Linking and Learning beyond the comfort zone
INTRODUCTION
“We are living here what inclusion really means, now we can do this back home as well.”
This strong statement from a rightsholder from Kenya at the Global Linking and Learning Festival in Bangkok, in April 2024, probably best reflects what was achieved after two years of Linking and Learning between the 19 multi-country projects that benefitted from Voice grants.
The Constellation has facilitated the Linking and Learning journey where those grantees grew from focusing on their own particular cause to taking action towards a joint dream. The Constellation used and adapted its strength-based SALT approach (Support, Appreciate, Learn and Transfer) and several tools from its Community Life Competence Process for accompaniment. At the closing of the Voice project, a strong sense of solidarity exists between the parties, the journey is not yet at an end.
THE JOURNEY
The 19 projects from Asia and Africa embarked on the Linking and Learning process: their rightsholders and context being very diverse (sex workers, victims of gender-based violence, victims of slavery, the deaf community, people fighting for land rights, and the LGBTQ and intersex community), and their geographical and cultural context stretching from West Africa to South-East Asia.
The journey was a beautiful one, as it challenged all participants, including the facilitators, to step beyond their usual context and out of their comfort zone. Who would have expected that the older Muslim Malinese fighter for the rights of slaves could learn from a young transgender sex worker from Asia? Could we foresee that several projects would open more space in their rightsholder programme, to include deaf people? And what made this work?
Who are We: Exploring strengths and building trust
As a first step in the Linking and Learning Journey, The Constellation facilitators, mostly with a similar geographical background as the group they accompanied, helped individual grantee partners to discover their strengths and to know what story and experience they want to share with others. They also explored what they wanted to learn. Learn visits to rightsholders and recipients of the project’s intervention were of essence in this step. Not only did such visits help to define their work far beyond the project proposal, but also the relationship with rightsholders and engagement of the latter were improved.
At this stage relationship building and trust were essential. For some facilitators, this also meant overcoming religious or cultural dogma. The SALT way of working, where being Human and appreciation of the other is central, was the beacon!
Where do we want to be: a joint dream
Then, each project explored their dream of an inclusive society. The individual projects’ dreams were first shared with others in the region and eventually led to creating a joint dream during a series of online events with all grantees.
The joint, global, dream, as defined by the grantees, is about an inclusive society where everyone can live their potential and all rightsholders access their rights.
The challenge for building that joint dream was for it to be generic enough to cover the whole pallet and, at the same time, to be specific enough so that each grantee could still recognize themself.
Keep the spirit flow
After the hard work and the excitement of dream building, facilitators were challenged to keep the spirit for Linking and Learning flowing between the 19 projects. Working with vulnerable groups in ever-changing environments, each project was facing its own challenges. “Why would another project’s lessons be of importance, while we are in such a different situation and have our hands full in keeping our own rightsholders safe?” Trust building continued! Jumping the obstacles of learning technical skills to participate in online meetings, time zone differences, languages, accents, sign language interpretation, competing agendas, and loss of staff, the Link and Learn facilitators did not give up in convening conversations and meetings where we all learned how to create a space where each of us could contribute to our best. A constant reminder of the joint dream was the anchor. Conversations and Learning exchanges took different shapes: Hybrid (on-site and online) Learn visits to each other’s rightsholders, realisation and launches of Visual Journeys (9 projects participated in training on community-led filmmaking), and focussed Communities of Practice were on offer. Each organisation and individual picked the ones that best matched their needs. Whether the audience was large or small during such encounters: each time a drip of inspiration was added to the journey.
Continuous Learning from Experience
At each step of the process, the facilitators nurtured a culture of learning, through stimulating questions after each event. What have we learned, and why? What can we do better, and how?
This rigour worked contagious where now partners made such After Experience Reflections a practice in their work.
Nothing can replace face-to-face
The most joyful encounters, of course, were the face-to-face opportunities, with the Learning Festivals as highlights: One for Asian grantee partners (Yogyakarta, January 2023), one for African partners (Nairobi, July 2023), and finally a Global Learning Festival (GLF) (Bangkok, April 2024).
At the GLF, the solidarity and friendship between all grantee partners and facilitators was felt from the moment participants entered the venue. Two years of mostly online post-corona ‘hardship’ created the fertile ground that is really needed when we want to progress together. Thanks to this basis, the exchange of lessons was deep and the commitment to work towards achieving the joint dream was strengthened during the Festival: through individual action plans as well as with proposals for joint activities. The joint dream, an inclusive society where everyone flourishes, was brought to practise throughout the event. Those in need of translation had interpreters, but also a lot of volunteer support and goodwill around them, rightsholders from all backgrounds looked each other in the eye and held hands, and everyone was given an opportunity to facilitate or take the floor with their talent. And there was laughter. And there were tears.
“If we can do it here, we can certainly do it back home as well!”
“Inclusion is Humanity, and that is what I will apply.”
“How could I know what cake she likes, if I have never eaten with her.”
CONCLUSION
Facilitating Linking and Learning has been a steep learning journey for The Constellation: for individual facilitators as well as for the organisation. It provided the opportunity to grow as a multicultural team and to test the resilience of the DNA of our organisation which is SALT. The two-year-long engagement with an enormous diverse group of people helped us strengthen what we believed already: Although we may seem very different, people across the globe are human beings first, with their capacity to care, love, and adapt. When you ask people, wherever they are, for their dream, every person wants to belong—and to live—in a place where their children are safe. When you find out that you are not alone and when you are surrounded by others, you find strengths to not only to Voice your own concern, but also to care for the cause of others at the same time. SALT-CLCP is flexible enough to be adapted and to bring our core beliefs to work.
Link and Learn Journey in Numbers:
29 CoP conversations
16 LnL Facilitators
3 Learning Festivals
19 multicountry grantee projects
12500 minutes of Zoom calls (best estimate!)
13 cakes during celebrations
11 Visual Journeys
47 meetings for the Gov4Voice team
589.996,00 euro total project budget March 2022 – June 2024
Management, finance and logistics
The partnership with Voice was managed by a team of 7 persons. The (European) Constellation Board teamed up with members in Africa, Asia and South-America for the functions of Management, Linking and Learning Facilitation, Monitoring, and Evaluation and for the Logistical and Financial Management.
In total 19 service providers have been engaged, and 16 LnL facilitators present in the project’s countries. The Finance and Admin support team organised a total of 142 international travels, supported visa arrangements for 36 persons (3 visa rejections), accommodation and meals for in total 125 participants in the regional and global events.
The financial team managed the 589.996,00 euro budget over the 27 months of the project, this represented a total of 500 invoices.
For more:
Watch Visual Journeys, documentaries filmed by rightsholders here.
Report Global Learning Festival, April 2024, here.
The Constellation Annual Report 2024, here.
The Constellation Asset Platform: https://assets.the-constellation.org/
