We have recently started a new project all about self-advocacy in Somerset. We are trying to link together all the groups in Somerset who do self-advocacy and to find the right audiences to hear their stories.
We have Clemma who is Special project Advisor, Ellie who is a Supported Intern, Joe who is also a Supported Intern, Ben who is Project Manager and Alex, our CEO.
In the last few weeks we have been investigating some of the groups that are out there. We wanted to find out a bit more about them because we needed to discover what they do, where they are and what they deal with. We found out about 37 different groups across Somerset.
We divided them into 3 groups of colours. Our red ones are ones we don’t know anything about, yellow are ones we know a little bit about and the greens are ones we know a lot about.
The photo you can see shows Clemma pointing to the map of Somerset we made. It shows the places where the groups are based. For example, we found a group down in Watchet which is right by the coast. The map is helpful because it helps us to know where they are and what part of the county they are in.
Our next steps are to let people know we want to talk to them. So we will firstly communicate with the people we need to talk to and then arrange a time and date to go and visit them. Next we will make sure the people who need to listen – listen.
If you’re a group in Somerset that want to let us know what they do please email Ben on ben.waller@openstorytellers.org.uk