The world's largest movement

Growth in grass roots projects focused on improving social or environmental well-being, is some kind of phenomenon. Paul Hawken, in his video presentation at Bioneers in April 2007, referred to the hundreds-of-thousands of organizations that address social and environmental justice, as "the worlds largest movement."

In New Zealand I've been able to witness up close, the tremendous growth of Transition Towns, a decentralised relocalisation response to peak oil and climate change. From three early initiatives in 2007, Transition Towns is now represented in over 50 towns across the country. News from the Transition Towns movement is being communicated through TV, film, radio, the written word and word-of-mouth. It is one of the many truly grass-roots responses, to the changing times we live in.

On a recent Radio NZ podcast I heard Vivian Hutchinson speaking about the necessity for the government to raise its game in the way it engages with communities, and that citizen engagement is a necessary ingredient for the positive regeneration of our society.

Beginning in the latter part of 2009 I've had the pleasure of working with some visionary individuals through the Manukau "Towards 2060" project. Under the capable leadership of Maggie Lawton, in her role as head of Strategy and Policy at Manukau City Council, a radically different form of community engagement has been offered.

Over the last year, from Mangere to Clevedon, Papatoetoe to Papakura, with adults and with students, information was shared and a blank canvas invitation was made. Over multiple two day workshops, after describing some of the big picture challenges and offering a model for understanding sustainability, space was created for the expression of visions and desires, hopes and dreams for the communities of Manukau. People of all ages committed themselves to honest, serious, playful and deeply-felt dialogue and found ways to express their preferred and plausible, and in many cases collective, futures. It was my great pleasure to be invited to share the facilitation role in many of these events, which took place in the first half of this year.

It didn't end there.

Let's Do It

By mid 2010 an invitation had gone out from a partnership between Manukau City Council and Otago Polytechnic, welcoming people to come and share their project ideas and receive support for them. From the innovative approach of Steve Henry, as Director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice, an idea evolved into a tangible offering for individuals leading community projects.

At an event at the Nathan Homestead, just eight weeks ago, people from the "Towards 2060" workshops came and talk about the projects they were working on. Out of that event nine people registered for the Certificate in Sustainable Practice, designed to include significant help in the form of one on one coaching and support. Through enrolling in a course which gives credit in a Certificate in Sustainable Practice (Level 5), and through the financial support of the Manukau City Council "Let's Do It" began.

The plan was to offer one-on-one coaching (online, via phone and face to face), and at least one group meeting (to share information, ideas and progress on the projects) which could build links within the community. This approach works for me, and was how I supported Transition Towns in its first two years. After a relatively slow start, and after one participant stepped down for workload reasons, we have seven people working on six projects. Everyone has contributed some information about their project via a shared online journal at www.letsdoit.posterous.com - one of the early successes of this project.

Learning journal

I first learnt about www.posterous.com at last years TEDx-Auckland event, and as a keen user of social media, I had to try it. New tools come along all the time in this fast moving social media space, and now and then a good one presents itself. My only regret was that I didn't introduce the project leaders to this tool right at the beginning. One month after the Nathan Homestead gathering I put up the first article: Welcome to your learning journal.

The beauty of this tool is the way course participants share information about their projects. They simply create an email and send it to a particular address. The subject line becomes the title of the post, and the message becomes the post itself. Community project leaders can often be people who are more into the doing and the relationships, than sitting in front of a computer, but even with a huge variation of computer skills, everyone has sent in at least one article. A not insignificant bonus is that they're also finding they can encourage each other through comments on the posts. Sharing information via a website is obviously not a new idea, but the simplicity of this tool, enabled everyone to grasp the process with relative ease.

It has taken more time than I expected to get everyone up to speed in the online space, and along the way I've learnt not to make assumptions about people's skill level or availability. Every person has a unique life-circumstance and experience, and my job is to offer new skills gently, while actively seeking to find and highlight their strengths. I sense that even very simple online project management tools and approaches are not necessarily effective, while using familiar tools, such as email is a far better place to start. Sharing progress across different projects is hugely beneficial. In a future post, when this short course has come to it's natural conclusion, I'll write about these lessons in more detail.

An exchange of ideas

On October 10th, we're planning a shared (pot luck) lunch. This will be an opportunity for some quick-fire descriptions about each project, to be followed by presentations by Steve Henry and Tom Walter from Otago Polytechnic. Steve and Tom will be just starting a nationwide Road Show arriving (they arrive in Auckland on Sat the 9th), and this event will be a chance to highlight the Let's Do It project and learn about the work being done elsewhere in the country.

In conclusion

There's lots of great things happening all over New Zealand. People are connecting to what excites them, and bringing about changes that wil benefit present and future generations. If you trip over one of them, be sure to lend a hand.