The Waymaking Project - Community Spotlight!
We have been celebrating some of our wonderful Community Member’s 2024 successes!
And next up we're celebrating Lorna Stoddart founder of The Waymaking Project - An OUTSIDE landscapes project, across the wilds of the Staffordshire Moorlands, taking local people from their towns to The Roaches and beyond.
What is the overall goal of this project?
To create a way of working with individuals and groups that enabled access to wild landscapes in the Staffordshire Moorlands, and that were focused on self-discovery explored through movement and creative practice in the natural world. There were no predetermined outcomes, other than ensuring regular, repeated visits to the same place between May – October; encouraging connection with the geography, ecology and cultural significance of place; and using human-centred design grounded in psychological and physical safety that could flex according to conditions on the day both within people, the environment, and the weather. We wanted to open the health-giving benefits of spending time in wild places to people for whom traditional frameworks for access prevent rather than enable and we worked to identify and remove those barriers.
Lorna shared this video with us that captures The Waymaking Project and it’s impact.
OUTSIDE Arts support this project, and they said this: “as a partner the important thing from the outset for OUTSIDE was that our values aligned with yours and that the nature of the project was action research. Our goal was to explore what worked and what didn’t, to properly take time to listen and allow the programme and the people the freedom to go at their pace in discovering the wild and dramatic landscapes on their doorsteps…the fact that you’re so focussed on the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’ is the crucial thing, and what I think makes your work so compelling” _ Sarah Bird, Creative Director, OUTSIDE Arts.
What was your biggest learning from the project?
That in our area, Waymaking appears to be doing something that nothing else is, and that many more established organisations are beginning to take notice.
What feels like the biggest achievement or celebration for you?
On 23rd October we held a celebration of Waymaking and invited anyone who had either participated or supported the project. Around 60 people joined over the day sharing tales of their experience in Waymaking, meeting other participants, sharing food and creative practice, and recalling what they had achieved over the last six months. A lady remarked that Waymaking “had done it”, when I asked her to explain she said “look, look at the people: babies, mothers, teens, people in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s! They’ve all come together and that wouldn’t have happened without Waymaking”. The greatest achievement though is that within that group there was diversity of physical and mental health challenges, trauma, loneliness, poverty etc. and everyone was able to share their ‘humanBeing-together-ness’.
What are your hopes for 2025?
We want to retain the essence of what makes Waymaking special, working with small groups, and find ways of expanding out efforts to different locations and communities in the Staffordshire Moorlands. We want to be bolder about shining a light on the impact of Waymaking and want to explore why this approach to enabling people is so powerful.
A huge congratulations to everyone involved with this project and for all the work that went into it! You can find out more about The Waymaking Project here.