Kit 01 Assets and challenges Meeting the small and remote place's community and understanding its assets and challenges.

The tools in this Kit are intended to put together a picture of the local relational situation and to identify key people and Local Heroes to dialogue with in order to understand the area’s assets, challenges, and opportunities.

What questions does this Kit answer?

  • Who are the people involved in the public life of the small and remote place?
  • Who are the people who might also be involved?
  • Who are the people who might be impacted?
  • How are the local and external communities experiencing the remote place?
  • What are they doing, and where?
  • What are the most interesting assets?
  • What opportunities are emerging?
  • What challenges are placing stress on the context?

To answer these questions, the Kit requires a systemic understanding of the context to be developed that includes people’s roles, their presence and systems of representation, the tangible and intangible resources and their reciprocal relations, and the challenges the territory faces. Document research, on-site observation, and meeting local experts will help you to reach this goal.

The tools in this Kit

K.01-1Local Actors Map

The tool enables:

  • the identification of Local Heroes: those who have made a difference and will be essential actors in the project (e.g., the committed farmer, the outlandish entrepreneur, the creative, the politician, etc.). They are usually very enthusiastic and care deeply for the territory and its future development. Local Heroes could also assume the role of gatekeeper, decision-maker, or influencer in the context of your small and remote place.
  • the identification of crucial institutions, organizations, and entities that compose the local social, political, cultural, and economic system and how they relate to each other.
K.01-2Baseline Data Wall

The tool enables:

  • the project to be grounded in data, portraying the value of natural heritage and resources for nature-based solutions, and detecting climatic challenges.
  • the identification of demographic challenges/needs, and possibly choosing a targeted population, describing socioeconomic challenges/needs, and recognising the importance of institutional life and community life.
  • building a deeper knowledge of the place development, the key historical phases of its urbanisation/aggregation/development, and the importance of historical heritage.
K.01-3Assets and Challenges Map

The tool enables:

  • the identification of the area's main assets and asking people what challenges, missions, and desires they have to improve the place. Each asset or mission may spark a discussion, allowing the creative team to learn more about the place. Dialogues may also start by acknowledging assets that surfaced during the research phase to obtain additional information and understand the local perception and aspirations.
  • the tracing of connections between existing assets and challenges on one side, and willingness for change (i.e., missions and desires) on the other. Local actors and field observations might explicitly express these connections, or they might emerge from the creative team’s intuitions. Thus, this tool maps the current situation and may suggest early and unexpected project directions.
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