The Westway: Four decades of community activism
Channel: CivicWise
Date: 2017-02-27

A film by CivicWise.

Directed by Pablo Sendra
Preliminary research and plan of the walk: Marco Picardi
Interviewees: Edward Daffarn, Henry Peterson, Toby Laurent Belson
Filmed by Pablo Sendra
Editing: Estrella Sendra and Pablo Sendra
Sound: Pablo Sendra and Aitor Fernández

The film aims to explore different forms of community activism, their objectives, their strategies or actions and their results so far. It uses observational and interactive methods. It was filmed during a walk along the Westway (London) organized by Marco Picardi and CivicWise. During this walk, the London CivicWise group meets three representatives of community initiatives and to talk about their campaigns or neighbourhood plan.

Walking, listening to people and filming is a very effective methodology to understand community campaigns, initiatives and actions. The CivicWise London Circle, with the aim of better understanding the diversity of community campaigns across London, is organising a series of Civic Walks: walks around an urban area to meet and interview community members that aim to participate actively in the decisions about their surrounding environment. The Westway has been the first of these Civic Walks. Part of this initiative is to film the walks and interviews to produce a series of documentary films about community activism in London. This series of films helps to recognize and visualize the strength and importance of community activism in London.