Enhancing togetherness in western Bern with a variety of campaigns

Framed by main roads and railway tracks, the neighbourhood is a mix of ageing apartment blocks and commercial premises, with few shops and hardly any opportunities for children to play or residents to meet up. No, Untermatt is not one of Bern’s trendiest neighbourhoods. The City of Bern’s social spatial monitoring also shows that the highest proportion of foreigners and the highest social welfare rate are found in this neighbourhood in western Bern. 

But something is happening behind the unremarkable façade. The director of the Quartierzentrum Untermatt neighbourhood centre, Stephanie Schär, is sitting at a table with Kowsar Abdulkadir. For social worker Schär, this certified social care worker and mother with Somali roots is a key person in the neighbourhood. In other words, she participates in projects, supports neighbourhood residents and builds bridges across language barriers. 

Programmes for a heterogeneous neighbourhood

‘I once went to the neighbourhood dinner at the playground in front of my flat, just to have a look, when this project was getting started,’ Kowsar Abdulkadir recalls, ‘and that’s where I met Stephanie.’ The fact that she came into contact with neighbourhood work is not only due to her openness and interest, but also to a research project at the Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH. The neighbourhood dinner was one of several interventions supported by the university and designed to make it easier for residents to participate in neighbourhood life. And it has been a resounding success: ‘I lived in the flat for eight years before that, but never went to the playground,’ says Kowsar Abdulkadir. 

‘In Bern West, there are quite a few socio-cultural offerings for the heterogeneous population,’ explains Simone Gäumann, project manager at BFH. ‘However, many of them do not adequately reach the neighbourhood population, because they are designed with the programme as the starting point, for example, or only focus on a specific group.’ As a result, important perspectives and experiences are not taken into account in the process of shaping community life. This is a problem because people’s quality of life depends to a large extent on whether they can influence their living environment. 

Creating opportunities for participation

The ‘A diverse neighbourhood for everyone’ project therefore wanted to create specific participation opportunities for people who have previously found it difficult to get involved, for example because they have high workloads or language barriers. The use of artistic methods is a special aspect of the project. In addition to the BFH School of Social Work, the Bern University of Applied Sciences – Academy of the Arts was also involved. 

‘These kinds of artistic methods are appealing and low-threshold because they are not necessarily based on language,’ explains Simone Gäumann, a social scientist, ‘so they resonate with a wide variety of people and create space for dialogue and community.’ This was impressively demonstrated by the kick-off intervention in neighbouring Tscharnergut. The carillon there is an important cultural symbol of the neighbourhood. Previously, it mainly played traditional Swiss melodies. The song repertoire now includes numerous other melodies, for example from the neighbourhood residents’ countries of origin. They, in turn, feel seen in their diversity and feel that they belong to the neighbourhood. Conversations about the melodies played on the carillon foster dialogue in the neighbourhood. 

Creative approaches, artistic methods

Other interventions looked for creative ideas for new meeting places or presented the neighbourhood’s playgroups, which play an important role in maintaining cohesion in western Bern. At the Untermattfest festival, members of the ‘Encounter’ working group, an illustrator and researchers created portraits of neighbourhood residents, which were then exhibited. The selection of lifestyle-related topics and various portrait options lowered the inhibition threshold for people to come out of their shells and created starting points for discussions. ‘The creative and artistic methods facilitated a new, sensory and emotional approach that complements and enriches our way of working,’ explains Stephanie Schär, centre director and employee of the Berner Gemeinwesenarbeit VBG association. 

The whole process was based on a participatory approach. The neighbourhood residents were involved and were able to help develop the activities. ‘Participation, contributing your own voice, representing the views of those who are not part of the working group – that was important,’ emphasises Kowsar Abdulkadir. ‘It gives the residents the feeling that they are not being dictated to from above. The activities were designed to be a good match for the residents.’ ‘Whom do we reach, how do we reach people, who decides when and where the campaigns take place? Thanks to BFH’s research perspective, we have taken more time to grapple with these questions,’ says Stephanie Schär. 

Lasting impact

The research work will still have an impact even after the project has come to an end: the neighbourhood dinner will keep running and the ‘Encounter’ working group will continue to work with new members and increased sensitivity. Local neighbourhood associations are knocking on the door seeking know-how and inspiration in Untermatt. There’s movement afoot in terms of community spirit as well. 

Kowsar Abdulkadir and Stephanie Schär tell of people who have emerged from their anonymity through the campaigns, encountered others and started to build trust. They start greeting each other on the street and socialising outside their own language communities – taking responsibility for themselves and others, and in the process creating a new sense of community in the neighbourhood. The reasons for these encounters can sometimes be quite simple: ‘I’ve found a key, my cat has run away, can someone lend me a loudspeaker,’ says Kowas Abdulkadir, giving examples of neighbourly help in the neighbourhood chat on WhatsApp.  

‘When people feel that they can get involved, they don’t just live here, they feel at home. They take control of their lives and become less dependent on the system,’ says Stephanie Schär, describing the impact. This bodes well for the neighbourhood, which is set to grow by up to 1,000 flats in the coming years with the Weyermannshaus West site. Something is happening behind the unassuming façade, between the railway tracks and the main roads.