The article below is about how vibrant civil societies can revive democracy[/b]
How Democracies Perish
Excerpt:
Liberalism claims to be neutral but it’s really anti-culture. It detaches people from nature, community, tradition and place. It detaches people from time. “Gratitude to the past and obligations to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification.”
Once family and local community erode and social norms dissolve, individuals are left naked and unprotected. They seek solace in the state. They toggle between impersonal systems: globalized capitalism and the distant state. As the social order decays, people grasp for the security of authoritarianism. “A signal feature of modern totalitarianism was that it arose and came to power through the discontents of people’s isolation and loneliness,” he observes. He urges people to dedicate themselves instead to local community — a sort of Wendell Berry agrarianism.
More..
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/opin ... dline&te=1
Civil Society and its Institutions
This book emphasises the importance of civil society for the post liberalism vison of the future.
Book: If Liberalism Is Dead, What Comes Next?
Excerpt:
“Today’s widespread yearning for a strong leader, one with the will to take back popular control over liberalism’s forms of bureaucratized government and globalized economy, comes after decades of liberal dismantling of cultural norms and political habits essential to self-governance,” Deneen writes. His critique in this slender volume is impressively capacious. Ruthless economic liberalization has left many people materially insecure; relentless cultural liberalization has left them unmoored. Communal ties are discouraged in order to encourage a mobile force of workers. Freedom becomes something for an increasingly powerful government to grant or withhold.
Mere tinkering won’t alleviate the deep rot in the liberal project, Deneen insists. He says we need to envision a future after liberalism, where local, preferably religious communities tend to the land and look after their own. These groups would cultivate “cultures of community, care, self-sacrifice and small-scale democracy.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/book ... d=45305309
Book: If Liberalism Is Dead, What Comes Next?
Excerpt:
“Today’s widespread yearning for a strong leader, one with the will to take back popular control over liberalism’s forms of bureaucratized government and globalized economy, comes after decades of liberal dismantling of cultural norms and political habits essential to self-governance,” Deneen writes. His critique in this slender volume is impressively capacious. Ruthless economic liberalization has left many people materially insecure; relentless cultural liberalization has left them unmoored. Communal ties are discouraged in order to encourage a mobile force of workers. Freedom becomes something for an increasingly powerful government to grant or withhold.
Mere tinkering won’t alleviate the deep rot in the liberal project, Deneen insists. He says we need to envision a future after liberalism, where local, preferably religious communities tend to the land and look after their own. These groups would cultivate “cultures of community, care, self-sacrifice and small-scale democracy.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/17/book ... d=45305309
The article below discusses the hopes and aspirations of the youth today based on relationships established through locally based organised civil societies and social movements.
A Generation Emerging From the Wreckage
Excerpt:
I came away from these conversations thinking that one big challenge for this generation is determining how to take good things that are happening on the local level and translate them to the national level, where the problems are. I was also struck by pervasive but subtle hunger for a change in the emotional tenor of life. “We’re more connected but we’re more apart,” one student lamented. Again and again, students expressed a hunger for social and emotional bonding, for a shift from guilt and accusation toward empathy. “How do you create relationship?” one student asked. That may be the longing that undergirds all others.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opin ... dline&te=1
A Generation Emerging From the Wreckage
Excerpt:
I came away from these conversations thinking that one big challenge for this generation is determining how to take good things that are happening on the local level and translate them to the national level, where the problems are. I was also struck by pervasive but subtle hunger for a change in the emotional tenor of life. “We’re more connected but we’re more apart,” one student lamented. Again and again, students expressed a hunger for social and emotional bonding, for a shift from guilt and accusation toward empathy. “How do you create relationship?” one student asked. That may be the longing that undergirds all others.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below highlights the role of civil society in combating the practice of female genital cutting (FGC) in Somaliland.
BAN ON FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING IN SOMALILAND IS PROGRESS, BUT SUCCESS RELIES ON WORKING WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS
Excerpt:
Whole networks of communities must come together to advocate for change. This model was the exact outcome of a human rights curriculum introduced in Senegal by the organization Tostan. While not initially focused on eradicating FGC, Tostan realized that when women learned about human rights, they came to the decision to end FGC on their own and began to advocate for far reaching, lasting change. In the past 25 years, Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program has influenced over 8,000 communities in 8 countries to publically declare abandonment of FGC.
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/ban-on-fe ... e-84570085
BAN ON FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING IN SOMALILAND IS PROGRESS, BUT SUCCESS RELIES ON WORKING WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS
Excerpt:
Whole networks of communities must come together to advocate for change. This model was the exact outcome of a human rights curriculum introduced in Senegal by the organization Tostan. While not initially focused on eradicating FGC, Tostan realized that when women learned about human rights, they came to the decision to end FGC on their own and began to advocate for far reaching, lasting change. In the past 25 years, Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program has influenced over 8,000 communities in 8 countries to publically declare abandonment of FGC.
More...
http://religiondispatches.org/ban-on-fe ... e-84570085
A huge earthquake in China ten years ago was a turning point
It helped to spur the development of civil society
Excerpt:
But Ms Zhang, the social scientist, says the earthquake did result in a change of attitude by the government towards civilian involvement in disaster relief. “This event provided a model for how social forces could be put to use to respond to a big crisis,” she says. At the time, officials had no guidelines for working with civil society. The flood of volunteers caused congestion and compounded difficulties with feeding and sheltering everyone. But NGOs and the government soon established trust—a spirit often lacking in the party’s dealings with organisations that it does not control. When another big quake struck Sichuan in 2013, she says, the government was more prepared. “They said, ‘OK, we can put out the money and you can do the work.’”
The new model involves leaving the heavy work of rebuilding cities and roads to the government but creating space for civil society in areas such as the counselling of bereaved families. After the more recent earthquake, NGOs helped to resolve conflicts that erupted during the relocation of survivors of destroyed villages. In the past few days, a local group in Dujiangyan has been raising funds for quake victims with permanent disabilities. Ms Zhang says NGOs have been particularly helpful in the rebuilding of shattered societies.
More....
https://www.economist.com/news/china/21 ... m=20180514
It helped to spur the development of civil society
Excerpt:
But Ms Zhang, the social scientist, says the earthquake did result in a change of attitude by the government towards civilian involvement in disaster relief. “This event provided a model for how social forces could be put to use to respond to a big crisis,” she says. At the time, officials had no guidelines for working with civil society. The flood of volunteers caused congestion and compounded difficulties with feeding and sheltering everyone. But NGOs and the government soon established trust—a spirit often lacking in the party’s dealings with organisations that it does not control. When another big quake struck Sichuan in 2013, she says, the government was more prepared. “They said, ‘OK, we can put out the money and you can do the work.’”
The new model involves leaving the heavy work of rebuilding cities and roads to the government but creating space for civil society in areas such as the counselling of bereaved families. After the more recent earthquake, NGOs helped to resolve conflicts that erupted during the relocation of survivors of destroyed villages. In the past few days, a local group in Dujiangyan has been raising funds for quake victims with permanent disabilities. Ms Zhang says NGOs have been particularly helpful in the rebuilding of shattered societies.
More....
https://www.economist.com/news/china/21 ... m=20180514
The article below is about how societies at local levels have been redeemed and have made progress in America through the application of civil society based approaches at a time when there is political uncertainty and paralysis at the national level.
The American Renaissance Is Already Happening
Excerpt:
Most of the cities tell a redemption story about themselves. They had a booming industry; it collapsed; now they are rebuilding with new industries and new wealth.
Many of the cities began their recovery with infrastructure projects that revived the downtown core. In Greenville, S.C., an ugly highway bridge was removed and replaced with a gorgeous walk along the Reedy River, which is now home to parks and cafes. In Fresno, Calif., the misbegotten pedestrian mall that crushed downtown development was bulldozed, and now there are human-size streets that encourage visits and activity.
A second common thread for these cities was that they were often led by business leaders who were both entrepreneurial and civically minded. In these places if you become successful, it is expected that you will become active in town life.
Mike Gallo went to San Bernardino, Calif., as a junior officer in the Air Force. He left to work for a company pioneering new missile technology. Then he helped found an aerospace technology company. When the firm succeeded, he set up an education nonprofit called Technical Employment Training. Then he ran for the school board and became its chairman.
Third, these places tend to have strong vocational schools and community colleges, teaching modern workplace skills in partnership with local businesses. Raj Shaunak and his family went to Columbus, Miss., and founded a manufacturing firm. After they sold it, Shaunak went to work at East Mississippi Community College, where students learn on real versions or scaled-down models of the same machines that operate at the local manufacturing plants.
Fourth, these places tend to have a lot of social capital and entrepreneurial civic institutions. In Allentown, Pa., a couple needed a foam pit for their new gymnastics center. So the local Mack Trucks factory donated leftover padding used in the airplane seats it manufactured, it delivered the padding in a fleet of trucks and 200 town volunteers showed up with electric kitchen knives to carve it into pieces.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/opin ... ening.html
The American Renaissance Is Already Happening
Excerpt:
Most of the cities tell a redemption story about themselves. They had a booming industry; it collapsed; now they are rebuilding with new industries and new wealth.
Many of the cities began their recovery with infrastructure projects that revived the downtown core. In Greenville, S.C., an ugly highway bridge was removed and replaced with a gorgeous walk along the Reedy River, which is now home to parks and cafes. In Fresno, Calif., the misbegotten pedestrian mall that crushed downtown development was bulldozed, and now there are human-size streets that encourage visits and activity.
A second common thread for these cities was that they were often led by business leaders who were both entrepreneurial and civically minded. In these places if you become successful, it is expected that you will become active in town life.
Mike Gallo went to San Bernardino, Calif., as a junior officer in the Air Force. He left to work for a company pioneering new missile technology. Then he helped found an aerospace technology company. When the firm succeeded, he set up an education nonprofit called Technical Employment Training. Then he ran for the school board and became its chairman.
Third, these places tend to have strong vocational schools and community colleges, teaching modern workplace skills in partnership with local businesses. Raj Shaunak and his family went to Columbus, Miss., and founded a manufacturing firm. After they sold it, Shaunak went to work at East Mississippi Community College, where students learn on real versions or scaled-down models of the same machines that operate at the local manufacturing plants.
Fourth, these places tend to have a lot of social capital and entrepreneurial civic institutions. In Allentown, Pa., a couple needed a foam pit for their new gymnastics center. So the local Mack Trucks factory donated leftover padding used in the airplane seats it manufactured, it delivered the padding in a fleet of trucks and 200 town volunteers showed up with electric kitchen knives to carve it into pieces.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/opin ... ening.html
The article below highlights the need to nurture social bonds, communities and civil society to counter the negative effects of meritocracy.
The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite
Excerpt:
What happened? How has so much amazing talent produced such poor results.
A narrative is emerging. It is that the new meritocratic aristocracy has come to look like every other aristocracy. The members of the educated class use their intellectual, financial and social advantages to pass down privilege to their children, creating a hereditary elite that is ever more insulated from the rest of society. We need to build a meritocracy that is true to its values, truly open to all.
I’m among the many who have been telling this story for 20 years. And I enjoy books that fill in compelling details, like Steven Brill’s “Tailspin,” which is being released Tuesday.
But the narrative is insufficient. The real problem with the modern meritocracy can be found in the ideology of meritocracy itself. Meritocracy is a system built on the maximization of individual talent, and that system unwittingly encourages several ruinous beliefs:
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/opin ... elite.html
The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite
Excerpt:
What happened? How has so much amazing talent produced such poor results.
A narrative is emerging. It is that the new meritocratic aristocracy has come to look like every other aristocracy. The members of the educated class use their intellectual, financial and social advantages to pass down privilege to their children, creating a hereditary elite that is ever more insulated from the rest of society. We need to build a meritocracy that is true to its values, truly open to all.
I’m among the many who have been telling this story for 20 years. And I enjoy books that fill in compelling details, like Steven Brill’s “Tailspin,” which is being released Tuesday.
But the narrative is insufficient. The real problem with the modern meritocracy can be found in the ideology of meritocracy itself. Meritocracy is a system built on the maximization of individual talent, and that system unwittingly encourages several ruinous beliefs:
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/28/opin ... elite.html
The article below highlights the need for an individual to be embedded in civil society to realize his full potential of responsible freedom.
Anthony Kennedy and the Privatization of Meaning
America’s founders certainly believed in individual liberty, but they believed that liberty happens within a shared community. They began the Constitution with the phrase, “We the People.” We are all one thing — a people, a nation, a collective.
That people shares a moral order — rules that are true for all people in all times and that govern us in our freedom. Among them, for example, is the idea that all people are created equal.
That people shares a common enterprise. We are a self-governing nation, and we all play a role in that enterprise by fulfilling the roles that define us — father, mother, neighbor, citizen and legislator. We are parts of a covenant and pass down our shared order to our posterity.
Over the decades, that sense of we-ness began to turn into a sense of I-ness or you-ness. You can see it in today’s commencement clichés: Follow your passion, march to the beat of your own drummer, listen to your own heart, you do you.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/opin ... alism.html
Anthony Kennedy and the Privatization of Meaning
America’s founders certainly believed in individual liberty, but they believed that liberty happens within a shared community. They began the Constitution with the phrase, “We the People.” We are all one thing — a people, a nation, a collective.
That people shares a moral order — rules that are true for all people in all times and that govern us in our freedom. Among them, for example, is the idea that all people are created equal.
That people shares a common enterprise. We are a self-governing nation, and we all play a role in that enterprise by fulfilling the roles that define us — father, mother, neighbor, citizen and legislator. We are parts of a covenant and pass down our shared order to our posterity.
Over the decades, that sense of we-ness began to turn into a sense of I-ness or you-ness. You can see it in today’s commencement clichés: Follow your passion, march to the beat of your own drummer, listen to your own heart, you do you.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/opin ... alism.html
Where American Politics Can Still Work: From the Bottom Up
Civic coalitions are succeeding at revitalizing old towns where governmental efforts have failed.
Excerpt:
My original host was the Hourglass, a foundation founded by community leaders in Lancaster County in 1997, when the city of Lancaster was a crime-ridden ghost town at night where people were afraid to venture and when the county’s dominant industrial employer, Armstrong World Industries, was withering.
Some of the leading citizens decided that “time was running out” — hence “Hourglass” — and that no cavalry was coming to save them — not from the state’s capital or the nation’s capital. They realized that the only way they could replace Armstrong and re-energize the downtown was not with another dominant company, but by throwing partisan politics out the window and forming a complex adaptive coalition in which business leaders, educators, philanthropists, social innovators and the local government would work together to unleash entrepreneurship and forge whatever compromises were necessary to fix the city.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/opin ... dline&te=1
Civic coalitions are succeeding at revitalizing old towns where governmental efforts have failed.
Excerpt:
My original host was the Hourglass, a foundation founded by community leaders in Lancaster County in 1997, when the city of Lancaster was a crime-ridden ghost town at night where people were afraid to venture and when the county’s dominant industrial employer, Armstrong World Industries, was withering.
Some of the leading citizens decided that “time was running out” — hence “Hourglass” — and that no cavalry was coming to save them — not from the state’s capital or the nation’s capital. They realized that the only way they could replace Armstrong and re-energize the downtown was not with another dominant company, but by throwing partisan politics out the window and forming a complex adaptive coalition in which business leaders, educators, philanthropists, social innovators and the local government would work together to unleash entrepreneurship and forge whatever compromises were necessary to fix the city.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/03/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below highlights the role of civil society to address issues of social isolation and fragmentation and provides a model to work on.
Where American Renewal Begins
A Baltimore-based community program provides the architecture for kids’ success.
Excerpt:
Thread has taken 415 academically underperforming students in Baltimore schools and built an extended family around them, with about 1,000 volunteers. Each student is given up to five volunteers, who perform the jobs that a family member would perform.
Each volunteer is coached by a more experienced volunteer, called the Head of Family. The Head of Family is coached by a Grandparent, who supports the Head. The Grandparents are coached by Community Managers, who are paid Thread staffers. Circling the whole system are Collaborators, who offer special expertise when called in — legal help, SAT tutoring, mental health counseling, etc.
In short, the organization weaves an elaborate system of relationships, a cohesive village, around the task of helping kids. The social network is as much for the adults and the city as for the kids.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/opin ... dline&te=1
Where American Renewal Begins
A Baltimore-based community program provides the architecture for kids’ success.
Excerpt:
Thread has taken 415 academically underperforming students in Baltimore schools and built an extended family around them, with about 1,000 volunteers. Each student is given up to five volunteers, who perform the jobs that a family member would perform.
Each volunteer is coached by a more experienced volunteer, called the Head of Family. The Head of Family is coached by a Grandparent, who supports the Head. The Grandparents are coached by Community Managers, who are paid Thread staffers. Circling the whole system are Collaborators, who offer special expertise when called in — legal help, SAT tutoring, mental health counseling, etc.
In short, the organization weaves an elaborate system of relationships, a cohesive village, around the task of helping kids. The social network is as much for the adults and the city as for the kids.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below highlights how civil society is shaping across borders bringing individuals of diverse backgrounds together forming strong communities.
Airbnb Is the New NATO
The nation state is trumpeted. The nation state is redundant.
I was chatting earlier this year with Brian Chesky, the co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb. He told me about trying to raise $150,000 in 2008 for his idea of a peer-to-peer home and room rental company. Everyone called him crazy. They scoffed at the notion that people would trust one another enough to allow strangers into their homes. They derided the idea that those strangers would be nice enough, or honest enough, to respect properties.
“Airbnb, without fundamental human goodness, would not work,” Chesky said. A decade later, Airbnb is in more than 190 countries. It has had more than 300 million guest arrivals. It is valued in the tens of billions of dollars.
From all the data the company has accumulated, no major country anomalies, in terms of patterns of behavior, have emerged. People from Japan, Brazil, Nigeria, Russia, the United States, Mexico and France are equally respectful and honest. There are no national outliers, Chesky said, on the goodness or trustworthiness scale. There are no enemies.
That is interesting. I wonder if we are looking in the wrong places to assess the state of the world. The twilight of an era, as in Vienna a little over a century ago, is always murky. With nationalism and xenophobia resurgent, examples of humanity’s basest instincts abound. They grab the headlines. At the same time, community and sharing, often across national borders, through digital platforms like Airbnb, BlaBlaCar and Facebook, expand. This is the world’s undercurrent. It shifts the perceptions of billions.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/opin ... 3053090804
Airbnb Is the New NATO
The nation state is trumpeted. The nation state is redundant.
I was chatting earlier this year with Brian Chesky, the co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb. He told me about trying to raise $150,000 in 2008 for his idea of a peer-to-peer home and room rental company. Everyone called him crazy. They scoffed at the notion that people would trust one another enough to allow strangers into their homes. They derided the idea that those strangers would be nice enough, or honest enough, to respect properties.
“Airbnb, without fundamental human goodness, would not work,” Chesky said. A decade later, Airbnb is in more than 190 countries. It has had more than 300 million guest arrivals. It is valued in the tens of billions of dollars.
From all the data the company has accumulated, no major country anomalies, in terms of patterns of behavior, have emerged. People from Japan, Brazil, Nigeria, Russia, the United States, Mexico and France are equally respectful and honest. There are no national outliers, Chesky said, on the goodness or trustworthiness scale. There are no enemies.
That is interesting. I wonder if we are looking in the wrong places to assess the state of the world. The twilight of an era, as in Vienna a little over a century ago, is always murky. With nationalism and xenophobia resurgent, examples of humanity’s basest instincts abound. They grab the headlines. At the same time, community and sharing, often across national borders, through digital platforms like Airbnb, BlaBlaCar and Facebook, expand. This is the world’s undercurrent. It shifts the perceptions of billions.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/03/opin ... 3053090804
Why Imran Khan Must Bat for Civil Society in Pakistan
The prime minister must reverse policies that are preventing NGOs from carrying out their necessary work.
Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan has set out an ambitious development and reform agenda. He is determined to reign in elite corruption and increase spending on health, education and women’s welfare.
To carry out these important social programs, Mr. Khan needs the support of Pakistan’s battered and bruised civil society. He needs to put an end to the coercion civil society groups have faced from the previous government and the military and help them to function effectively and without constraints.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/opin ... dline&te=1
The prime minister must reverse policies that are preventing NGOs from carrying out their necessary work.
Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan has set out an ambitious development and reform agenda. He is determined to reign in elite corruption and increase spending on health, education and women’s welfare.
To carry out these important social programs, Mr. Khan needs the support of Pakistan’s battered and bruised civil society. He needs to put an end to the coercion civil society groups have faced from the previous government and the military and help them to function effectively and without constraints.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/opin ... dline&te=1
To Restore Civil Society, Start With the Library
This crucial institution is being neglected just when we need it the most.
Excerpt:
Libraries are being disparaged and neglected at precisely the moment when they are most valued and necessary. Why the disconnect? In part it’s because the founding principle of the public library — that all people deserve free, open access to our shared culture and heritage — is out of sync with the market logic that dominates our world. But it’s also because so few influential people understand the expansive role that libraries play in modern communities.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opin ... dline&te=1
This crucial institution is being neglected just when we need it the most.
Excerpt:
Libraries are being disparaged and neglected at precisely the moment when they are most valued and necessary. Why the disconnect? In part it’s because the founding principle of the public library — that all people deserve free, open access to our shared culture and heritage — is out of sync with the market logic that dominates our world. But it’s also because so few influential people understand the expansive role that libraries play in modern communities.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/opin ... dline&te=1
A Really Good Thing Happening in America
A strategy for community problem-solving does an extraordinary job at restoring our social fabric.
Not long ago, in Spartanburg, S.C., I visited the offices of something called the Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM). The walls were lined with charts measuring things like kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading scores and postsecondary enrollment.
Around the table was just about anybody in town who might touch a child’s life. There were school superintendents and principals, but there were also the heads of the Chamber of Commerce and the local United Way, the police chief, a former mayor and the newspaper editor.
The people at SAM track everything they can measure about Spartanburg’s young people from cradle to career. They gather everybody who might have any influence upon this data — parents, religious leaders, doctors, nutrition experts, etc.
And then together, as a communitywide system, they ask questions: Where are children falling off track? Why? What assets do we have in our system that can be applied to this problem? How can we work together to apply those assets?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/opin ... 3053091009
A strategy for community problem-solving does an extraordinary job at restoring our social fabric.
Not long ago, in Spartanburg, S.C., I visited the offices of something called the Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM). The walls were lined with charts measuring things like kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading scores and postsecondary enrollment.
Around the table was just about anybody in town who might touch a child’s life. There were school superintendents and principals, but there were also the heads of the Chamber of Commerce and the local United Way, the police chief, a former mayor and the newspaper editor.
The people at SAM track everything they can measure about Spartanburg’s young people from cradle to career. They gather everybody who might have any influence upon this data — parents, religious leaders, doctors, nutrition experts, etc.
And then together, as a communitywide system, they ask questions: Where are children falling off track? Why? What assets do we have in our system that can be applied to this problem? How can we work together to apply those assets?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/opin ... 3053091009
Recovering the (Lost) Art of Civility
Deepening political divisions in America are spurring acts of extreme violence. What will it take to regain civil discourse that serves common interests?
Can anything be done to reduce the acrimony in American society?
Recently I spoke with David Fairman, the managing director of the Consensus Building Institute and associate director of the M.I.T.-Harvard Public Disputes Program. For three decades, Mr. Fairman has been helping groups of people — often with long histories of bitter opposition — to get to a place where they can talk respectfully with one another and even find ways to work meaningfully together.
Mr. Fairman has had success working on many issues, including human rights, climate change, economic development, education and criminal justice policy. He has the rare talent of envisioning pathways forward through what appear to be intractable conflicts. I asked him to reflect on the divide in America today.
Interview and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opin ... dline&te=1
Deepening political divisions in America are spurring acts of extreme violence. What will it take to regain civil discourse that serves common interests?
Can anything be done to reduce the acrimony in American society?
Recently I spoke with David Fairman, the managing director of the Consensus Building Institute and associate director of the M.I.T.-Harvard Public Disputes Program. For three decades, Mr. Fairman has been helping groups of people — often with long histories of bitter opposition — to get to a place where they can talk respectfully with one another and even find ways to work meaningfully together.
Mr. Fairman has had success working on many issues, including human rights, climate change, economic development, education and criminal justice policy. He has the rare talent of envisioning pathways forward through what appear to be intractable conflicts. I asked him to reflect on the divide in America today.
Interview and more...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opin ... dline&te=1
CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF COMPASSION
This is a new centre to support interdisciplinary research focused on compassion, mentoring and building community resilience, which launched on 17 October 2018 at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).
It is thought to be the first of its kind in the UK and focusses initially on developing interdisciplinary research projects with colleagues from across the University and externally. It also provides supervision and support for new PhD students, to embed UCLan’s ambition to be a compassionate university, enriching the daily lives of students and staff alike.
The Centre’s key research areas include:
the role of compassion in health and wellbeing
compassion in education and organisations
mentoring and compassionate leadership
mediation and compassionate approaches to justice
the role of compassion and cooperation in establishing sustainable communities
More...
https://www.uclan.ac.uk/research/explor ... assion.php
This is a new centre to support interdisciplinary research focused on compassion, mentoring and building community resilience, which launched on 17 October 2018 at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).
It is thought to be the first of its kind in the UK and focusses initially on developing interdisciplinary research projects with colleagues from across the University and externally. It also provides supervision and support for new PhD students, to embed UCLan’s ambition to be a compassionate university, enriching the daily lives of students and staff alike.
The Centre’s key research areas include:
the role of compassion in health and wellbeing
compassion in education and organisations
mentoring and compassionate leadership
mediation and compassionate approaches to justice
the role of compassion and cooperation in establishing sustainable communities
More...
https://www.uclan.ac.uk/research/explor ... assion.php
The article below reflects a model of civil society in action.
What a Kenyan Slum Can Teach America About Politics
Don’t put your hope in elected officials. Real change has to start locally.
Excerpt:
With each election cycle, my community placed faith in politicians who promised to provide clean water, as well as to tackle systemic poverty, endemic corruption and myriad other problems that plague our society. But time and again they struggled to deliver.
Tired of waiting for those solutions, my mother took matters into her own hands. She organized a group of women who gathered each week to pool their money to help start a business, care for a sick child or buy school supplies. They were mostly illiterate; since I could read and write, they asked me, a 9-year-old, to keep the books.
One day, many years later, a woman in the community proposed expanding on the group’s model, making it more of an official, organized operation, with an agenda we could present to the public and politicians. I saw an opportunity to combine the efforts of Kibera’s many community groups — churches and mosques, groups of young people and old, community centers, and assemblies of craftspeople. We created a unified urban movement.
By organizing through these groups, we are able to tackle bigger problems, starting with water. We created a network of aboveground pipes that reduced the spread of disease, cut the cost of a jerrycan of potable water (about five gallons) by 60 percent and prevented local cartels from siphoning off water to sell to private vendors.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/opin ... dline&te=1
What a Kenyan Slum Can Teach America About Politics
Don’t put your hope in elected officials. Real change has to start locally.
Excerpt:
With each election cycle, my community placed faith in politicians who promised to provide clean water, as well as to tackle systemic poverty, endemic corruption and myriad other problems that plague our society. But time and again they struggled to deliver.
Tired of waiting for those solutions, my mother took matters into her own hands. She organized a group of women who gathered each week to pool their money to help start a business, care for a sick child or buy school supplies. They were mostly illiterate; since I could read and write, they asked me, a 9-year-old, to keep the books.
One day, many years later, a woman in the community proposed expanding on the group’s model, making it more of an official, organized operation, with an agenda we could present to the public and politicians. I saw an opportunity to combine the efforts of Kibera’s many community groups — churches and mosques, groups of young people and old, community centers, and assemblies of craftspeople. We created a unified urban movement.
By organizing through these groups, we are able to tackle bigger problems, starting with water. We created a network of aboveground pipes that reduced the spread of disease, cut the cost of a jerrycan of potable water (about five gallons) by 60 percent and prevented local cartels from siphoning off water to sell to private vendors.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below suggests that the feeling of loneliness in America is a result of deterioration of civil societies and the solution would be to revitalize them.
How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
When people have a hole in their life, they often fill it with angry politics.
Excerpt:
Mr. Sasse worries even more, however, about a pervasive feeling of homelessness: Too many Americans don’t have a place they think of as home — a “thick” community in which people know and look out for one another and invest in relationships that are not transient. To adopt a phrase coined in Sports Illustrated, one might say we increasingly lack that “hometown gym on a Friday night feeling.”
Mr. Sasse finds this phrase irresistible and warmly relates it to his own life growing up in Fremont, Neb., a town of 26,000 residents. He describes the high school sports events on Friday nights that drew the townspeople together in a common love for their neighbors and community that made most differences — especially political differences — seem trivial. He relates with deep fondness the feelings he experienced, after moving away for a couple of decades for school and work, when he returned to Fremont’s small-town life with his family, and the deep sense of belonging it created.
In what might be called “the social capital of death,” Mr. Sasse charmingly describes the sense of being rooted that it gives him, at a robust and healthy 46, to own a burial plot for himself in Fremont’s local cemetery. A précis of Mr. Sasse’s recommendations to America thus might be this: Go where you get that hometown-gym-on-a-Friday-night feeling, put down roots and make plans to fertilize the soil.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/opin ... 3053091124
How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
When people have a hole in their life, they often fill it with angry politics.
Excerpt:
Mr. Sasse worries even more, however, about a pervasive feeling of homelessness: Too many Americans don’t have a place they think of as home — a “thick” community in which people know and look out for one another and invest in relationships that are not transient. To adopt a phrase coined in Sports Illustrated, one might say we increasingly lack that “hometown gym on a Friday night feeling.”
Mr. Sasse finds this phrase irresistible and warmly relates it to his own life growing up in Fremont, Neb., a town of 26,000 residents. He describes the high school sports events on Friday nights that drew the townspeople together in a common love for their neighbors and community that made most differences — especially political differences — seem trivial. He relates with deep fondness the feelings he experienced, after moving away for a couple of decades for school and work, when he returned to Fremont’s small-town life with his family, and the deep sense of belonging it created.
In what might be called “the social capital of death,” Mr. Sasse charmingly describes the sense of being rooted that it gives him, at a robust and healthy 46, to own a burial plot for himself in Fremont’s local cemetery. A précis of Mr. Sasse’s recommendations to America thus might be this: Go where you get that hometown-gym-on-a-Friday-night feeling, put down roots and make plans to fertilize the soil.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/opin ... 3053091124
The article below suggests that it is not the economics that contributes to the happiness and well being of America but rather the social stability promoted by civil societies which are in decline.
It’s Not the Economy, Stupid
How to conduct economic policy in an age of social collapse.
Excerpt:
But the biggest factor is the crisis of connection. People, especially in the middle- and working-class slices of society, are less likely to volunteer in their community, less likely to go to church, less likely to know their neighbors, less likely to be married than they were at any time over the past several decades. In short, they have fewer resources to help them ride the creative destruction that is ever-present in a market economy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opin ... dline&te=1
It’s Not the Economy, Stupid
How to conduct economic policy in an age of social collapse.
Excerpt:
But the biggest factor is the crisis of connection. People, especially in the middle- and working-class slices of society, are less likely to volunteer in their community, less likely to go to church, less likely to know their neighbors, less likely to be married than they were at any time over the past several decades. In short, they have fewer resources to help them ride the creative destruction that is ever-present in a market economy.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opin ... dline&te=1
I’ve Been Acquitted. Egypt’s Struggle Continues.
A long trial against civil society workers comes to an end, but there is still much work to be done.
Excerpt:
The truth is that what Egypt needs is exactly the kind of work that I and 42 other people were put on trial for doing. Nongovernmental organizations, civil society groups and advocates should oversee the government and examine its structures, making the case for democracy, transparency and accountability.
Is that possible? There are 30 Egyptian civil society members barred from traveling right now. Some have had their assets frozen and have been prosecuted under the very same case 173. Many of them are civil society leaders who have served the cause of democracy and human rights for many years. These people shouldn’t be treated like criminals; they should be allowed to help build Egypt.
After we were granted a retrial, the United States released $195 million of aid that had been withheld partly because of the Egyptian government’s human rights violations and its restrictive law governing nongovernmental organizations.
The acquittals on Thursday would be truly meaningful as a sign of progress if they were the start of a real change to how Egypt governs civil society. This should not stop at our being proven innocent, or at the hoped-for end of the prosecution of the others in Case No. 173. Progress would entail a true reformation of Egypt’s restrictive laws on nongovernmental organizations and a change in attitude from the judiciary.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/opin ... dline&te=1
A long trial against civil society workers comes to an end, but there is still much work to be done.
Excerpt:
The truth is that what Egypt needs is exactly the kind of work that I and 42 other people were put on trial for doing. Nongovernmental organizations, civil society groups and advocates should oversee the government and examine its structures, making the case for democracy, transparency and accountability.
Is that possible? There are 30 Egyptian civil society members barred from traveling right now. Some have had their assets frozen and have been prosecuted under the very same case 173. Many of them are civil society leaders who have served the cause of democracy and human rights for many years. These people shouldn’t be treated like criminals; they should be allowed to help build Egypt.
After we were granted a retrial, the United States released $195 million of aid that had been withheld partly because of the Egyptian government’s human rights violations and its restrictive law governing nongovernmental organizations.
The acquittals on Thursday would be truly meaningful as a sign of progress if they were the start of a real change to how Egypt governs civil society. This should not stop at our being proven innocent, or at the hoped-for end of the prosecution of the others in Case No. 173. Progress would entail a true reformation of Egypt’s restrictive laws on nongovernmental organizations and a change in attitude from the judiciary.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below is about building civil society from bottom to solve social problems in the United States.
A Nation of Weavers
The social renaissance is happening from the ground up.
Excerpt:
My something extra was starting something nine months ago at the Aspen Institute called Weave: The Social Fabric Project. The first core idea was that social isolation is the problem underlying a lot of our other problems. The second idea was that this problem is being solved by people around the country, at the local level, who are building community and weaving the social fabric. How can we learn from their example and nationalize their effect?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/opin ... dline&te=1
A Nation of Weavers
The social renaissance is happening from the ground up.
Excerpt:
My something extra was starting something nine months ago at the Aspen Institute called Weave: The Social Fabric Project. The first core idea was that social isolation is the problem underlying a lot of our other problems. The second idea was that this problem is being solved by people around the country, at the local level, who are building community and weaving the social fabric. How can we learn from their example and nationalize their effect?
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/opin ... dline&te=1
From sacred to secular: Canada set to lose 9,000 churches, warns national heritage group
A national charity that works to save old buildings estimates that 9,000 religious spaces in Canada will be lost in the next decade, roughly a third of all faith-owned buildings in the country.
National Trust for Canada regeneration project leader Robert Pajot says every community in the country is going to see old church buildings shuttered, sold off or demolished.
"Neighbourhoods are going to have multiple churches closing," Pajot said. "Some people qualify this as a crisis, and I kind of agree. It is going to hit everybody."
It's not just beautiful, historic buildings that will be lost, but also the sense of community provided by worship spaces. Churches have not just been for Sunday, but for Girl Guides and political meetings, weddings and funerals, piano lessons and programs for the homeless.
"It's not just about the buildings. It really is beyond the impact of the loss of a heritage building in the community. The places of faith really have been, for generations, centres of so much of community life. They play a de facto community hub role, community service role," Pajot said.
Many congregations have seen the changes coming and taken steps to repurpose their old buildings in a way that will see them pay their own way.
In rural areas, congregations are shrinking as members age or move away. In cities, the increasing secularization of society coupled with new spiritual practices has cut into traditional Christian church attendance. Even rising immigration hasn't been enough to offset the trend. With fewer people in the pews, and less money in the coffers, rising maintenance costs on old buildings have overwhelmed many congregations.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/f ... li=AAggXBV
A national charity that works to save old buildings estimates that 9,000 religious spaces in Canada will be lost in the next decade, roughly a third of all faith-owned buildings in the country.
National Trust for Canada regeneration project leader Robert Pajot says every community in the country is going to see old church buildings shuttered, sold off or demolished.
"Neighbourhoods are going to have multiple churches closing," Pajot said. "Some people qualify this as a crisis, and I kind of agree. It is going to hit everybody."
It's not just beautiful, historic buildings that will be lost, but also the sense of community provided by worship spaces. Churches have not just been for Sunday, but for Girl Guides and political meetings, weddings and funerals, piano lessons and programs for the homeless.
"It's not just about the buildings. It really is beyond the impact of the loss of a heritage building in the community. The places of faith really have been, for generations, centres of so much of community life. They play a de facto community hub role, community service role," Pajot said.
Many congregations have seen the changes coming and taken steps to repurpose their old buildings in a way that will see them pay their own way.
In rural areas, congregations are shrinking as members age or move away. In cities, the increasing secularization of society coupled with new spiritual practices has cut into traditional Christian church attendance. Even rising immigration hasn't been enough to offset the trend. With fewer people in the pews, and less money in the coffers, rising maintenance costs on old buildings have overwhelmed many congregations.
More...
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/f ... li=AAggXBV
What Rural America Has to Teach Us
Civic service as a way of life.
Everybody says rural America is collapsing. But I keep going to places with more moral coherence and social commitment than we have in booming urban areas. These visits prompt the same question: How can we spread the civic mind-set they have in abundance?
For example, I spent this week in Nebraska, in towns like McCook and Grand Island. These places are not rich. At many of the schools, 50 percent of the students receive free or reduced-cost lunch. But they don’t have the pathologies we associate with poverty.
Nearly everybody is working at something. Nebraska has the sixth-lowest unemployment rate among the 50 states. It has the 12th-longest healthy life expectancy. Some of the high schools have 98 percent graduation rates. It ranks seventh among the states in intact family structure.
Crime is low. Many people leave their homes and cars unlocked.
One woman I met came home and noticed her bedroom light was on. She thought it was her husband home early. But it was her plumber. She’d mentioned at the coffee shop that she had a clogged sink, so he’d swung round, let himself in and fixed it.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/opin ... dline&te=1
Civic service as a way of life.
Everybody says rural America is collapsing. But I keep going to places with more moral coherence and social commitment than we have in booming urban areas. These visits prompt the same question: How can we spread the civic mind-set they have in abundance?
For example, I spent this week in Nebraska, in towns like McCook and Grand Island. These places are not rich. At many of the schools, 50 percent of the students receive free or reduced-cost lunch. But they don’t have the pathologies we associate with poverty.
Nearly everybody is working at something. Nebraska has the sixth-lowest unemployment rate among the 50 states. It has the 12th-longest healthy life expectancy. Some of the high schools have 98 percent graduation rates. It ranks seventh among the states in intact family structure.
Crime is low. Many people leave their homes and cars unlocked.
One woman I met came home and noticed her bedroom light was on. She thought it was her husband home early. But it was her plumber. She’d mentioned at the coffee shop that she had a clogged sink, so he’d swung round, let himself in and fixed it.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below is about how social change occurs in the context of civil societies.
People Can Savage Social Norms, but Also Revive Them
Individuals can change the way we see.
When Cass Sunstein was a young law professor, he happened to come across an older male professor talking to a young female student in a hallway. To Sunstein’s astonishment, the professor was stroking the student’s hair.
Sunstein later went up to her and said: “That was completely inappropriate. He shouldn’t have done that.” The student brushed him off: “It’s fine. He’s an old man. It’s really not a problem.”
Thirty minutes later the same student appeared in his office, in tears. “He does that all the time,” she cried out. “It’s horrible. My boyfriend thinks I should make a formal complaint, but I don’t want to do that. … I don’t want to make a fuss.”
In his new book, “How Change Happens,” Sunstein uses this story to make a few points. First, sometimes people’s private reactions differ from how society tells them they’re supposed to react to a given situation. Second, if you give people permission to express how they really feel, they will sometimes take you up on it. Third, if there is mass dissidence between how people feel they’re supposed to act and their actual feelings, then you’ve got a situation ripe for radical and sudden social change.
Sunstein’s book is illuminating because it puts norms at the center of how we think about change. A culture is made up of norms — simple rules that govern what thoughts, emotions and behaviors are appropriate at what moment. It’s appropriate to be appalled when people hit their dogs. It’s inappropriate to ask strangers to tell you their income.
Most norms are invisible most of the time. They’re just the water in which we swim. We unconsciously absorb them by imitating those around us. We implicitly know that if we violate a norm, there will be a social cost, maybe even ostracism.
From time to time, a norm stops working or comes into dispute. People are slow to challenge a broad norm, because they don’t want to say anything that might make them unpopular. But eventually some people notice that, actually, there are a lot of people who secretly think a certain norm is wrong or outdated.
When this happens, permission is granted to go public with your private thoughts. More and more people speak up and you get rapid, cascading change. There used to be a social penalty for supporting gay marriage. Now there’s a social penalty for not supporting it.
Sunstein points to the importance of “norm entrepreneurs,” people who challenge old norms and create new ones. I’d add that there are at least five different kinds of norm-shifters, though often one person can perform several of these roles:
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/opin ... dline&te=1
People Can Savage Social Norms, but Also Revive Them
Individuals can change the way we see.
When Cass Sunstein was a young law professor, he happened to come across an older male professor talking to a young female student in a hallway. To Sunstein’s astonishment, the professor was stroking the student’s hair.
Sunstein later went up to her and said: “That was completely inappropriate. He shouldn’t have done that.” The student brushed him off: “It’s fine. He’s an old man. It’s really not a problem.”
Thirty minutes later the same student appeared in his office, in tears. “He does that all the time,” she cried out. “It’s horrible. My boyfriend thinks I should make a formal complaint, but I don’t want to do that. … I don’t want to make a fuss.”
In his new book, “How Change Happens,” Sunstein uses this story to make a few points. First, sometimes people’s private reactions differ from how society tells them they’re supposed to react to a given situation. Second, if you give people permission to express how they really feel, they will sometimes take you up on it. Third, if there is mass dissidence between how people feel they’re supposed to act and their actual feelings, then you’ve got a situation ripe for radical and sudden social change.
Sunstein’s book is illuminating because it puts norms at the center of how we think about change. A culture is made up of norms — simple rules that govern what thoughts, emotions and behaviors are appropriate at what moment. It’s appropriate to be appalled when people hit their dogs. It’s inappropriate to ask strangers to tell you their income.
Most norms are invisible most of the time. They’re just the water in which we swim. We unconsciously absorb them by imitating those around us. We implicitly know that if we violate a norm, there will be a social cost, maybe even ostracism.
From time to time, a norm stops working or comes into dispute. People are slow to challenge a broad norm, because they don’t want to say anything that might make them unpopular. But eventually some people notice that, actually, there are a lot of people who secretly think a certain norm is wrong or outdated.
When this happens, permission is granted to go public with your private thoughts. More and more people speak up and you get rapid, cascading change. There used to be a social penalty for supporting gay marriage. Now there’s a social penalty for not supporting it.
Sunstein points to the importance of “norm entrepreneurs,” people who challenge old norms and create new ones. I’d add that there are at least five different kinds of norm-shifters, though often one person can perform several of these roles:
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/opin ... dline&te=1
The video below is about how to build civil societies based on the principles of pluralism.
The Power of Intellectual Humility | Farah Nasser | TEDxDonMills
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... 6eheSWw3I4
What happens in a world where everyone thinks they know better? In a world where we lack intellectual humility? I want challenge you to channel your internal journalist when you come face to face with someone who you may see as the other and who likely sees you as the other. Thinking like a journalist might help us unravel our own bias.
The Power of Intellectual Humility | Farah Nasser | TEDxDonMills
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... 6eheSWw3I4
What happens in a world where everyone thinks they know better? In a world where we lack intellectual humility? I want challenge you to channel your internal journalist when you come face to face with someone who you may see as the other and who likely sees you as the other. Thinking like a journalist might help us unravel our own bias.
International Women’s Day 2019: Celebrating Civil Society Champions
Hillary Clinton once referred to women as “the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.”
To celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day, Canada’s Ismaili community tapped into this supply of expertise and creativity, hosting thought-provoking discussions in six cities across the country.
Approximately 850 participants attended events in Burnaby, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Montreal to discuss this year’s theme: Ismaili Women - Civil Society Champions: Living the Social Conscience of Islam.
On March 9, the Ismaili Centre Toronto hosted 250 guests for a panel conversation between Zabeen Hirji, Rumina Velshi, and Zaina Sovani. Velshi, the President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, spoke about how gender imbalances, though still widespread, are decreasing in 2019.
“What’s different today is the recognition that gender balance is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do,” she said. Velshi explained that an important part of her role is to speak to young women across Canada.
“If we want a strong workforce and greater innovation … the evidence is unequivocal that having women around the table pretty much guarantees success,” said Velshi.
In Ottawa, an audience ranging from high-school students to seniors gathered at Headquarters Jamatkhana for a discussion between Attiya Hirji, Aleeya Velji, and Farhana Alarakhiya.
The three panelists spoke about the challenges they have faced in the private sector as a result of being women. They encouraged the women in attendance to resist conventional gender roles impeding progress in potential personal or professional contributions to their local communities.
Alarakhiya, VP of product insights and analytics at Shopify, discussed how she sometimes feels her ideas aren’t taken as seriously because she is a woman working in STEM. She told the audience that a key part of her success has been “pushing boundaries and not being afraid.”
Speaking to the theme of civil society work, Alarakhiya emphasised the need to work collaboratively across sectors and consider the needs of both genders in decision-making processes.
More...
https://the.ismaili/canada/internationa ... rce=Direct
Hillary Clinton once referred to women as “the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.”
To celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day, Canada’s Ismaili community tapped into this supply of expertise and creativity, hosting thought-provoking discussions in six cities across the country.
Approximately 850 participants attended events in Burnaby, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Montreal to discuss this year’s theme: Ismaili Women - Civil Society Champions: Living the Social Conscience of Islam.
On March 9, the Ismaili Centre Toronto hosted 250 guests for a panel conversation between Zabeen Hirji, Rumina Velshi, and Zaina Sovani. Velshi, the President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, spoke about how gender imbalances, though still widespread, are decreasing in 2019.
“What’s different today is the recognition that gender balance is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do,” she said. Velshi explained that an important part of her role is to speak to young women across Canada.
“If we want a strong workforce and greater innovation … the evidence is unequivocal that having women around the table pretty much guarantees success,” said Velshi.
In Ottawa, an audience ranging from high-school students to seniors gathered at Headquarters Jamatkhana for a discussion between Attiya Hirji, Aleeya Velji, and Farhana Alarakhiya.
The three panelists spoke about the challenges they have faced in the private sector as a result of being women. They encouraged the women in attendance to resist conventional gender roles impeding progress in potential personal or professional contributions to their local communities.
Alarakhiya, VP of product insights and analytics at Shopify, discussed how she sometimes feels her ideas aren’t taken as seriously because she is a woman working in STEM. She told the audience that a key part of her success has been “pushing boundaries and not being afraid.”
Speaking to the theme of civil society work, Alarakhiya emphasised the need to work collaboratively across sectors and consider the needs of both genders in decision-making processes.
More...
https://the.ismaili/canada/internationa ... rce=Direct
There Should Be More Rituals!
The small acts that keep a society together.
Excerpt:
So far, I’ve been talking about personal rituals. But maybe the greatest need is for collective rituals.
In 1620, early European colonists formed the Mayflower Compact, in which they publicly vowed to “combine ourselves into a civil body politic.” Maybe neighborhoods and towns could come together to make town compacts. They would vow to be a community together and lay out the specific projects they are going to do together to address a challenge they face.
A public civic compact, publicly sworn to, involving all, would allow towns to do a lot of things. It would be an occasion to redraw the boundary of the community and thereby include those who have been marginalized. It could be done on a spot that would become sacred, becoming the beating heart of the community. It could be an occasion to tell a new version of the town story; a community is a group of people who share a common story.
Most of all, it would be an occasion for people to make promises toward one another — specific ways they are going to use their gifts to solve the common challenge. Towns are built when people make promises to one another, hold one another accountable and sacrifice together through repeated interaction toward a common end.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/opin ... dline&te=1
The small acts that keep a society together.
Excerpt:
So far, I’ve been talking about personal rituals. But maybe the greatest need is for collective rituals.
In 1620, early European colonists formed the Mayflower Compact, in which they publicly vowed to “combine ourselves into a civil body politic.” Maybe neighborhoods and towns could come together to make town compacts. They would vow to be a community together and lay out the specific projects they are going to do together to address a challenge they face.
A public civic compact, publicly sworn to, involving all, would allow towns to do a lot of things. It would be an occasion to redraw the boundary of the community and thereby include those who have been marginalized. It could be done on a spot that would become sacred, becoming the beating heart of the community. It could be an occasion to tell a new version of the town story; a community is a group of people who share a common story.
Most of all, it would be an occasion for people to make promises toward one another — specific ways they are going to use their gifts to solve the common challenge. Towns are built when people make promises to one another, hold one another accountable and sacrifice together through repeated interaction toward a common end.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/opin ... dline&te=1
The article below explains how civil society can play a leading role in adapting to climate change...
Can this Japanese system help African cities adapt to climate change?
Sub-Saharan Africa is already experiencing the realities of a changing climate – and the situation is only going to get worse.
Sub-Saharan Africa is already experiencing the realities of a changing climate – and the situation is only going to get worse.
The reasons for this are complex. And they’re exacerbated by deficits in the region’s infrastructure, services and socio-economic dynamics. Urbanisation is another major factor. The continent’s current urban population is only 43% – but it’s rising fast. About 10 million people move into towns and cities each year.
It’s a well established fact that good climate change adaptation strategies can reduce urban areas’ vulnerability and strengthen cities’ resilience.
But there’s a problem.
Global agendas acknowledge the critical role that urban adaptation plays towards sustainable development and poverty reduction. However, they focus on national governments and to a lesser extent urban governments. Citizens and civil society end up in subsidiary roles. This flies in the face of established evidence: urban adaptation to climate change is more effective where local citizens participate and own the process.
How can this participation and ownership be nurtured? Our research examined the conditions that can support citizen led urban climate adaption in Sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of “machizukuri”. This is a Japanese term which literally translates as “community building”. It sees citizens and residents take ownership of the issues that affect their local environment.
More...
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/insights/ene ... te-change/
Can this Japanese system help African cities adapt to climate change?
Sub-Saharan Africa is already experiencing the realities of a changing climate – and the situation is only going to get worse.
Sub-Saharan Africa is already experiencing the realities of a changing climate – and the situation is only going to get worse.
The reasons for this are complex. And they’re exacerbated by deficits in the region’s infrastructure, services and socio-economic dynamics. Urbanisation is another major factor. The continent’s current urban population is only 43% – but it’s rising fast. About 10 million people move into towns and cities each year.
It’s a well established fact that good climate change adaptation strategies can reduce urban areas’ vulnerability and strengthen cities’ resilience.
But there’s a problem.
Global agendas acknowledge the critical role that urban adaptation plays towards sustainable development and poverty reduction. However, they focus on national governments and to a lesser extent urban governments. Citizens and civil society end up in subsidiary roles. This flies in the face of established evidence: urban adaptation to climate change is more effective where local citizens participate and own the process.
How can this participation and ownership be nurtured? Our research examined the conditions that can support citizen led urban climate adaption in Sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of “machizukuri”. This is a Japanese term which literally translates as “community building”. It sees citizens and residents take ownership of the issues that affect their local environment.
More...
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/insights/ene ... te-change/
The article below is about how stories related to the building of communities and civil society are under-reported in the media.
The Big Story You Don’t Read About
Journalists don’t always cover what’s really going on.
My colleague David Bornstein points out that a lot of American journalism is based on a mistaken theory of change. That theory is: The world will get better when we show where things have gone wrong. A lot of what we do in our business is expose error, cover problems and identify conflict.
The problem with this is that we leave people feeling disempowered and depressed. People who consume a lot of media of this sort sink into this toxic vortex — alienated from people they don’t know, fearful about the future. They are less mobilized to take action, not more.
Bornstein, who writes for The Times and also co-founded the Solutions Journalism Network, says that you’ve got to expose problems, but you’ve also got to describe how the problems are being tackled. The search for solutions is more exciting than the problems themselves.
But many of our colleagues don’t define local social repair and community-building as news. It seems too goody-goody, too “worthy,” too sincere. It won’t attract eyeballs.
That’s wrong.
I’ve spent the past year around people who weave social fabric, and this week about 275 community weavers gathered in Washington, for a conference called #WeaveThePeople, organized by the Weave project I’ve been working on at the Aspen Institute.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/opin ... y_20190517
The Big Story You Don’t Read About
Journalists don’t always cover what’s really going on.
My colleague David Bornstein points out that a lot of American journalism is based on a mistaken theory of change. That theory is: The world will get better when we show where things have gone wrong. A lot of what we do in our business is expose error, cover problems and identify conflict.
The problem with this is that we leave people feeling disempowered and depressed. People who consume a lot of media of this sort sink into this toxic vortex — alienated from people they don’t know, fearful about the future. They are less mobilized to take action, not more.
Bornstein, who writes for The Times and also co-founded the Solutions Journalism Network, says that you’ve got to expose problems, but you’ve also got to describe how the problems are being tackled. The search for solutions is more exciting than the problems themselves.
But many of our colleagues don’t define local social repair and community-building as news. It seems too goody-goody, too “worthy,” too sincere. It won’t attract eyeballs.
That’s wrong.
I’ve spent the past year around people who weave social fabric, and this week about 275 community weavers gathered in Washington, for a conference called #WeaveThePeople, organized by the Weave project I’ve been working on at the Aspen Institute.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/opin ... y_20190517
What is civil society and why does it matter?
The term civil society often appears in conversations amongst people concerned with social progress and positive change. But what does it actually mean, and why is it important? Here we explore some key aspects, and consider how the ethics and values of the Ismaili community can inspire us to contribute towards a strong civil society.
A vibrant and competent civil society is the cornerstone of a healthy and prosperous nation. It is where people themselves work to create change and build a better society, rather than rely solely on the government to do so. This notion first appeared in ancient Greece and Rome, and has become an essential component for a modern society to function anywhere in the world.
During a speech made in Kabul in 2007, Mawlana Hazar Imam defined civil society as “a realm of activity which is neither governmental nor commercial, institutions designed to advance the public good, but powered by private energies.”
When governments are fragile, or unable to meet the needs of their citizens, civil society organisations can step into the void. Their impact can be life-changing, providing people with basic healthcare, schooling, and shelter; or helping them access credit to expand a small business for example.
In nations where the government is more established, the efforts of a robust civil society sector are equally as important; workers’ rights groups such as teachers’ unions or medical associations advocate for fair treatment, while environmental groups promote sustainable living practices.
Civil society institutions can also take the form of media outlets and arts organisations that communicate and share knowledge, or social enterprises that generate innovative ideas. They can be as small as a neighbourhood self-help scheme, or as large as an international NGO or the United Nations.
Photos and more...
https://the.ismaili/our-stories/what-ci ... -it-matter
The term civil society often appears in conversations amongst people concerned with social progress and positive change. But what does it actually mean, and why is it important? Here we explore some key aspects, and consider how the ethics and values of the Ismaili community can inspire us to contribute towards a strong civil society.
A vibrant and competent civil society is the cornerstone of a healthy and prosperous nation. It is where people themselves work to create change and build a better society, rather than rely solely on the government to do so. This notion first appeared in ancient Greece and Rome, and has become an essential component for a modern society to function anywhere in the world.
During a speech made in Kabul in 2007, Mawlana Hazar Imam defined civil society as “a realm of activity which is neither governmental nor commercial, institutions designed to advance the public good, but powered by private energies.”
When governments are fragile, or unable to meet the needs of their citizens, civil society organisations can step into the void. Their impact can be life-changing, providing people with basic healthcare, schooling, and shelter; or helping them access credit to expand a small business for example.
In nations where the government is more established, the efforts of a robust civil society sector are equally as important; workers’ rights groups such as teachers’ unions or medical associations advocate for fair treatment, while environmental groups promote sustainable living practices.
Civil society institutions can also take the form of media outlets and arts organisations that communicate and share knowledge, or social enterprises that generate innovative ideas. They can be as small as a neighbourhood self-help scheme, or as large as an international NGO or the United Nations.
Photos and more...
https://the.ismaili/our-stories/what-ci ... -it-matter