Tailor-made for NGOs

ANIMATING CHANGEMAKING HUBS IN COMMUNITIES

You are NGOs, activists, field workers, trainers or educators and wish to bring about social change on an issue you have been addressing for a long time or on one you have recently taken up. You believe in the righteousness of your cause such as “animal rights” for example but are severely hindered by other prevailing beliefs, perspectives and attitudes like those of “indigenous residents depending on subsistence hunting”. There is no simple solution.

Both you as a change maker and the issue you wish to address are imbedded in a context that is dynamic with innumerable interactions between numerous issues or sub-contexts. Together they form an inseparable structure of interconnections and relationships. There is no escape from this complexity. In other words, your context is made of many social, cultural and ecological perspectives, beliefs, attitudes, unwritten rules, relationships and interactions, which for most part remain invisible. Even when we claim to know of them, we tend to ignore their presence, such is the power of our own convictions. For example, we support the cause of “no plastics”. Convinced about the coherence of our ideas, we thrive on the hope that reason will triumph one day. Deeper truths escape the realm of rational and coherent thinking, which is why we have to refrain from simplified talks and plunge into deeper and richer dialogues to unfold the deep lying truths. It is here that we can hope to uncover the real hindrances and inconsistencies with regards to the change we wish to address. It is indeed here that we can find the key to effective change making, in other words identify where the potential for real long-lasting change lies. More often than not, we end up finding it in unexpected places.

If you wish to influence meaningful change, become aware of your own sources of power and ability to do so and empower your communities to understand the inconsistencies around them; to refuse false simplicity; to question pre-existing narratives like that of an attractive job creation promise by proponents of a development project only to discover a few years down the line that by disrupting subsistence food practices, the project has also generated hitherto unknown health problems in the same communities. It is never emphasised enough how much change-makers’ successes hang on mutually dependent social, cultural or environmental factors.

Notwithstanding the specific agenda for change that you wish to address, a tailor-made training program will help you acquire the complexity reading and engaging lens: understand the concepts and acquire a new set of tools, perspectives and strategies for implementing powerful changes in your communities.

For those working with non-formal schooling you may wish to check our other training programs, which will be revised to suit the cultural complexities and the less constraining conditions of non-formal schooling. Indeed, complexity approaches help children dialogue with real life, hence make the education process more meaningful and help develop lifelong thinking and learning skills. Make of them the next batch of change makers!

Get in touch with us! We look forward!