Welcome to MELA, pioneers in social innovation for transforming public spaces.
We put cultural diversity at the heart of ‘Places’.
Our expertise is in the co-design and curation of outdoor and indoor public ‘meeting’ spaces by creatively engaging with culturally diverse communities to empower change, leadership, and collaboration.
We work with ‘Places’ – their managers and local communities – to overcome barriers to co-existence and to celebrate diversity through:
• Collaborative face-to-face and online community engagement (Co-Design)
• Intercultural Events
• Training on intercultural public space skills and competences
We live in increasingly culturally-diverse cosmopolitan cities. Cultural identity plays an important role in the image and functioning of streets, public spaces and neighbourhoods. MELA works alongside people to creatively co-design community-based solutions to the harmonious and democratic sharing of public spaces by people of all backgrounds.
Our mission is to bridge between communities across all generational, cultural, religious, social and economic divides to share creatively in shaping a safe, resilient, and convivial place together. MELA is a Sanskrit word for urban gathering and festival. Melas are joyful occasions for bringing people together in the city spaces and represents what this social enterprise stands for.
We work with built environment professionals, the Police, Local Authorities, Schools, Housing Associations and Urban Developers and other public, private and third sector organisations to strengthen the role of public spaces for community cohesion.
To watch films about MELA and our projects visit our YouTube channel