Showing posts with label community-based approach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community-based approach. Show all posts

Detox Shack

There is this teenie tiny shop in Leicester Main Street called the Detox Shack that serves juices, smoothies and food and more. 

The more is the capabilities of the host to ask questions to its customers directly to create a connection and to remind them that their body and mind is their temple and they can take care of it by choosing the food they eat and the thoughts they think. He invites us to feel blessed for the things we receive and at peace with whatever comes up. The place and all its trinkets with positive messages written on them are also there to remind us those values. He does not preach. It is when the customer asks him questions that his wisdom shines through.

Ask a question and you will get a story that weaves itself with yours.

As I listened to him and how at peace he was and all the kind words he spoke, I reflected upon another place I visited that was also wonderful in colours and design and yet the words spoken by the staff members about the failings of their colleagues dampened my perceptions of the place. I'll definitely return to the Detox Shack for another detox talk yet not sure if I am looking forward to the toxic place.

For building community, our role as host needs to be authentic, peaceful and strive to enhance every single parts of our community as much as we can, their gifts talents and abilities, we need to continue asking questions so that eventually we find the right places for each member to shine through. Our expectations on what people should do needs to remain low regardless of their title so that we can be surprised and appreciative of what they bring on the table.

Toxicity comes from misplaced expectations put on others that they cannot possibly meet. it is a distortion. the detox is seeing thins as they are which ultimately not knowing so we can give it all a benefit of the doubt. x




Jazzing our way towards a powerful community

The Tamarack Institute sent today an invitation to attend their ABCD Community of Practice session on Wednesday 29.09.21 . The session will centre around John McKnight, Co-founder, Asset-Based Community Development Institute and Senior Associate at the Kettering Foundation latest learning bulletin called ABCD, Jazz and the Structure of Powerful Communities.

In the learning, he present the local innovations which occured in neighbourhood over the pandemic though dispersed actors and then go on to introduce the invisible neighbourhood structure which enable innovative citizenships to emerge.

The three elements that creates this specific context are:
1. Communality - the place, the desire tot celebrate, entertain and enjoy
2. Individual Capacities - Every neighbour has the belief that they have special gifts, talents or knowledge to share
3. Connectivity - the consideration that all local capacities are latent and what brings them to life is connectivity. Through connections the capacities power is created and citizenship can truly emerge.

As I read his words, I reflected on the conversations at Quetzal about our weak connections (Connectivity with the female survivors and volunteers using our building (Our Communality) and all their hidden individual capacities that could when uncovered transform Quetzal into a truly powerful community (Individual Capacity). What we ought to do more of is making the necessary effort to connect at a one-to-one level and ask simple questions: what is your story, what is your talents, what is that you would like to share with others?

From there anything is possible.

A Book Nerd Gifts

A community-based approach starts with collecting stories and identifying what are the gifts (skills, abilities, strength and interests) of those we meet and eventually start shaping projects that magnify those gifts and talents.

It is my favourite part of my job to uncover those gifts and then see in the milky way of stars how I can create a constellation and give it a name

I've met a person interested in volunteering for Quetzal. As we spoke, she mentioned that she was a book lover and we could may be create a book club. I thought to myself "How great I could match her with a survivor and poet who've just published a book and we can organise an event together".

It is about taking the time to listen  properly to what people say and be open to the opportunities of something great to happen.

Give it a go. Something magical may happen!

Asset-Based Community Workshop in London, March 13 & 14 2019

This is the workshop you need to attend if you are involved with communities. It is the ABCD you need to promote Citizen Participation at a neighbourhood level. It is a two day workshop, hosted by Cormac Russell, exploring asset Based Community Development and Sarah Burns (Head of Communities) from Croydon Voluntary Action.

If you are not familiar with Cormac Russell, watch this amazing video of him where he explained how we can support community by helping each one of their members how special each of them are.

I was first introduced to the ABCD programme by a colleague of mine called Deana Wildgoose she run the Hero Project CIC where they empower communities with tools so they can reach their dr

" Nurture Development have mentored Croydon Voluntary Action (CVA) in Asset Based Community Development since early 2011. CVA have gained a wealth of local community building stories to share and are now delighted to partner with Nurture Development to offer a UK wide programme of accredited training for citizens, practitioners and agency leaders. This new training programme will start with a two-day workshop, hosted by Cormac Russell, exploring Asset Based Community Development." - Sarah Burns (Head of Communities), Croydon Voluntary Action


Asset-Based Community Development workshop in London, March 13 & 14, 2019. hashtagABCD: A Practical Guide to Promoting Citizen Participation at neighbourhood level. For every paying practitioner, a resident/citizen they serve receives a free place!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/asset-based-community-development-workshop-for-london-those-working-in-vcses-voluntary-community-tickets-55269437375

My name is Marie Lefebvre. I  am writing because I want to come to your Asset-Based Community Development Workshop. 

I will be bold. I want a ''free'' place. 

Our community group - Leicester Fixers - nor myself can possibly afford £200. However, I know it will be valuable for our scheme.

I run Leicester Fixers, a community of amateur repairers who want to inspire people to use their gifts to fix their surrounding environment. I organise with a mere £1800 a Green Festival of Making and Mending which welcomed 600 people plus a serie of events throughout 2015. We ran approximately 25 repair cafes in Leicester. This year, we received a small grant from Leicestershire County Council to create 6 repair groups across Leicestershire. We have already created 5 in less than 6 months. I do not lack the energy for bringing people together. I am still to learn how to make it more financially viable.

It is primordial for us to scan the skills and abilities of our community. If I am aware of the tools available to me to strenghten my skills, it will be easier to recruit, inspire people to share their gifts. I want to do better in helping people to reflect on how special they are and training those around me to become better listeners. Often, people do not feel they are special because they do not make a living out of their skills. We have the issue when we do collaborative events with other organisations that our repair activities are less financially rewarded than food stalls, yet it has tremendous value in connecting people together. It can be demotivating for people to get involved any further. How can we distribute more evenly all assets a community has. How do we unlock some of the assets?

They are so many questions I need to have answer to.
I will ever so grateful if a place is made available for me to come along.

If it is not possible, please keep me on your mailing list, we never know how my situation and the group may evolve in the years to come. I will be for sure trying to come to one of your workshop.

Best wishes


We are delighted to announce this two-day workshop to all ABCD enthusiasts in the Greater London Area and to those working in VCSEs throughout the UK. We are particularly pleased to be offering this along with a wider programme of training with our strategic partners Croydon Voluntary Action. They have demonstrated exemplary commitment to the ABCD principles over the last eight years and have enabled asset based community driven change to take root in many neighbourhoods across Croydon. Together we look forward to demystifying the theory and the practice of Asset-based Community Development and supporting you to deepen your practice and impact.
This workshop will:
  • Give you an understanding of the history of ABCD, relating it to your experience of community development.
  • Explain the 5 guiding principles of ABCD in both theory and practice.
  • Identify the 6 building blocks or assets of community building, exploring how these can be identified, connected and mobilised in the neighbourhood context.
  • Share the 8 touch stones of community building, offering stories and examples of their application.
  • Identify the ABCD Tools for Change: e.g. Learning Conversations & Asset Mapping.
  • Involve you in activities and exercises that you can then use in practice where you live and/or work.
  • Use stories and case studies of ABCD in action from our Learning Sites, in the UK and around the world, to highlight effective practice.
To learn more about ABCD in Action check out Cormac Russell's TEDx from Exeter 2016 click here

This is the part of the Nurture Development series of UK-wide ABCD Workshops. We have intentionally organised the workshops to:
  • Be the most affordable
  • Most credible
  • Most citizen and practitioners focused
Workshops on Asset-Based Community Development available anywhere in Europe. Our invitation to practitioners attending is to invite a resident you are working with, in a local neighbourhood, who you know to be passionate about community building and weaving their community together.
Lunch: Light lunch is provided
Cost: £200 per practitioner 
Duration: 10am - 4pm
Ticket holders are entitled to invite one member of their local community to join them on the two days at no additional cost.


What is ABCD?
ABCD invites us to work beyond administrative boundaries and understand that people, their families and communities, have unique competencies that cannot be replaced by competent professional intervention. Since the only people who can build community are the people who live sleep and work there.
The starting point for communities, funders, commissioners, and practitioners isn't necessarily a different one, instead of starting with a focus on what’s wrong, ABCD invites us to start with a focus on what’s strong so that we can use what’s strong to address what’s wrong and make what’s strong even stronger.
That means paying attention to assets that build community connection and power. However, these assets might not always be apparent, in fact, they are often invisible. This workshop will pay attention to the importance of making the invisible visible, offering both underpinning theory and examples of practice.
For more details on the workshop format and programme please contact info@nurturedevelopment.org and to find out more about the ABCD approach itself click here

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