CLIENT: Regional Development Victoria

PROJECT: REGIONAL PARTNERSHIPS  

The Victorian Government initiated Regional Partnerships as a way of ensuring that communities had avenues to make their thoughts, ideas and voices heard about what was important to them. Each regional partnership is guided by community members and assisted by Regional Development Victoria (RDV). The partnership work culminates in an annual Assembly where priorities are set - the things that each region wants to 'pitch' to government for support whether that be via policy development, new services or programs, research and development around a particular issue or funding and investment.

We assisted RDV and the Barwon and Great South Coast Partnerships with their Assemblies both of which attracted over 300 participants. These large-scale participatory forums however were the end of a much longer process involving the development of environmental scans on the state of each region, facilitating round tables, making complex information accessible through interviews and the development of video clips as a staple for social media, polling technology, collating data and information and crafting narratives.

The Regional Partnerships are an exciting activity of what we think is the 'new democracy' where communities are actively engaged with each other and their government in setting priorities that are important and will deliver the kind of future wanted.