This tool is useful for troubleshooting, quality improvement, and problem solving. We mostly use it to inform understandings of motivations and concerns and to underpin the development of actions. It can help bring different perspectives and experiences to light and thus offers a robust way of revealing a wider range of pathways forward. It can also be an effective way of applying some of Simon Sinek's 'Start with Why' model. It is definitely a tool that requires practice though as it is very easy to slip into asking 'what' or 'how'!
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free online courseTowards Co-operative Common Wealth is a free, eight-week online course offered by Synergia Institute and Athabasca University that sets out practical models and pathways for meaningful systems change at multiple levels. The goal of the course is to better secure our basic needs in these increasingly difficult times. There are no set class times. Work at your own pace, when it suits you each week.
Interested in knowing more? Come and find out about the course and learning group, with no obligation, on 19 March at 7pm at Gribblehirst Community Hub, Sandringham, Auckland. For tea, coffee and bikkie numbers, to register your interest and to let us know you're coming, please email Susan at connect@catalyse.co.nz. Online connection to this introductory conversation will also be available. Join the international conversation here. REGISTER HERE for the full course. |
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Towards Co-operative Common Wealth is a master class in movement building for a new model of political economy that is sustainable, democratic, and socially just. The course is suitable for newcomers to social change work as well as veteran activists, practitioners, policy-makers, and researchers. Individuals on their own and people working for social change through organisations, networks, and movements can leverage the course material and the expertise of the Synergia team to advance their own projects and activist work locally.
The course has people from around the globe taking part with thematic modules covering essential elements of integrated system change and address the major fields of action necessary for transition. In each module, key elements of context are highlighted and concrete working solutions presented. We’ll examine policies supporting diffusion and scaling impacts, analyse systems and institutions – large and small – that constrain transition efforts, and explore movements that combine effective resistance to entrenched power while building alternatives. Part 1 – Four Weeks starting March 25 1. Framing the Journey: Capitalism, Planetary Limits & The Struggle to Restore & Share our Common Wealth 2. Stewarding Land & Resources for the Common Good 3. Ecological Resilience & a Just Food System 4. Precarious Livelihoods: Pathways to Solidarity Part 2 – Four Weeks starting May 20 5. Democratising Social Care: From Welfare State to Caring Society 6. Democratic Ownership: Pathways to a Resilient Energy Future 7. Democratic Financing Solutions for the Great Transition 8. Synthesis: Building the Politics for Systems Change Conceptual tools are also strategically introduced to help participants think critically about multiple levels of action and the historical factors shaping our current context. Guiding questions for reflection and dialogue, are coupled with practical exercises to help to deepen participant’s analysis and understanding. Peer-to-peer learning groups are structured for online interaction and through video. These are intended to facilitate interaction between participants, course facilitators and special guest presenters. We will get together in person (and/or by Zoom) too, wherever possible. Potentially once every other week to talk about what we’ve learned and to reflect on the implications from a local context. Following the course, feedback from the Synergia team will be available for three weeks to promote application of course ideas and models to your own projects or work. People that complete the course will receive a certificate. University accreditation at the graduate level is also available. REGISTER HERE for the full course. |
