Commonside D19: Team Blog

As I was writing Appendix A for our project proposal, I was able to discover why our project counts as an IQP. By going to WPI's website and seeing what an IQP entails, I was able to come up with the reasons on why our project counts as an IQP. Before, I did not have a clear idea of what an Interactive Qualifying Project was and what kind of project counts as one, but now, I feel more prepared to tackle the project given to us with my group.  -Emily

This week in class we learned about the different culture, especially in terms of language that we will experience once in London. From the currency used to many different words that people in London say, we now have useful information before actually being there. Personally, I am very excited to be in London in about two weeks. I really can't wait to embrace the London culture. -Humberto

This week we took a stab at creating our final presentation. We updated our methodologies and our objectives so now we have an objective that is promoting Commonside! As mentioned last week, we felt like a "Draw My Life" video would go great on Commonside's website so I took a stab and drawing their logo. Seeing as I could draw their logo relatively well using a mouse, hopefully someone with more talent than me can do an even better job! -Noel

This week, I finalized an infographic for the background of our proposal. I found six other community services centers in the borough of Merton and created a Google Map to show their location in relation to Commonside. Interestingly enough, the six other centers are relatively far from Commonside and the majority are located in the more affluent half of Merton. -Emily

This week we presented on our assigned methodology which was Evaluation and Policy Research. We learned a lot about evaluating social programs which is very beneficial because it relates so closely to Commonside. For example, we want to avoid black box evaluations since the program process is extremely important. We think our slides looked pretty good even though it was hard to incorporate images. We hope we can do well in the next presentation too! -Commonside Team

This week, we decided to try to pinpoint what kind of video we wanted to explore for our deliverable. Noel came up with the idea to make a Draw My Life video, a fab on YouTube that blew up about 10 years ago. People draw their lives on whiteboards and tell their story in 10 minutes or less. Usually the drawings are bad and relatable, and the videos humanize the YouTube stars. This is worthwhile for us to bring up to Naomi since we want to humanize the services that they provide. An example of a Draw My Life can be seen here . -Emily

In the last week or so I learned of the National Lottery Fund, formally known as the Big Lottery Fund, who provides applications to qualifying organizations in the UK to obtain funding of varying amounts. They have several general funds organizations can apply to, one for each country in the UK, as well as funds that service a specific social goal, such as aiding the youth of the UK and the development of local communities. The process is branded as "quick and simple", with many opportunities to apply. Commonside themselves have attempted to apply to this program in the past, and we hope to discuss with Naomi her thoughts on the process and whether it is right for them. However, this is not a consistent way to obtain funding, but rather a periodic way to obtain it here and there. - Maggie

This week we started to refine our introduction, background, and methodology chapters of our report. For the introduction, we followed the different moves structure that was introduced in class. Our background draft followed the funnel approach of going from general information to more specific. Lastly, our methodology followed one of the past IQP examples that we read in class which stated the objectives at the beginning and then had subsections on how each method was going to help achieve that specific objective. In class, we were able to learn about different methods like surveying and interviewing that will be essential for our project research once we go to London. These are two of the main methodologies that we plan on using to complete our project. We are very excited to start doing this in London.  -Commonside Team

This past week in ID2050, we had a counselor, Sabrina, from the Student Development and Counseling Center come to talk about team dynamics. Not only did we learn about different concepts within our personalities, but we also learned about resolving conflicts making sure everyone wins. For the future, we can use what we learned in this class as we encounter tense group situations where our different personalities might clash. After 5 weeks together, we have not encountered any problems, but it is always important to know how to resolve them. -Humberto

The process of gaining AQS is a very lengthy one. I created a flowchart to help guide people through the process without needing to read in detail about the accreditation. This flowchart is great for understanding the steps that the Advice Service Alliance takes after an application is submitted. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover the application because there's too much detail there to cover. -Noel

After a successful presentation in class on Thursday about the different ethnic groups that make up the population of London, we had a discussion in class about ethics. We were able to learn about different cases where people did not follow ethical guidelines and had a team discussion on a case where a man wanted to impersonate a homeless person.  Since the IQP will be a report that is published by WPI, we will need to follow ethical guidelines as we conduct our research. Whether that is asking for full consent of disclosing information or not revealing the names of people we make research on, we need to be very careful with our project as we will be interacting with other human beings. -Humberto

During our presentation this week, I focused on the population demographic "Other White" which includes the Polish population. I found some great sources about the populations, especially in Merton where we will be focused for our project which gives us background info that is readily available and can be used if we need it! All in all, I thought our presentation went really well this past week and I am confident that by the time our final presentation rolls around, we will be even more prepared.

I recently came upon a very informative study by Thompson & Williams that referred to organizations like Commonside as the "Third Sector". This means organizations that are neither public nor private, but fall under an "other" umbrella. However, interestingly enough, much of these organizations rely on the public sector for funding. The problem presented in the study seemed very similar to the problem brought to us by Naomi: these third sector organizations rely on grants for survival, but gaining these grants are requiring more and more "accountability" that some of these smaller organizations are unable to satisfy, whether it be due to lack of resources or governmental requirements. It provided a lot of good information for my initial go at Move 1 of the introduction, and helped me understand the bigger societal issue surrounding our project. The study cited a lot of outside sources, so I know that the information was well researched. The only troubl...

Merton is where we'll be doing a lot of our work when we're in London. For this reason, it's important to know the demographics of Merton. Luckily, Merton Council provides links to a lot of population data as well as other general information useful to their citizens. Population data is very helpful for us at the moment. What's cool is that Merton actually provides projection data as well as regular census data. -Noel https://data.merton.gov.uk/population/

This week we presented on the ethnic and cultural groups in London. Of course there are too many to cover so we presented specifically on a few minorities. We talked about the history and cultural events and hotspots of the Italians, Greeks, Polish, Indians, and Africans. We definitely improved our presentation skills this week! We're excited to continue improving. -Commonside Team