Glenn's blog

I'm volunteering some of my time this year to help organize the second Vancouver ChangeCamp. It's happening on June 12.

Photo by Reading Is My Heroin

I attended last year's event and it inspired me to learn more about these kinds of events, which led me to organize Animal Advocacy Camp. It also inspired me to take the SFU Certificate in Dialogue and Civic Engagement.

I'm really looking forward to ChangeCamp this year. It's going to be held at the W2's temporary Storyeum location – which is an amazing space.

Here's the info on ChangeCamp from the event signup. If you register by May 15, registration is only $15!

WHAT IS VANCHANGECAMP: A participatory, web-enabled event to imagine and build new ways to collaborate for social change in the digital age. 

WHY: Change Camp is a collaborative, participatory and web-enabled event that is meant to explore the following questions:

• How can we help our governments be more open and responsive?
• How do we as citizens organize to get better outcomes ourselves?

WHO: Changemakers! Including but not limited to:
People making change at the ground level - community workers, non-profits, social enterprise, CED, foundations, activists, advocates, government employees
Decision-makers and government leaders
Technologists, developers, communicators, designers, other professions

Low income free entry

If the $20 fee presents a real barrier to you, don't let it! Simply email our Event Coordinator Elijah van der Giessen at eli@vandergiessen.ca to register for free. But be warned: he may try to recruit you as a volunteer! :-)

I've just finished up the courses for the SFU Certificate in Dialogue and Civic Engagement and am now beginning my practicum – the final piece of the certificate. I've written a bit about this program before, but this seems like a good time to recap as I am planning where to go from here.

What I learned:

Course #1 (Amy Lang): What is dialogue? A language and frameworks that enabled us to talk about and evaluate dialogue and planning processes.

Course #2 (Vince Verlaan): How do you plan an engagement process that is representative? The importance of powerful questions, framing, and invitations. Commitment to dialogue and engagement and the importance of advocating for participatory processes in many areas. Don't be afraid to kick the door open, but also be aware of the softer and nurturing side.

Course #3 (Charles Dobson): We need to be effective and build grassroots capacity for action. It is difficult to sustain activism and community engagement, and we need to pay attention to sustaining them beyond crisis situations.

Course #4 (Peter Boothroyd): Planning participatory processes. Plant little participatory practices that can grow and influence other processes. By working together we can collectively achieve more than we can working individually.

Open Space and World Cafe Workshop (Chris Corrigan): Incredibly useful and two great tools that I will use as I plan future events. Circles are powerful, and as we talk ideas come out that none of us thought of on our own. The group is greater than the sum of its parts.

What happens now?

I am beginning work on my practicum project, which will likely be a participatory process that will plan and hold a series of engagement events in the Vancouver area animal rights community. These events will be collaboratively planned, and may have as their objective the articulation of the community goals and objectives for animal rights. I'm still early in the process of talking to people and mapping out the possible perspectives. We may work towards possible scenarios of animal rights, or perhaps a map of goals and a visualization of where our goals overlap. All of this with the purpose of making us more effective as a community and a movement. If you are interested or have any ideas about this, please get in touch.

This project isn't about pushing my perspective or my goals on to the community, but rather about creating a stronger and more effective community through a participatory process. I guess I am somewhat pushing my perspectives about the value of collaboration and strong community, but I am not pushing for any particular perspective about the goals of animal rights or how we can get there.

There may be increased energy coming out of Animal Advocacy Camp, which I am hoping to build on and carry forward into these next events, at the same time as we can work to embed collaboration and shared vision into our work.

Let's build a new world together!

Building community, influencing policy, making change from the inside while we wait (possibly for a long time) for government to make positive changes. These are just some of the reasons behind Headlines Theatre’s after homelessness..., a theatrical event that employs forum theatre to engage the audience and cast members in a discussion about how we can work on real solutions to the problem of homelessness in our city, province, and country.

The result of a week-long workshop, the play is an artistic rendering of the real-life issues faced by people dealing with homelessness. 20 people from the community were selected from a much larger number of applicants, and the six cast members were drawn from this group of 20 to perform the play. Over the next 3 weeks, the director (David Diamond), the cast, and a team of designers molded the raw material from the workshops into a half-hour performance.

The performance

The actual performance is unlike any other theatrical experience I had ever been seen. I was used to sitting in a dark theatre and watching actors on the stage present a story. In most performances there is an invisible (and expected) barrier between the actors and the audience. after homelessness... is much different. David Diamond opened by speaking directly to the audience and framing the event, explaining the process and preparing us for a participatory experience. I was really impressed with how well he explained the reason for the performance and why he was using the theatre to open a dialogue about homelessness.

After Diamond’s introduction, the half-hour play was performed. It felt like we were watching real people facing real issues. In a conventional play, no matter how much I suspend my disbelief I know that I’m watching actors playing roles. Here, while I knew that these actors were playing fictional roles, the experiences were real and their performances were coming from a very real place. It wasn’t just acting, it was re-acting, and, quite possibly, re-living. Knowing the context of the source of the material made the play more visceral. Even if the acting wasn’t professional quality, the actors were completely believable.

After the half-hour-or-so performance, Diamond returned to the stage to facilitate the rest of the evening. With the house lights up and with no sound effects, the play was performed again, scene by scene. During moments of conflict or struggle any audience member could yell “stop!,” replace a cast member, and try to work through the scene towards a positive outcome. He handled the difficult process of drawing the audience into participating in the performance really well, prodding us until someone spoke up. The first participant was the hardest; after that people were more willing to get involved.

Theatre for Living

This kind of process is based on “forum theatre” which is a part of “Theatre of the Oppressed,” a method developed by Augusto Boal. Boal, a Brazilian, was interested in using theatre to transform our world into the world we want it to be. It’s really a method of creation in the real world, not just an artistic creation. Re-creation doesn’t rely on “magic” but rather on re-envisioning what is possible.

Diamond’s work with Headlines Theatre is based on Boal’s ideas, bringing participatory theatre and dialogue together to explore and potentially solve some really tough problems. One of their previous works was Meth, which explored drug addiction, methamphetamine addiction in particular. I recall hearing about the workshops leading up to that performance, but never made it out to see it.

Even more powerful than the initial performance of after homelessness... were the performances of the “spect-actors” who took on the re-imagining of roles. In most if not all cases they weren’t just playing the role, they were living their own story in the play, working through their own issues towards a positive solution. Even thinking back about it now makes me emotional.

With the performance pushing just over two hours with no intermission, it actually felt too short. Watching the audience members work through the scenes that focused on drug addiction, particularly crack addiction, I felt the powerlessness and fear, the feeling of being overwhelmed and incapable of handling life. I remembered my own experiences in that dark place. But, as I watched them speak to their struggle, as I watched them work through these issues, I could see how empowered they became. And I felt for them. I felt with them. This nearly made me start to cry: this play was a gift to people who needed a way to speak, because by speaking truthfully they can become strong and heal. I am immensely grateful to have experienced those moments.

The outcome

Three community dialogues were held to address different aspects of homelessness. One dealt with the location of housing, another with safe and appropriate housing, and the third with financing housing. The results of those dialogues, together with the ideas generated by the performances, will be compiled into a “Community Action Report” which the city and other organizations have agreed to use in determining their policies around homelessness and mental health.

It will be quite interesting to see what sort of effect this report has on future policy. It will also be interesting to see if this project has any effect on the issue from the inside — empowering people to build stronger communities and support networks, changing their own future while government slowly moves towards a solution.

Addiction, mental health, and homelessness affect us all. There are very few people in Vancouver who have not in some way experienced these issues very personally. We can help to end homelessness and create safe and appropriate housing as a basic human right. after homelessness... is a step towards a greater knowledge and understanding of the issues – and the use of participatory dialogue brings everyone into the story.

Remember, it’s not about you and me or them, it’s about us.