the stonehouse voice
The Stonehouse Voice is a not-for-profit community newspaper for the Plymouth Stonehouse neighbourhood to encourage cohesion, give residents a voice, provide a way of communicating important local messages and provide a medium for coverage of the Local Trust Creative Civic Change, an arts project led locally by Nudge Community Builders.
The newspaper will eventually be community-owned with a succession policy for local members to take-over the operational management. It has an Editorial Board, and a Mission Statement that commits to supporting local residents tell their own stories; reflecting the rich heritage and culture of Stonehouse by ensuring local people are at the heart of everything it does; be free of charge; and will be inclusive and act with integrity and respect.
The Stonehouse Voice will fill the current news gap in the local, regional and mainstream media.
The focus will be on upskilling local people to write and produce each publication. For each edition, there will be workshops for content development, creating the news agenda for a forthcoming publication, and the design and production of the publication. It is hoped that this engagement will give residents a voice in the development of local creative opportunities and encourage creative growth in time for the British Art Show in Plymouth in 2021.
News around the workshops, planning meetings, makers, artists and artworks is an opportunity to establish a hyperlocal to initially run in tandem with the event. This at a time when the decline of the local press and consequent lack of community voice raises issues of representation and a threat to regional and national democracy. Funded by Power to Change, the initial plan is for four editions over two-and-a-half year, with social media. The first edition was launched on Friday, August 27, 2019.