Category: Case Study
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Listening to all our voices: young people imagining the future of Lithgow
How creative facilitation and a strengths-based approach helped young people explore their town, share their experiences and put forward ideas for change. What happens when we give young people space to tell us how they really feel about their community, including the things we might find uncomfortable to hear? At the Lithgow Youth Summit in…
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Designing for the Bump
I keep coming back to this idea lately: the power and beauty of the small. Don’t get me wrong. We need the big stuff too. Better systems, better policy, better services, better places, more investment. Absolutely. But while we’re trying to change all of that, what can we do now, with what’s already around us?…
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From Youth Voice to Youth-Led Possibility: Co-designing a Social Enterprise in Rozelle
What changes when we stop asking young people only what they need – and start asking what they care about, what strengths they bring and what they would like to create? In 2020, Rozelle Neighbourhood Centre contracted Soulgen to lead a three-month youth consultation and co-design process across Rozelle, Balmain, Lilyfield and the wider Inner…
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From Passion to Action: Growing a Community of Cooks River Changemakers
What happens when you bring together people who care deeply about a place — not to tell them what needs fixing, but to discover what they already have and what they might create together? In 2019, Soulgen founder Dimitrios Papalexis was contracted by the Cooks River Alliance to facilitate a series of workshops for the…
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Central Coast Connected Communities: From Consultation to Collective Action
How a social cohesion initiative moved from listening and community engagement to co-design, local experimentation and community-led action.
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Building Social Cohesion the ABCD Way: Reflections from Culture Waves
At first glance, some people may not immediately connect social cohesion programs like Culture Waves with ABCD (Asset-Based Community Development). But for me, the links are very real. Perhaps because I have never experienced ABCD simply as a framework to preach or a workshop to deliver – but something to live and breathe through practice.…