As a busy summer of projects draws to a close, we have had the opportunity to reflect on a very special weekend of community engagement in Avonmouth – and, importantly, on some of the connections and opportunities that have continued beyond the events themselves.
Earlier this year, UWE Bristol joined Avonmouth CE Primary School, Avonmouth Community Centre, The Bristol Port Company, SevernNet and a wide range of local employers and organisations for two connected events: Pathway to Possibilities, focused on employment, training and skills, followed by Happy Avonmouth Day, a community festival celebrating the people, history and future of the area.
Supported by UWE’s CATE Public/Community Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Fund, together the events created a weekend of opportunities – connecting residents with the industries on their doorstep while bringing together skills, education, sustainability, heritage and community celebration.
Creating a Pathway to Possibilities
The weekend began at Avonmouth CE Primary School with Pathway to Possibilities, developed with The Bristol Port Company and other local partners to bring employment and training opportunities directly into the community.
Avonmouth and Severnside are home to a significant concentration of businesses and employment, but living close to these opportunities doesn’t necessarily mean knowing what is available or how to access it.
Employers, training providers and organisations including The Bristol Port Company, Nisbetts, BCA, V Clean Group, Molson Group, Laundra, Women’s Work Lab, the Civil Service, Day Aggregates, FareShare South West, Smart Works, Co-op, SevernNet, Weston College and UWE Bristol, among others, came together to talk with parents, carers and local residents about employment, apprenticeships, training, upskilling and career support.
Darren Jones MP highlighted the importance of this approach:
“These interventions from The Bristol Port Company and other local organisations are so important to be able to show people that there are real opportunities for great jobs in and around the Avonmouth area.”
David Brown OBE, CEO of The Bristol Port Company, described it as being about “putting one foot in front of the other” – helping people take their first steps towards opportunity.
And those conversations have continued beyond the event. In the months since, we have heard of attendees progressing into both new employment and apprenticeship opportunities following connections made through Pathway to Possibilities.
Sometimes the first step towards a new career is simply discovering that an opportunity exists.
Celebrating Avonmouth – past, present and future
The following day, over 300 people joined Happy Avonmouth Day, a free community festival at Avonmouth Community Centre and the surrounding area.
Local organisations, businesses and residents contributed activities, stalls, music, dance, food and entertainment, alongside port tours, an artisan market, children’s activities, health activities and local history.
The setting had particular significance. Avonmouth Community Centre was once the local school, before Avonmouth CE Primary School moved to its current site. This provided a natural opportunity to explore Living Histories, bringing memories, images and stories of Avonmouth into the building.
This connected with arts-based work led by UWE’s Dr Judith Aston exploring a just transition for Avonmouth and the relationship between business, community and environment. It allowed us to look backwards and forwards in the same space – exploring an area that has long been shaped by industry, people and place.
Looking to the future also meant thinking about sustainability.
UWE’s Inspire Green Futures resources introduced families to green careers and skills, with Josh from the Inspire Green Futures team running UWE’s stall and hands-on renewable energy activities at Happy Avonmouth Day.
This linked with wider UWE work led by Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers around green skills, sustainability, circular economy and decarbonisation, and our ongoing relationships with SevernNet and organisations across Avonmouth.
As industry changes, the aim isn’t simply to tell communities that a green transition is happening around them, but to help local people see where they might fit within it.
[PHOTO: Josh/Inspire Green Futures]
Creating opportunities for students
The benefits extended back into UWE too.
Two School of Engineering students supported Pathway to Possibilities, gaining experience of working with employers, community organisations and residents and seeing first-hand how a university can connect people with education, skills and employment opportunities.
Support from the CATE Student Internship Fund subsequently enabled student involvement to continue into communications and dissemination, helping capture and share the impact of the project beyond the events themselves.
UWE as a connector
Perhaps the biggest achievement of the weekend wasn’t any individual activity, but the network behind it.
A primary school, community centre, university, major employers, training providers, voluntary organisations and residents all brought something different. The Bristol Port Company played a particularly important role as a sponsor and organiser, while Avonmouth Community Centre, Avonmouth CE Primary School and SevernNet helped ensure the events were rooted in the community rather than simply delivered to it.
For me (Sarah Behenna), the project also brought together two parts of my own work. Alongside my role in UWE’s School of Engineering, I am Chair of Governors at Avonmouth CE Primary School. Pathway to Possibilities grew directly from conversations about what local families needed, while my UWE role enabled me to draw on relationships with employers, education and training providers and colleagues across different disciplines to help respond.
Dr Laura Hobbs, from UWE’s College of Health, Science and Society, also brought public engagement and evaluation expertise to the interdisciplinary team, helping us think beyond attendance figures to the relationships and longer-term opportunities created.
That feels particularly relevant several months later. The value of community engagement isn’t necessarily captured by how many people walk through a door; a conversation that helps someone discover a route into employment or training can have an impact long after an event has finished.
The CATE Public/Community Engagement and Knowledge Exchange Fund award provided support to make these connections possible, while partners contributed their own time, expertise, resources and networks.
Together, Pathway to Possibilities and Happy Avonmouth Day demonstrated what place-based public engagement and knowledge exchange can achieve when universities, businesses and communities work together rather than simply alongside one another.
And seeing some of those initial conversations beginning to translate into new opportunities is perhaps the most rewarding impact of all.
UWE Bristol’s contribution to Happy Avonmouth was led by Sarah Behenna from UWE Bristol’s Science Communication Unit/School of Engineering, working with an interdisciplinary UWE team including Dr Laura Fogg-Rogers (Centre for Environment, Society and Resilience/School of Engineering), Dr Judith Aston (School of Arts) and Dr Laura Hobbs (College of Health, Science and Society), alongside Avonmouth CE Primary School, Avonmouth Community Centre, The Bristol Port Company, SevernNet and a wide network of local employers and community partners.