Featured Article

Building Together for Our Children: Lessons from a Journey of Collaboration

by Marianne Knuth

In 2007, I had the privilege of becoming part of a collaborative effort to demonstrate to people throughout South Africa that it is possible to take care of all of our children. In response to the overwhelming number of orphans and vulnerable children in the country, the Hollard Foundation initiated a process, in partnership with the Department of Social Development, to work to shift the system of childcare in the geographical location of the Midvaal municipality (some 40km south of Johannesburg). One of the goals was for the lessons learned from this initiative to serve the country as a whole. To help them in this undertaking they brought in Convene Venture Philanthropy and Reos Partners.

We agreed to undertake our efforts to serve the children of Midvaal through a “Change Lab” process to build leadership, collaboration, and innovative action. In brief, a Change Lab is a multi-stakeholder effort to address a specific complex challenge in a given social system. Forty-five leaders from the municipality, several government departments, non-governmental organisations, local community organisations, and business came together in the Change Lab. They named the collective effort “Kago Ya Bana,” which in Sotho means “building together for our children.”

Three years later, a strong collaborative platform has been established among key stakeholders and service providers; leadership has been built among more than 80 community members; childcare forums have been set up in seven communities, mobilising and organising efforts to identify and connect children in need with formal service providers; and an integrated referral and tracking system has been established to monitor the most vulnerable children. In addition, parents in the communities have set up parenting forums and classes, in which more than 1,000 people participate each year. A recent review shows that parents’ exposure to these programs has shifted their sense of their role and has helped mobilise them in addressing their personal challenges.

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From Our Toolkit

Co-Presencing: Acts of Radical Acceptance

by LeAnne Grillo

In the U-Process, the bottom of the “U” presents workshop leaders with several facilitation challenges. First, by its very nature, presencing is thought of as a solo activity. But because this is an area where we often find ourselves needing to let go of some of the things we hold dearly, it can be scary. Having the support of the other workshop participants can be extremely useful. Second, because people have their own rhythms and internal processes, it is hard to force people to “presence on command.” To enable “co-presencing,” or collective presencing, we need to create the conditions that allow us to find quiet and calmness together—a “space of filtration,” where we can let everything fall away, so that what is essential can surface.

In a Change Lab, when we get to the bottom of the left-hand side of the “U,” we are often “full.” By completely immersing ourselves in the problematic situation that we are trying to address, we feel overwhelmed. The complexity is swirling, and we come up against our own limitations. We are faced with two options. We can surrender or give up. Giving up is just that—it’s running away and going back to the way things were before. Surrendering, however, is about accepting rather than resisting; it involves facing reality instead of going into denial. It’s the ability to set aside what you are certain of and letting the uncertainties take you forward. It’s acknowledging fears and limitations, and going forward into unknown territories anyway. Surrendering is also about radically accepting the problem—of embracing it, of loving it

This exercise helps us embrace the problematic situation and ourselves. To do so, we find it helpful to facilitate a shared experience—in this case, the telling of a classic story—that enables everyone to start from a common place, spend time in silence, and then come back and share their insights. Participants communicate first by modeling their “ahas” with clay, then by talking about them in a small group, and finally through journaling. Because the hand often knows what is in the heart before the head does, this step of physically crafting the insight in clay draws out true understanding more fully than how the head might perceive it.

The metaphor of the frog in the story becomes a shorthand way of reminding ourselves of the power of surrendering and of a basic tool to get there.

Download the Complete Facilitator's Notes for Lessons from the Frog Prince

News From Reos Partners London

Reos Partners London is pleased to announce the launch of a new Reos newspaper that digs deep into the office’s team members, methods, tools, and projects. To read more, please check out The Reos Review.

Also watch this video of London Reos Partner Zaid Hassan facilitating a Chatham House Conference on Development Assistance and Humanitarian Aid in Yemen.

Finally, the London office has a new blog, A Reos Retrospective, that includes updates on UK projects and details about upcoming events.