Mymuna Soleman and Shoruk Nekeb join Community Gateway for the Community Consultation for Quality of Life research project

Mymuna Soleman and Shoruk Nekeb have both recently joined Community Gateway for the 6-month Community Consultation for Quality of Life research project. Mymuma has been appointed as a full-time Community Partnerships Specialist, with Shoruk supporting as a student ambassador role two days a week.

Hi both, can you tell us a little about yourself?

Mymuna: My name is Mymuna Soleman andI'm a Somali-Welsh born and bred in Butetown, Cardiff. I completed both my degrees at Cardiff Metropolitan University, a BSc in Health and Social Care and an MSc in Applied Public Health in 2014 and 2016. I would describe myself as an activist, a poet and community champion for all issues relating to equality, diversity, race, and white privilege and how people can use their privilege for good.  More recently I founded the Privilege Cafe, an important and timely virtual space founded and grounded on the back of creating a safe space where voices that have been marginalised and othered for so long were now welcomed and included, respected, and listened to. I have a huge passion for community engagement, empowering community voices, but most importantly ensuring that authentic relationships are created with policy makers to influence positive change.

Shoruk: Hi – I’m Shoruk! I love telling people my name means Sunrise in Arabic. I’m a proactive, easy-going character that loves a good dose of creativity. I recently graduated with my Part 1 in Architecture from the Welsh School of Architecture and have been involved in the Grange Pavilion before and throughout its development. I care deeply for its long-term success and focus on maintaining meaningful connections within the community. I am a young leader and director in the Youth Forum, and very much love our local area and its friendly people (P.S. keep a lookout for the chairs I designed in the Pavilion!).

What is the CCQoL project?

Mymuma: The Community Consultation Quality of Life (CCQoL) project is looking at Community Consultation - what that means for communities, how it could be done differently and how people who are not generally involved in the consultation process have a space and voice to impact this process in a positive way. Following a series of conversations between now and May, we're excited to be holding an ‘Urban room’ which essentially involves hiring out the Yellow room in the Grange Pavilion for an entire month and we are inviting people to do activities that are all based around questions of community input into consultation.

Shoruk: We will be hosting a month of events in May, based on four main themes – I will specifically be looking at young peoples’ voices in the consultation process, in collaboration with the Child Friendly City team.

Mymuna: These views which will be asked via a series of questions will be put onto digital maps which we hope will positively influence policy makers into doing Community Consultation in a way that works for communities from the start.

How can people get involved with the Urban Room?

The proposed dates which will be based around four themes are:

* Week 1 (2-8 May) - Health and Well-being

* Week 2 (9-15 May) - Housing

* Week 3 (16-22 May) - Green Spaces

* Week 4 (23-29 May) - Young Voices

We understand that not everyone has access to a smart phone, laptop or computer, speaks or reads English. To be as inclusive as possible, and not adding additional barriers, we have decided to hold a drop-in session at the Grange Pavilion on Wednesdays from 2pm onwards.

What are you most looking forward to over the next six months?

Shoruk: I am very excited to be involved, as there’s a great opportunity for this to feed into live projects and input people’s needs into the decision-making stages. I look forward to having deep, insightful conversations and get my local youngsters to start thinking more about their surroundings and the built environment.

Mymuna: My aim for this project is to engage with as many people as I can, tell them about the project but to also put forth the case that this isn’t about tokenism - it isn’t about ‘taking’ views or wasting people’s time in a project that does not go anywhere. I will work hard to build positive connections, raising awareness of community consultation differently, listening meaningfully, work collaboratively, take critical criticism to do better before and after the Urban Room, and even after the project finishes; I want to see how the seeds I’ve planted will grow and flourish.

To find out more about the project please visit https://ccqol.org or contact solemanm@cardiff.ac.uk and follow us on social media for updates (@voicescardiff).We would love to have you involved, included and part of this exciting journey.