Why is a network of peers invaluable to the work of community change? As our world seeks fresh solutions after the Covid-19 pandemic, the focus is shifting towards collaborative strategies. Embracing a collective effort, these approaches aim to create and nurture shared solutions for intricate community challenges.
Over the past three years, challenges like the COVID pandemic, social and political divisions, increasing social isolation, vulnerability and competing pressures are increasing the urgency to find new approaches in communities to tackle complex challenges such as food security, poverty, mental health and well-being, and youth success. As people seek new solutions, there is an increasing interest in collaborative approaches that engage diverse perspectives and methods to co-create shared plans that address complex community issues.
In response to this growing interest, in 2023 Tamarack’s Learning Centre hosted our first learning cohort of 40 changemakers across Canada and around the world. These changemakers joined us on an eight-month learning journey to build skills, knowledge, connections, and to add tools to their toolbox for creating change in their communities. By following their challenges and experimenting with new ideas together, we also learned more about the tensions that changemakers face as well as possible remedies.
Uncover our transformative insights ahead! From the internal challenges of systems change work to the pivotal role of peer learning, delve into these reflections for empowering wisdom from changemaker
To make deep and durable progress on the change that we want to see, in ways that promote equity, diversity and inclusion, changemakers are increasingly working at the systems-level. Most of us are more familiar with advancing program change and advocacy, and less familiar with the perspectives, strategies and approaches needed to most effectively advance systems-focused solutions. Questions that changemakers are grappling with, include:
Doing systems change work is tough, in-part because we are not separate from the systems we are wanting to change. This means that our systems change work inevitably includes a personal journey of change as we “unlearn” comfortable ways of thinking and doing, to embrace a path that is emergent and less certain.
Challenging the assumption of urgency is just one dimension of the inner journey of changemakers. It can be difficult to find time for the inner learning and systems-level organizing while responding to day-to-day needs. Urgent issues are seemingly at odds with time for focusing on the long-term systems change work that could end the perpetual crisis.
This work can feel very lonely, which is why being able to connect regularly with peers and fellow-changemakers is so valuable. Being able to connect regularly and easily with a rich diversity of fellow changemakers provides changemakers with a sounding board and support system that can make this important work of community change simpler and easier. It is a safe space to test and accelerate our thinking and offers a whole network of people who know first-hand how challenging this work can be, who we know are behind us, rooting for the work we’re leading.
If you are wondering if this learning opportunity for you, take a moment to read some of the feedback that participants of the 2023 Changemaker experience have shared with us:
– Hom Shrestha, Ph.D. Student
Human Studies and Interdisciplinarity
Laurentian University
Sudbury, ON, Canada
-Natalie Appleyard, Socio-Economic Policy Analyst, Citizens for Public Justice
We are now open for applicants! If you’re interested in being part of the 2024 Changemaker Cohort, it will run February – August 2024. Learn more and apply here.