Platforming Cornwall’s marginalised voices

Cornwall is a place of striking contrasts. Beneath its coastal beauty lies a quieter, rural poverty, shaped by low wages, high housing and fuel costs, and seasonal work.  For many people here, particularly those from marginalised groups, the gap between lived experience and public decision making can feel vast.  The stories that shape policy and funding rarely begin with the people most affected by them.

The Cornwall Lived Experience Partnership (CLEP) is an intersectional partnership of voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations representing people with lived experience across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.  Together, they work to ensure the voices of those most often overlooked, whether through poverty, disability, race or other marginalised identities, are heard in the conversations that shape their lives.

With support from Cornwall Community Foundation, CLEP partnered with Screen Cornwall to produce We Are Cornwall's Communities, a documentary film project created by and with people from marginalised communities across the county. 

The project was not just about making a film.  It was about giving participants the tools and the confidence to tell their own stories, through filmmaking workshops, interviewing skills and collaborative storytelling that put them firmly in the driving seat.

The people involved did not arrive as subjects, but as contributors, learning new skills and building new connections along the way.  For many, it was the first time they had been given the space and the resources to speak on their own terms, to describe what life in Cornwall actually looks and feels like from where they stand.

Building connections that last

Eighteen organisations worked together across different communities and different experiences to create something that reflects the real breadth of life in Cornwall.  This cross-sector, collaborative approach to community engagement does not happen by accident.  It requires trust, flexibility and the willingness to follow the lead of the people closest to the issues.

The skills developed through the project did not disappear when the cameras stopped rolling.  Participants came away with practical abilities in filmmaking, storytelling and interviewing that they can carry into other areas of their lives and work.  The relationships formed across the partnership continue to shape how these organisations work together, strengthening the wider network of support available to marginalised communities across the county.

Cornwall Community Foundation's support gave the partnership the flexibility to deliver this work in a way that responded to what participants actually needed, rather than fitting a predetermined mould.  Responsive, place-based funding allows ideas rooted in real community experience to grow into something lasting.