Share stories from the grassroots to inspire ideas for growth

Written by Dr. Meg A. Warren and Dr. Annie Crooks

Around the world, NGOs are tackling some of the most difficult and complex problems. Many people from vastly different cultural backgrounds are still grappling with similar problems (e.g. sex (e.g. inequality, poverty, climate crisis), face similar barriers (e.g. inadequate infrastructure, resistance) and struggle under similar resource constraints. But they feel isolated. They want to scale up and reignite creativityand find connection and support. However, despite similar missions, the goal, collaboration It may seem difficult. What if the solution isn’t another meeting or toolkit, but a different kind of conversation?

This is a question we’ve found ourselves asking ourselves lately. As a cultural psychologist who studies allyship, specifically men as allies for gender equality, I (Warren) try to immerse myself in different cultural settings to learn what allyship looks like in that context. During one of our expeditions, Crookes (co-author of this article) and I (Warren) interviewed Nisha Khan, CEO of Building Innate. resilience Fiji’s Thru Hearts.

As much as I gleaned stories from Khan about Fiji, I found myself sharing grassroots stories from my recent visit to NGO CfK Africa in Kenya. The interview, which was scheduled to last one hour, lasted three hours. Instead of the formal interview I had imagined in her office, it turned out to be a lively gathering, with the staff pulling out chairs and offering us tea and sweets.

At one point, Mr. Crooks suggested, “What if Khan, Mr. Crooks, and I connected with Sheama Yusuf, CfK Africa’s senior program officer in Kenya, and we exchanged stories directly with each other?”

Share grassroots stories to inspire creativity

According to research, By sharing stories and experiences, people can build meaning together, strengthen existing skills and knowledge, and strengthen social connections. It has also been discovered in research Sharing stories can inspire you creative insight and innovation. In particular, the stories from the grassroots are rich, detailed, and fine-grained.

Khan and Yusuf wanted to meet and talk (virtually), but we knew they were two very different people operating in very different situations, so we needed a strong setup. We also speculated that past online experiences may influence this new interaction, causing us all to default to “presenting” and “promoting” rather than deep sharing, listening, and reflection.

To make a difference, we structured our conversations around three core purposes: sharing stories, finding connections, and overcoming challenges together. We focused on the following themes:

1. Share your favorite story about grassroots change in your work with individuals, families, and communities.

2. Identify and reflect on people and groups who are or have the potential to be cultural agents of change—people and groups who may not be obvious community leaders, but who can drive change from a backseat.

3. Find connections and reflect on similarities between contexts.

4. Discuss the challenges of engaging men as allies in meaningful (daily life) change.

5. Message to funding partners and program stakeholders as grassroots experts closely involved in issues on the ground.

Benefits of story exchange

By sharing deep vulnerabilities and emphasizing listening, we were able to find similarities and bridge the gap between two senior executives who were operating at different program levels, different sized organizations, and in vastly different cultural contexts. Rather than letting their differences drive them apart or seeing each other’s experiences as irrelevant to their situations, the exchange of stories sparked curiosity about how each overcomes challenges with ingenuity and fine-tuning, and they realized common themes underlying their superficial differences.

And they drew rich and compelling insights for the next big steps in advancing men’s alliances for gender equality. For example, they recognized that existing rhetoric can undermine the dignity and respect of ‘perpetrators’ and that it is important not to allow interventions that dehumanize them.

Furthermore, while women’s empowerment efforts have produced important changes, men’s new and adapted roles have not been sufficiently discussed, and men’s perceptions of disenfranchisement can lead to violence as a means of reclaiming power and value. They also agreed that when men find meaning in their new roles and ways of being a man, they talk to other men and share their successes and accomplishments, especially men in high status. In particular, when men experienced benefits such as improved family relationships and economic security as allies, they organically became advocates for gender equality.

final insight

In nascent and dynamic areas of research and practice, such as allyship, the ingenuity of grassroots organizations generates spontaneous pilots and preliminary evidence on which more formal programs can be built. This is critical when the body of evidence is rapidly developing and changing and new insights are informing practice. Here, exchanging stories is powerful in organizing observations, co-creating understanding, openly (and with vulnerabilities) exploring ways to overcome challenges, and drawing insights for developing and adapting programs at the grassroots.

Dr Annie Crooks is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the South Pacific, based in Suva, Fiji. She has spent the past six years coordinating psychology programs alongside supporting national and grassroots services in mental health in Fiji.