Mapping Out Your Community

Before we engage in community work, it can be really useful to think about our relationships and connections with others, be they neighbours, members of the local community, friends and family, or any others whose needs we are aware of. By ‘mapping’ these relationships and connections on paper, we can visually place ourselves in the wider community ecosystem and identify where we would like to focus our attention and who we would like to reach out to.

Map Out Your Relationships

Draw a map of yourself and your relationship to others. Place yourself in the middle of the page and draw lines out to others, be these people, communities, organisations or groups. The length of the line should represent your closeness or distance to those you identify.

This map can include both those that you are emotionally close to/far from and those you are physically close to/far from.

Once you have completed your map, consider the following questions:

Consider People’s Needs

This activity encourages us to think about who we need to be looking out for and what needs they might have. This activity can be difficult – thinking about those who are vulnerable and who need support can have an emotional impact. If you feel this is the case for you, then take some time out to think about what it is that is impacting you or reach out and talk to someone.

When completing the following questions, stay broad; you don’t just need to think about the people in your local community, you can think about people nationally or globally. Sometimes it helps to expand our vision outwards as we may not be aware of everything that is going on in our local communities.

Map Out Your Community

Now focus on your local community, using your ideas generated by the questions above and your knowledge of the area in which you live.

Draw a map of your community, using the following questions to guide you:


Revision #2
Created 4 November 2020 15:43:06 by Alix Emery
Updated 18 November 2020 17:22:46 by raenyah