Embedded Files
33 participants, representing 10 organisations from 15 countries, gathered at ECHO Asia Impact Centre to explore the topic of flourishing together. Take a look at some of the highlights below.
Day 1 - How do we think about flourishing?
Day 1 - How do we think about flourishing?
Day one was focused on helping us unearth our own thinking about flourishing. What are some of the features we recognise, emphasise and shape when we are engaging with the topic?
Session 1 - Welcome & Introductions
Session 1 - Welcome & Introductions
We started our time by sharing some of our own experiences of flourishing, including sharing a personal photo/object that represented an aspect of flourishing to us.
We then crowd sourced the words we use to talk about the holistic change we’ve tried to capture by the term “flourishing”. What word(s) do you use?
Session 2 - What are we talking about?
Session 2 - What are we talking about?
Participants engaged in a rich picture activity to unearth their ideas of how a flourishing community could look in a given context. What ideas do you see in these pictures?
Respond & Reflect
Respond & Reflect
One of our intentional choices in designing the event, in our desire to provide as good a chance as possible for us all to be flourishing personally during the event itself, was to provide an hour after lunch each day for participants to choose how they wanted to respond and reflect. This was an open time, with the opportunity to choose any activity, but also included some organised activities on the farm, one of which was helping with seed cleaning!
Session 3 - How does social change happen?
Session 3 - How does social change happen?
Using a bio-sand filtration system to demonstrate the elements, connections, flow and feedback loops involved in complex systems!
A couple of examples of works in progress developing a visual depiction of one element of a complex social system from our earlier rich pictures:
Session 4 - Planning for change
Session 4 - Planning for change
How ready are you in taking a Systems MEAL (monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning) approach for your work?
Day 2 - How do others think about flourishing?
Day 2 - How do others think about flourishing?
Day two built on our discussions during day one by exploring how some others have chosen to describe the topic of flourishing, exploring some frameworks that could support and build on our existing ideas.
Session 5 - Exploring Existing Models
Session 5 - Exploring Existing Models
Flourishing, while a current popular term being used to describe long term holistic positive changes in society, is not a new concept. In this session we were briefly introduced to four examples of structures/frameworks that we took time to compare and contrast:
What other frameworks or understandings of this concept have you appreciated from other settings? For example, one participant shared about Salutogenesis, a framework that outlines the factors that support human health and well-being developed by Aaron Antonovsky in the mid 20th century.
Sessions 6-8 - Meet our future: introducing The Light Wheel
Sessions 6-8 - Meet our future: introducing The Light Wheel
The rest of day two was spent introducing Tearfund's Light Wheel as one framework that can be contextualised and used for your setting. The Light Wheel has identified nine interconnected aspects of wellbeing that (ordinarily) need to be addressed to see holistic (whole-life) transformation. The nine interconnected aspects are:
Living faith
Social connections
Personal relationships
Emotional and mental wellbeing
Physical health
Participation and influence
Care of the environment
Material assets and resources
Capabilities
In the afternoon we spent time as groups exploring one of the nine spokes for a given situation, contextualising the global definition and sub-themes to make it more relevant to that setting.
We then looked at the maturity model and considered how the discussion based scoring process worked. Making the most of our location, we made use of seedlings from the farm at the stages of maturity.
Here are some participants' reflections from Day 1 & 2:
"Yesterday's sessions brought back home that the Lord cares for every aspects of everyone's lives." ~ Catherine
"MEAL is about stewardship and accountability to God. It is part of moving our ministry forward." ~ Annan
"Flourishing - the importance of not losing ourselves as we serve with the hope for others to flourish." ~ Anders
Day 3 - Communicating well about flourishing
Day 3 - Communicating well about flourishing
Day three was focused on how we might want to communicate about flourishing going forward. What do we need to consider when we're talking to others about these kinds of ideas?
Session 9 - How do we know what's changing? (and if we made a contribution or not?)
Session 9 - How do we know what's changing? (and if we made a contribution or not?)
Change is ongoing and never ends. Here are some questions that may help us consider how to go about evaluating change:
What evaluation method you use depends on the questions you try to answer, how you plan to use the learning and your resources and capacities available. Picking the right method(s) and asking solid questions are key! Here is a helpful visual summary of the various evaluation methods for different purposes:
Session 10 - Choosing the right words
Session 10 - Choosing the right words
In this session we thought about the different audiences we might often find ourselves communicating with about our vision for flourishing individuals and communities, and how we might need to adjust our words and communication style to communicate differently for these different audiences. We also took some time to reflect on how our faith motivation is shaped and how that might impat our communication with faith based stakeholders.
Some reflections from our participants:
"Be honest from the beginning because they will find out who you are at some point."
"Our worldview shapes how we see these things and the words we use to explain our flourishing and faith. Thinking through our audience and how others view flourishing can help shape how we talk about things and the words we choose. It can help expand our viewpoint."
Session 11 - Turning your work into fundable stories
Session 11 - Turning your work into fundable stories
Our penultimate session took time to consider how we might communicate about the long term changes we want to see with funders. What do they want to know and how can we communicate well?
Have you also considered what funders are not interested to know?
We subsequently worked in teams to practise proposal pitching to each other and receive feedback. It was a helpful experience to be reminded of the importance of knowing the funder, explaining "why this project is important", as well as being clear and concise in the communication.
Session 12 - Reviewing our learning
Session 12 - Reviewing our learning
As the CoP came to a close, participants each picked a visual explorer card that best represented their reflection and takeaways from the CoP.
Helen Catton from World Renew picked a photo of barren land and shared a meaningful Lenten reflection written by her Co-Director, Carol Bremmer-Bennett, titled Seeds Beneath the Soil: A Lenten Reflection, which is an encouraging reminder for each one of us as we take our learning from this CoP forward.
"...We walk with communities where seeds of change are planted long before harvest is possible. We invest in people and systems knowing that transformation takes time. We labor in places where hope feels buried—and still, we plant...may we remember: the ground is not empty. The seeds are not forgotten. And the God who brings life from the tomb is always, always right on time."
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