COMMUNITY BASED PARK DESIGNS

Amigos helps public agencies identify and respond to the needs expressed by their communities to create healthy urban environments. We examine local cultural preferences and research demographics of particular communities to create quality public spaces for our diverse Southern Californian communities. Our Emerald Necklace Fellows are trained multi-lingual facilitators experienced in involving diverse communities in the process of project design. By involving residents in the process of creating parks, we hope to enhance their awareness of the importance of native plants, habitat, and water conservation in healthy communities. In addition to engaging volunteers to maintain the parks we create, Amigos also involves local youth organizations when building the park projects. With the ability to build the parks we design, Amigos has the capability of turning the vision of residents into reality.

Amigos de los Rios involves the community all along the way, so you wind up with a base of support long after Amigos has stepped out of the project.   –  Jeff Seymour, Ret. Superintendent, El Monte City School  District

We incorporate surveys, interviews, focus groups, community meetings, and other creative participatory processes into our work with the community. Once we have reached a statistically significant number of participants in our outreach, we begin analyzing the response data and incorporating comments into the design. Through the incorporation of the community outreach data and sustainable design principles, Amigos produces conceptual designs for public review and comment. Draft documents are presented to focus groups and local officials and revised prior to presentation to agencies and funding groups.