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How can we create inspiring, inclusive and courageous communities that embrace vulnerability, and give voice to the marginalized (e.g. marginalised communities, women, children, refugees, animals, trees, water)? How can we stimulate our organizations to become a life-giving, tender and impactful force in society?
We live in disruptive times full of chaos and uncertainty. Transformation is required in many fields. This course begins with the reality of radical disruption in everyday life. Or more precisely, it starts with vulnerabilities that manifest itself through experiences of disruption. These experiences can happen to individuals, groups, an entire society, or even the whole world. Disruptive experiences knock the ground from under your feet. It can be both positive and negative experiences. The question then, is:
- Who are you when nothing is as it was before?
- Who can you become, and who can help?
You are invited not to deny or run away from our vulnerability, but to embrace it: Fragility, uncertainty, unpredictability, dependence, and porousness, however difficult they often can be, are sources of deep insights.
Communities with a heart
Disruptive experiences bring us into borderlands, also called liminal spaces, full of risks, anxiety suffering and change. They make our vulnerability manifest, but also reveal new perspectives and creativity. In order to find our way through these disruptive experiences we need communities with a heart. Communities that can arise spontaneously when people who have suffered these disruptive experiences find each other and begin to share their stories.
Our experiences of radical disruption, and the stories we tell about them, are always embodied experiences and are affected by power relations. They take place in particular contexts, times and places and are therefore unique. Yet sharing our experiences with each other opens possibilities for moving forward, for rediscovering ourselves in community.
Eight cornerstones
Communities with a heart can also be created in different forms. In this course a model of eight interconnected cornerstones of communities with a heart is presented. They form an octagon (Greek: octagōnos, eight-angled), and together they form the foundation, or heart, of communities with a heart. In this course these eight interrelated cornerstones will determine the order of the course days, and will be combined with other analytical, dialogical and wisdom tools like the Critical Reflexivity Model, the Capability Approach, Mindfulness and the Wisdom of Rituals.
