went about designing it;
“When we first met, we went through ideas of different aspects that we could talk about; there was education, street safety. We settled on street safety.”
“A designated building that would be a safe space for women, non-binary people and just everyone. And we thought instead of making that space ourselves, we choose out different places and made a map you could interact with and it could show you safe spaces from where you are located at the time.”
“We created the website and we linked the map to it, it has information of all different spaces in Renfrewshire, like Paisley YMCA. We got together and launched the website on the 20th September. The logo is a mixture of the symbol of femininity and it’s in the middle of the Paisley pattern. A hidden detail is a dotted line around the logo, representing the map road.”
“Overall, I think it will make women less scared to go out when it’s dark, since they don’t have to plan a route and they have a plan where they’re going and how to get there. I know it would make me feel safer. It’s for everyone, as well. It’s not just for women, it’s for anyone who needs it.”
“We’re hoping it’s going to make a difference; we have stickers and flyers that people can use to find us.”
In a statement Katie, a member of YWL East Ren & Renfrewshire said “I’ve been so honoured to be part of this project, as it is providing a really useful tool for the women and non-binary people of Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire to use. My hope is that this informative campaign encourages the use of our wonderful services and subsequently makes women and non-binary people feel less isolated.
You can engage with Community Places Community Spaces outside of their website by following their social media channels; @communityspaceren (Instagram), @commspacesren (Twitter) and communityspacesren@gmail.com . For more information about the amazing work done by Young Women Lead, please check out their website!