Serabranka, a district in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, recently developed Serabranka, a participatory urban development website, with the EU’s support. The website is part of the ‘Serabranka. My Neighbourhood’ project, intended to help local residents understand their rights to use the surrounding urban space and to collect their own ideas of what the neighbourhood should look like.
The project itself targets seven courtyards in the neighbourhood that have been selected for improvement by its initiators. The research phase ended in May and the project team is now inviting locals to suggest ideas for a “facelift” of the district’s public spaces. These ideas will be translated into design sketches with efforts from a team of architects, urbanists, designers and activists.
The next step will be voting among Serabranka residents, on 22 September, to select the winning public space projects fit for implementation. This would hardly be possible without transparent and efficient two-way communication between urban development professionals and everyday users of public spaces. It comprises a website and a mobile application for initial research of demand for parking spaces and parking space turnover.
The ‘Serabranka. My Neighbourhood’ website is a winner of the EU-funded 2017 Civil Society Digitalisation Award, a special facility that seeks to support the full development of the best information communication tool designed during yearly hackathons organised by the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility – Regional Actions project.
