Becoming a festival February 9, 2015 | Expressive Change | Katherine Therese Whaling| In a letter to her fellow organizers, Katherine Therese Whaling offers a heartfelt reflection on her experience organizing last year’s Muizenberg Festival, a week-long celebration of community-led development in the seaside town of Muizenberg, South Africa. We were struck by how beautifully her reflection illuminates what it means to live an event as a process rather than simply plan it as an outcome. Read More I am a cleaner October 16, 2013 | Expressive Change | Tolu Ilesanmi| 20 Comments So when we clean a school, we are not just cleaning the hallways and the bathrooms but if they permit us, there is a possibility of cleaning their system of education. When we clean a church, our intention is to introduce cleaning as a spiritual practice. When we clean for a real estate developer, we can work with them to […] Read More In praise of dreams and magic November 29, 2012 | Expressive Change | Fahri Karakas| Time is ticking. There is less than half an hour until my teaching starts at Norwich Business School at the University of East Anglia. I am in my office trying to focus and prepare for my afternoon lecture of “Management Skills and Personal Development” course for about 200 students. I feel terrified. […] Read More Music to my ears October 27, 2014 | Expressive Change | Akaya Windwood| 5 Comments I’m old enough to remember when music, dance, art and poetry were integral parts of social change. No one would even consider having a meeting that didn’t include some aspect of celebrating the human spirit. There is something deeply satisfying about about gathering in groups and singing together. Read More Resisting in our free time: The state of civil society today May 23, 2016 | Expressive Change | Gioel Gioacchino| What happens when you get 900 civil society groups in the same room at over 8,500 feet above sea level? Excitement is guaranteed you’d think, along with a bit of oxygen deprivation and a whole lot of partying. That’s what lured me to Bogotá late last month for International Civil Society Week—the annual conference of an NGO called CIVICUS, the ‘World Alliance for Citizen Participation.’ Read More Turn to wonder January 16, 2011 | Expressive Change | Tana Paddock| 2 Comments Several years ago, when I was in the thick of major organizational shifts at COCo, I came home one evening in a fit of tears and with a back full of knots. I felt horrible about how things felt at work and frustrated that my attempts to move things to a better place seemed to […] Read More
