Empowering communities for resilience amidst challenges

The work that we are able to do together, that we take the time to do together, and that we have the courage and the capacity to do together, is urgent work today. It’s urgent work in a world of multiple crises, and that work is about taking the time to listen. It’s about slow relational partnership, an urgency of slowness and urgency of listening.

And through that practice of relating differently. Not business as usual, not in today and gone tomorrow. Not project cycles, but slow relational partnerships and slow relational work that we find lasting, sustainable impact and that we find genuine change and genuine positive outcome.

The word resilience itself does not have an equivalent translation. I found it hard to find an equivalent translation in the Malawian context, and our colleagues from Uganda said the same thing, and colleagues from different parts of the African context. It has to actually be described in order to carry the meaning that it carries, in order for us to work together towards resilience.

While the English language mentions it in one word, in the Malawian context, it has to be described and qualified in order for the same meaning to be held within the Malawian context. The initial point at which we travel together comes from the understanding of that shared goal. There is another program in Malawi. They are really saying that only two people do not journey together without a prior understanding of where they are going, where they are at and how they are going to get there.

So I think this network provides that space for that excellent negotiation and and talking through that, in order to start together.

We are gathering as a essence of a future global network. And this is a community, right. So a community of practitioners, a community of, people of different interests, a community of people of different knowledges and experiences. All right. And within that we share knowledge and values. I think that’s what’s important about the community.

It’s about the relationships that we build. And so the network builds relationships amongst itself and amongst its members. But beyond that, our work engages communities, of work. We went today, for example, to a community in Dedza. And what does that mean? We are looking at a community. A community means there’s a sense of value. There’s relationships that go with it.

This relationship amongst the people that are there. But in our work, we value the relationships that we even build as a network together with those communities of engagement. And so as we reflect upon our work, we reflect also about the relationships that we build with the communities that we work with. The values that we share together, and the purposes that we serve together.

So for us, a sense of community is really important amongst ourselves, but also with the people that we engage with.

Policymaking for so long has been done always in the same way: The dominant person really trying to think about what is good for everyone and always with a top down perspective.

And participatory methods really help in exchange with other people understanding different perceptions of the world around us. And that is so important for the legitimacy of policymaking.

And I think it is very connected indeed to what we do inside this network, because now I see the community we have, we see how we can exchange between us this shared understanding also that we start to have all together, even if we come from very different backgrounds and different lives. We speak different languages, we come from different cultures that we can achieve something together that is meaningful.

Today, we had a great time. we went on an excursion. We went to the lake. So the idea just being to see the other side of Malawi, I think the physical interaction is, is one good thing. You know, you can never compare with, zoom or online. I’ve known some people maybe for three years online, but nothing gets better than meeting them firsthand like that physical interaction and to be able to exchange knowledge, to be able to hug, to be able to talk things that are outside, this symposium.

Because I think that’s where sometimes you get to know people, as opposed to their formal structure. Quite a good thing, for us to connect to each other and to connect with the communities. I think.