Hailing from Coatesville, PA, West Philadelphia-based Savan DePaul (she/they/dey) credits fellow Philadelphians for what they’ve come to learn about the city by being a Philly Documenter. Describing public meetings as “bureaucratic” and “rigid,” she’s found navigating spaces like City Hall as a trans woman to be “interesting.” Despite “having to do that weird bit of physical negotiation” and “being addressed a certain way [by security],” dey continue to be inspired by those seeking to make the city a safer place to live for everyone.

What do you enjoy about being a Philly Documenter and attending public meetings?

Hearing other residents in Philly give their thoughts on what’s going on in all the different communities around here and try to hold the city accountable. Philly can be an interconnected city, but it’s also big and there are all these different neighborhoods. There are so many things that are happening that I would not have known about if it weren’t for showing up at these meetings, like [learning that] people have critiques of SEPTA’s Zero Fare program and SEPTA because all these changes affect the community. What I like about being a Documenter is I get to learn from my fellow Philadelphians and that’s awesome really.

What have you learned about Philly that you might not have known before becoming a Documenter?

With transportation, I get locked into my same autistic girl modes, doing the same things all the time in terms of traveling. It was actually through attending this SEPTA board meeting, I learned a lot more about things that are happening with the SEPTA system and how a lot of people are really passionate about what’s going on with it, a lot of changes, a lot of things in the current SEPTA system that are not adequate, not equitable for the citizens of Philadelphia.

I’ve learned a lot about the details of how inequity works in a much finer way than I would have just going around, seeing with my own eyes, because I can only glean so much. But I’m actually able to sit in a board meeting where there’s 30-40 people giving public comments, admonishing the SEPTA board for not doing what they need to do as far as disability, as far as expanding languages, and making it more accessible for wheelchair users, taking certain rail lines out or restructuring bus routes that leave people stranded who depend on that [route] to get to work. It’s that hyper specific analysis that I gain and what I really cherish as a Documenter.

Going through life in Philadelphia, certain things are tangible and certain isms and phobias are going to be directly in my face, but hearing from other people what they’re experiencing, it can inform me about my own experiences and things that I might have missed, as well as what else is going on around my neighborhood.

What does citizen journalism mean to you?

I would define citizen journalism as communities enriching themselves with knowledge, informing themselves. It’s the idea that residents within a community, within a given jurisdiction, have the ability to gain knowledge and take a look at what’s going on and then with that knowledge be able to sit with that, bring that back into their communities, and do something about it. For me that’s what citizen journalism is for.

What do you think would be different if there were Chester County Documenters?

On a smaller scale a lot of similar things to what’s going on in Philadelphia. There’s basically no public transit system at all there. Where I was born, Coatesville, was a Rust Belt, mostly Black working class city that has seen a lot of development over the past 2-3 decades, something that’s been happening in that part of Pennsylvania. There’s actually a lot of similar machinations at play, you see those things on a less wide scale level.

Has this experience inspired you to want to do something different in your life?

I’m figuring out where to plug myself, because I have done activist stuff before and things of that nature. I have been really paying attention to cyclists who are out there campaigning for safer streets for biking, because that’s something that directly affects me as well. That’s inspired me to be in conversation with other bikers about safety, build up my own personal safety routine, and do things differently. Maybe not taking huge routes that I thought I would, making sure I use the train a lot more – sometimes streets just don’t have sidewalks, so I’ll take my bike on the train. There’s also the social aspect of it, building more camaraderie around that, because I can’t do it alone. Here in West Philly, I know people who bike, I have friends and neighbors who bike, so let’s coalesce.