ASF-UK explores participatory engagement and design as a tool for advocacy and socio-spatial transformation within contested environments. The various tools that we have used over the years and showcased on this website are mostly borrowed and adapted from typical Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques, colleagues, academic institutions and other like-minded organisations. We have transformed the tools to suit our methodological approach specific to each context and local partner organisation with whom we were working at the time.
The website has the tools each available for individual download, as kits within particular stages of the process: Getting to Know the Context; Mapping the Context; Identifying Risks & Agency; Dreaming; Developing Options and Defining Routes, or as a whole document of all the tools we have used to date. You can also access each potential process of engagement through a variety of scales: Dwelling, Community, City or Policy. Finally, we have included process diagrams of the various workshops that we have undertaken showing the intended flexibility of the toolkit and how it can be adapted into multiple combinations.
It is important for anybody using these tools to understand that they are just tools, both individually and in the toolkits that we have captured on this website. It is really key to remember that it is how the tools are used and towards what purpose that is critical. We, at ASF-UK, use the tools within context specific methodological approaches with the core objective to engage citizens in a process of deepening democracy. We feel that this is a fundamental philosophy of engagement for everyone who wishes to download and use these tools to consider and adopt.
We will continue to develop this website to include new tools, methodologies and outcomes. We welcome feedback on any of the tools that you might use yourselves, or tools that you think we might find useful in the work that we do. Please give us any feedback here.