1. Resilience

In January 2017, we posted a blog with this introduction: given the political, economic and cultural earthquakes of 2016, the year ahead could look pretty terrifying and uncertain. We may feel anxious. We may have visions of moving to a remote island where we could block out the worry and anger about the increasingly unattractive western world. But there is another option. Resilience. With a big dose of hope.

It can feel like not a lot has changed – except it has! Climate change activism is alive and well. Real poverty in the two-thirds world has been reduced significantly. While democracy is under attack, those committed to its survival are active across the world.

Raymond Williams said that “to be truly radical is to make hope possible, rather than despair convincing”. Resilience is our best antidote to fear, anxiety and withdrawal.

There are four types of resilience (psychological, political, economic and spiritual). Let’s draw on them all in the year to come!

2. Collaboration for collective impact

Working alone, in isolation, as rivals, in silos or as competitors has reduced impact in the social sector where it is most needed. Over the past year we published a series of blogs and articles focused on collective action as a solution that successfully addresses key challenges both locally and globally.

We must work together, not against each other. Poverty for example is one real challenge, but so is distrust, polarisation, competition and personal ego amongst those wanting to end poverty. We could all do with a dose collective impact. Not for our own health, but the health of an economy that works for both people and planet.

3. Leadership

We will have all seen quotes on LinkedIn or Facebook about the attributes of leadership. And we can always look to others to lead. We can also look at our own lives and figure out where we can authentically lead and be part of a solution.

At the risk of being negative (in an effort to be solutions-focused), we’ve all experienced a lack of leadership whether at an organisational level, a national level or a global level. We know what bad leadership is. Ego, hubris, greed, power, control as well as the out-of-fashion attributes of envy, jealousy, malice and pride all figure highly in bad leadership.

A simple act of leadership can change the world, whether it is local or global. Speak the truth even if your voice shakes – is a simple beginning for all of us.

We don’t have to be courageous, charismatic or a white man to be a leader. We can all lead in finding solutions and be inspired by the ‘not what you’d expect’ examples of leadership – thanks Greta!

4. The social economy

For many in our neoliberal world it is abhorrent when the word ‘social’ is associated in any way with the word ‘economy’. There is plenty of opposition and misunderstanding – it all sounds too ‘political’, and isn’t ‘social’ part of that word ‘social’-ism (short-hand for communism)? Despite this, the ‘social economy’ is maturing and becoming much more than yet another ‘bloody coffee cart social enterprise’ (although we can’t get enough good coffee is our way of thinking).

At its heart, the social economy works for people and profit. Or people before profit – not profit before people. Just like in the market focussed economy, businesses in the social economy seek to make a profit. The difference being that in a social economy, the profit is used to meet social objectives, not generate individual wealth. It’s that last bit which makes this type of economy different. Wealth is more evenly distributed.

By prioritising social objectives, the social economy is an innovative way to tackle social, economic and environmental needs in society that have been overlooked or inadequately addressed by the private or public sectors.

Supporting the social economy in 2020 means purchasing with a purpose and well as selling for a purpose. A simple example is choosing to purchase from a social enterprise even though it might cost more than in the general market. The purchasing provides the economic stimulus to drive the social economy with its social objectives to create greater benefit for more and more people, not just the few.

There are plenty of opportunities to engage with the social economy. Who you buy from as well as what you buy can make a difference. There are social economy businesses everywhere. See what you can find in 2020. Spend your money wisely and make an impact!

5. Discipline and focus

Being a ‘change agent’, wanting to ‘do good’ and have ‘purpose’ is all well and very good and way better than the alternative. But we need to be clear about what we want to do and what impact we want to make. We need to be disciplined and focused in measuring and achieving those outcomes.

Whether it is a social business/enterprise, an ethical business for a social purpose, a cooperative, an employee owned business or an attempt at ‘conscious capitalism’, we need the disciplines of strategic planning, social business modelling, theory of change analysis, impact measurement, good governance and generating profit. Generating profit, as we have argued before, is crucial for the survival of all the above – it is how profit is distributed and who benefits from the profit that’s the central justice issue.

In 2020 we will be working in all these areas. We will be resilient, we will lead where we can, we will collaborate with others fighting for the same cause, and in doing that we hope we will help the social economy to thrive.

Join in! We can all be part of the solutions for 2020.

The post Solutions for 2020 appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

In 2016 after doing some work with the team at Caritas Westminster, they took us to visit a building. An old, run-down, disused school then social club in Wembly. Surrounded by a massive development project, the question was – sell it to developers or do something with it?

When we first looked, we saw a dilapidated old building. But on second glance we saw a space that could be used to run a social enterprise. In fact, lots of social enterprises.

Now, after a renegotiated lease, £500k of building work, lots of community consultation and two years working with Caritas Westminster, we have planted some SEIDs.

Huh? What on earth is SEIDs?

We know that decent and dignified work is hard to find.

In London, the majority of people living in poverty – 58% – are living in a working family.

That’s 1.3 million people living in poverty while working in London alone. It’s obviously shocking and unacceptable.

21% of people employed in London are paid below the London Living Wage – £10.20 an hour. Even on that hourly rate it is almost impossible to get by.

SEIDs – Social Enterprise Ideas Development – exists to change the lives and opportunities of people who are in poverty, both in work and without work.

The best way to move someone out of poverty – whether ‘in work’ or ‘out of work’ – is to give them a decent and dignified job – one that pays a sustainable London wage and one that provides a working environment where people and profit co-exist together without one at the expense of the other. Social enterprises – businesses that trade for a social purpose – are one way to do it.

SEIDs is a family of social enterprises that create decent and dignified work.

One of the SEIDs family is a social innovation and enterprise hub at Wembley to assist business start-ups to become viable opportunities for decent work. But it’s not like a traditional hub. We have raised over £75k to provide bursaries for people with an enterprise idea that don’t have the financial resources to access all the services provided by the hub, to make sure the opportunity to develop a new business idea is available to everyone.

Another member of the family is a property services enterprise working across north London – to provide training and employment on the job as a pathway into decent work.

And there are more enterprises in the pipeline. It’s a happily growing family!

The goal is for all the enterprises to move people out of poverty and into a job – a decent job that provides financial sustainability and security and the dignity to fully engage with the community.

That’s what we’ll be busy doing at SEIDs. Challenging existing thinking, imagining new solutions, and transforming the way we do business and hopefully also people’s lives along the way.

We hope the SEIDs family of enterprises will be one more piece of the mosaic of people and projects everywhere working to fight inequality, in all its forms.

Here’s to all those people – the ones who don’t despair when something isn’t fair, but get straight to work on changing it.

You guys inspire us every day. Let’s carry on challenging, imagining and transforming! And maybe we’ll see you at the SEIDs hub. Come and join us!

The post SAIDs SEEDs SEIDs? It’s the last one! appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

I recently read a short article on why kids should learn philosophy and immediately thought the same about economics – but not for kids – but for all the grown ups currently working feverishly to do good and change the world through socially innovative entrepreneurial enterprises.

In fact it occurred to me that there was a business opportunity or gap in the market as they say, to have a whole semester or two added on economics to all MBA and equivalent courses that now exist for social entrepreneurs.

By now you’re yawning because as Richard Denis recalls in his article in The Monthly “I remember my first lesson in economics like it was yesterday. I’d never heard a bigger bunch of crap in my life. It made no sense. The assumptions were flawed. The examples were ridiculous and the conclusions worse.”

And that’s about where we leave economics – back in high school.

Not that we don’t hear a lot about ‘the economy’. But economics – no thanks!

Let’s just get on and do it! Economics has nothing to do with changing the world. The solution lies with new business models to challenge and solve social problems. Poverty and inequality – all solved with scaling up, volumes, price point, marketing, distribution points, strategic planning, supply chains, market segmentation and financial modeling, and more financial modeling.

In the meantime while we all learn about ‘good’ business (or is it ‘business for good’?) the economy runs on, adjusted from time to time by the invisible hand of the ‘market’.

And we know as much as we need to know about ‘the economy’ because everyday we are educated about ‘the economy’ by politicians and media to such an extent that we know all we need to about economics. Right?

Richard Denis calls this constant everyday education “econospeak” noting that “the primary purpose of the econospeak that fills our airwaves, most of which is complete nonsense, is to keep ordinary people out of the big debates about tax, fairness, climate change and the provision of essential services. Econospeak is a great way to limit the options on our democratic menu. Would you like a small tax cut and a small cut in services or a big tax cut and a big cut in services? What? You want to spend more money in health and education? You must be mad. Just imagine how “the markets” would react to such a suggestion.”

What’s really startling is that while we have all been learning about ‘good’ business to solve social challenges, we’ve taken our daily dose of econospeak and swallowed it hook, line and balanced budget. As Denis notes “the whole strategy has worked a treat for the past few decades”.

Swallowing econospeak allows us to live with myths like, it is the lifestyle of the poor that threaten the economy, or, that tax concessions to the super rich will create more jobs, or, that the great financial crisis was caused by governments spending recklessly on public services, and that business above all else is how all our problems will be solved. Ignorance produced by econospeak is a powerful tool – after all, how can you criticize economic policy when you don’t understand economics?

Perhaps that’s where education is needed.

What if all of us who want to change the world for the better took some time to educate ourselves beyond econospeak so we had some tools to use when we critically consider the economy we are part of? What if every aspiring social entrepreneur had to complete a year of study in economics before studying business tools? What if this education allowed us all to understand why even the best intentions to change the world informed by econospeak, actually just perpetuate the very challenges we want to solve?

So where to begin? Here’s a sample of some really good economic thinking – and if you don’t want to read the whole book, look for articles that discuss the thoughts of the authors – even Wikipedia is better than gulping down headfuls of econospeak. So have a look at:

John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money

Ha-Joon Chang, Economics: The User’s Guide

Joseph Stiglitz, The Great Divide

Thomas Picketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Anthony Atkinson, Inequality: What can be done?

And after some reading, consider afresh Richard Denis’ final words: “you don’t need to be an economist to call out crap when you hear it. But unless people start calling it out and stop worrying about “what the markets think”, then one of the richest countries in the world, living at the richest point in world history, might continue to believe that we “can’t afford” to invest in a better health or education system . . . Economics doesn’t tell us that we need to cut taxes for the rich or cause climate change if we really want to help the poor. And “the markets” don’t tell us that either. Those are the sentiments of some wealthy people, and some politicians who represent them. But they say it in econospeak because it sounds so ridiculous in plain English.”

The post ‘Just do it’ and forget economics! appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

A comment on one of our articles in Pioneers Post shouted ‘don’t talk about it just do it!’

That’s fine if you know what you are doing but we have become increasingly aware that doing social innovation or doing social enterprise or doing social entrepreneur type stuff means a whole lot of things to whole lot of people. And what they are all doing using these words does not mean their actions end up making the world a better place – in fact sometimes it makes it worse. So we figured it was worth talking about a bit more.

We were surprised when we arrived two years ago in Austria with a great bunch of people from all over the world at a Masters of Arts in Social Innovation programme, to discover that what we thought social innovation was about was not quite what others made of it. In fact we discovered that for some a McDonald’s hamburger could qualify as a social innovation because it had social effects – even it that effect in many places was an increase in fat.

Claudia Wittig now working with TECHO in Mexico City was equally surprised. Out of life experience as well as critical reflection we all felt uncomfortable with the nebulous nature of what the term meant so we decided to write a paper to put our case together for a clear definition that linked words and meaning to what these meant in action.

That paper has now been published by the Centre for Social Innovation in Vienna – ZSI – and has been also published by Social Innovation Europe.

Here is the abstract:

Social innovation is a term used globally to describe and identify quite different activities. While it is a term that everyone likes to use, precisely what it refers to is not always clear. This paper explores different definitional approaches or intentions –legitimating, theoretical, action-reflection, broad and distinctive– and considers why a definition of social innovation is important and what the crucial ingredients, informed more by practice than theory, might be. Following lessons learnt from postmodernity and critical theory, social marketing, democracy, governance and social entrepreneurship, we arrive at a definition that is value-laden, distinctive and focused – from inception to impact – on equality, justice and empowerment.

It is the last three words that are the most meaningful and require the most urgent action.

We believe these three words should also be applied to definitions of social enterprise – and that we should not be shy of using them when these words provide the meaning that drives our actions to make the world a fairer place.

Hope you have the time to read it and even enjoy it. Read the paper here:

Definition and Theory in Social Innovation

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An unlikely mix that has combined to collaborate on a mosaic peace tree to be installed in a public location in Edgware as a symbol promoting peace and acceptance across a diversity of faiths, worldviews and abilities. We’re sharing it as an example of what can be done on a small scale in a local community to create cohesion.

Like in so many places across the world so to locally in Edgware pockets of social isolation, disengagement and fracturing along religious and ethnic boundaries are evident. We are also aware how this fracturing occurs between people of different abilities.

Suspicion of what is ‘different’ or ‘other’ is hard-wired in some people. Whether it is different abilities, different faiths, different clothes, different languages, different food, different traditions, or something that does not fit with our own ‘tribe’, globally or locally too many fractures between people fester and turn toxic.

While we can’t take on the whole world we can do something locally.

With a grant from the Near Neighbours Fund (http://tinyurl.com/n7ed6k3) we plan to combine people of all ages and abilities from local ethnic, cultural and religious groups in a series of cooperative three hour workshops led by Mosaic artist/psychologist Naomi Selig (http://tinyurl.com/puysx7r).

The real work will be to ensure that we generate a ‘safe space’ to explore difference and otherness, with a mix of people that more often than not are to be found apart rather than together.

Working together participants will cut glass and construct a mosaic peace tree. The design of the mosaic will specifically mix colour and shape together, to identify how diversity can be combined into a cohesive whole.

Each individual leaf will be designed by individuals or groups to identify their ‘uniqueness’ – whether that be ethnic, faith based, abilities based, age, gender or a mix of several of these distinctions. The first set of workshops will both design the individual leaves and the final form of the mosaic under the guidance of the mosaic artist. This will ensure that the final mosaic is a collaborative community design. In the second set of workshops all these individual leaves will combine into the one final mosaic – a strong symbol of peace and cohesion.

The plan is then to install the mosaic in a prominent public space in Edgware. Both the launch of the project and the installation of the final mosaic will bring together members of all the major different people groups in Edgware with a street party and food and a celebration of each others uniqueness and sameness. It will be a collective accomplishment and we anticipate it will in its own unique way generate new understanding between people and heal fractures that exist simply because people don’t know or understand each other’s way of living.

It’s a local example of the power collaboration can have in face of a global challenge. Maybe you could replicate the idea in your context. Please do!

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We saw Russell Brand’s brand new book Revolution on sale with a third of the price off. Probably not what you hope for when you have just released a new book.

The book has been ridiculed by many, but there has never been a more urgent time for someone to unsettle the status quo.

All sides of politics – and those in between – have pilloried Brand’s book. As one reviewer proclaims: ‘Brand’s writing is atrocious: confusing and tedious, filled with references to books he’s half read’.

It’s true to say the book is not a polished political treatise. It appears that the politics of the book arise not from a right or left ideology but a mishmash of enlightened spirituality that has assisted Brand in making, and so far maintaining, serious lifestyle change. The revolution does not appear to have articulate policy positions or a coherently mapped out plan for social change.

There are lots of things one can criticize about Brand, his writing, and his revolution. And there are many who want to write him off as the town clown, the court jester, the idiot.

But perhaps that’s exactly what makes those in power so uncomfortable. The town clown, the court jester, and the ‘idiot’ don’t play by the rules. They are tolerable as long as they make us laugh, but once they stray from that role into any space that might cause us to ‘think’ – they are out of character, not in their right place, an affront to serious policy and political players.

Articulate political discourse from the mainstream political parties in both the UK and Australia is barely distinguishable – it all coalesces into the classic pro-market neoliberal position with varying shades of grey. This political discourse combines with the banking class to produce a merry-go-round of greed, austerity, benefit cuts, greed, less government spending, balanced budgets, greed, housing unaffordability, child poverty, migrant hating, greed, nationalistic jingoism, and more greed to produce a planet of gross inequality and unfairness. And all washed down with nice polite well-dressed blandness.

Brand – the upstart, the town clown, the court jester, the ‘idiot’ – wants to start a revolution that brings this system down. But he doesn’t have the ‘right’ pieces of paper. He doesn’t have the ‘correct’ approach.

He wants to talk directly to all the people (and there are lots of them) who are totally pissed off with the articulate policy discourse. A discourse that has alienated them to the point where they don’t even feel empowered enough to exercise their democratic right to vote.

He advocates a populism to confront financial power and environmental degradation, rather than boring gradual attempts to restrain an economic system that is running amok.

Brand is messy. Unshaven. Unsuited. Brand just doesn’t fit! He does not conform. He rambles about better ways to deal with the big global challenges we face. He talks of spirituality and meditation (what they hell do they have to do with politics!).

He suggests things can change for the better if the majority of disenfranchised people exercise their rights! Now there’s an idea.

Brand is an unauthorized, unqualified intrusion into political discourse.

There has never been a more urgent time than this for a Russell Brand – and many more like him.

The post A Brand New Revolution? appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

Whether it’s the cruelty of rockets that indiscriminately take the lives of people in Gaza or the Ukraine, or the cruelty of an economy that punishes the disabled, single mothers, and the vulnerable in Britain or Australia – cruelty evokes gloom as it appears to be so overwhelmingly in control.

Given this reality it feels really twee to talk about the TV show Glee. After all what could a stupid Hollywood style musical series aimed squarely at a teenage audience contribute to the world, other than a few minutes of mindlessness? It seems as offensive to talk about Glee in a world of gloom as it would be to have someone whistling gleefully at a funeral.

A wheelchair-bound nerdy geek, a large transgender Afro-American, a bunch of testosterone fueled male losers, a couple of cheerleaders (for goodness sake!), an ex-male stripper, gay people and several spacy and mixed up women live as outcasts within a cruel high school system that rewards the powerful and pisses scorn on the losers. A microcosm perhaps of the world one might suggest, except for the exaggerated character portrayals.

Or perhaps when you consider the exaggerated characters currently in power wielding cruelty around the world, even more so a microcosm of the world.

The peculiar mix of characters in Glee sing songs with words like:

Feeling downcast, like an outcast

Underdogs, it’s time to bite back

We are,

Stronger from every scar,

Brighter than any star,

We’re the outcast

There’s nothing you can say

To blow our dreams away

We rise above the fray

We’re the outcast

I’d rather be outrageous than

Just another plain day

I’d rather be a rainbow than

Just some shade of grey

So what could a stupid teenage song say to the powerful men and women who are the architects of cruelty around the world? I mean we need think-tanks and policy papers and big ideas and politicians and very important people to change the cruel world we live in – not just a silly song. We need to cultivate people in positions of power to effect change – not the outcasts and certainly not the underdogs.

We are in the system and we are not outcasts. We choose to live in the gloom as insiders. We avoid the scars. We live with the grey. We sit under the fray. We dismiss outsiders (especially if they are seeking the safety of asylum).

But I must admit I felt a tinge of glee when I sang along with the song. When you hear the music as well as the words it kind of catches on. I started to tap along to the song. And then eventually a hint of rainbow began to colour away the grey.

My plain day got a shake up as the outcasts and the underdogs sang about resilience – nothing could blow their dreams away. The cruelty of the system would not bring them down or make them give up. And words like courage and persistence came into my head. And then before I knew it I was up and dancing to the music, a dance of defiance in the face of the gloom. I was dancing with the outcasts and it felt right.

The episode finished. It was called ‘dreams’. Reality confronted me. Serious gloom is everywhere. That’s why I figure I might need to change my ideas about changing the world. I need to find more outcasts. Empowered nobodies who can change the world and make it a less cruel place. I embraced my glee in the midst of gloom.

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So what you may think? An X-Box is an X-Box isn’t it? Well whether you like their products or not, consider them as part of a global multinational threat, or simply use excel everyday without thinking about any of that kind of stuff, their office tour reminded us of an article that suggested the best innovations are incredibly simple . . . a slight readjustment of the accepted ways of doing things to achieve an amazing outcome.

Microsoft has made a significant but simple shift from the usual open plan work-space that in turn reflects a simple shift in the mindset of all the Microsoft staff.

The number of work-spaces has been reduced and the number of meeting rooms has increased, each with a different theme. One is filled with leggo, one has rainbow colored walls, one has Arabian style couches and lamps, and our favorite – a simple white room with a huge circular table where chairs have been replaced with fitness balls (that’s the one the Executive Team meet in).

Throughout the office there are ‘living walls’ – whole walls covered in real plants. There are nooks and crannies specifically designed to facilitate collaboration. The Executive Team sit in the open plan office with everyone else. And the best bit – the second floor is linked to the first floor by a giant slide (we had to give that a try!).

There are no ‘normal’ working hours. The building is available 24 hours a day seven days a week and staff can choose to work when they like and from wherever they like. Almost nobody has a work-space. Everyone hot-desks. All meeting rooms are fitted with 360 degree video cameras allowing people to dial in from wherever they happen to be working from that day.

This is not a ‘you can work at home one day a week’ kind of thing, or a ‘if you get in at 8am you can leave at 4pm’ thing. The setup means you can work anywhere you want at any time you want. Literally! No big boss checking when you’re in the office. No traditional 9 to 5. No sick leave required because if you are sick on Wednesday you can work any other day to make it up – as long as you meet all your expected key performance requirements and deliver on time.

And the results? One year in, productivity and employee satisfaction has increased dramatically.

So why aren’t more businesses following suit? Sure Microsoft has the technology to support virtual meetings and working away from the office, but that wasn’t the real issue for them. Technology is a tool. Humans are not technology.

Central to this successful innovation are two simple principles – user involvement in design, and trust.

To implement the change the leadership team collaborated with employees over a year to design the new approach to office and work. The employees designed the spaces themselves. And now it’s in place, staff are empowered to work autonomously. They are trusted to get on with their jobs, wherever they are, and meet their targets. Basically, they’re treated like adults. And guess what – the job is still getting done.

Perhaps then there is something in the argument that the best innovations are incredibly simple . . . a slight readjustment of the accepted ways of doing things to achieve an amazing outcome.

The post Innovation. A simple idea. appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

Three hours, two coffees and one cupcake later we had a business plan written on a napkin for a new social venture that we could use to support others to enhance their impact, and design social change projects of our own. We launched in January 2012, and spent that year supporting NGOs and social enterprises in Australia to create justice for homeless people, people with disabilities, unemployed people and asylum seekers. But by the end of that year, we were still restless.

So in 2013 we decided to take a risk and make a change. We signed up for a Masters in Social Innovation based in Vienna, sold most of what we owned, packed our lives into two suitcases and spent four months travelling to 24 cities in 12 countries across Africa, Europe, North America, South America and Central America.

From the dusty and vibrant streets of Africa, to the charm of tiny cobblestone laneways in Europe, to the warm breeze blowing over the Caribbean coast. From hostels and spare rooms at friends places, to a tent pitched high in the Andes, to beach resorts. From the capital of the most powerful nation in the world, to the vast expanse of the Serengeti and the snow-covered peaks of Norwegian fjords.

It was a year of discovery, exploration and most importantly, learning.

We’ve learnt that a sense of community really matters, not only for individuals at a personal level, but also for driving change.

We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how much is enough, and working out what that means for us. How to live simply and live well. How to find a balance between restraint and excess.

We’ve learnt about appreciating difference. About meeting new people ‘in-between’ cultures, without normative expectations, and with an enquiring mind, open to learning what they might have to teach (and we’ve learnt that everyone is a teacher).

We’ve learnt that taking a risk can stretch you, but it’s worth it.

But the most obvious lesson was that the human drive to ‘do good’ is universal – across cultures, languages, backgrounds and oceans. There are people all over the world with enormous motivation to fix systems that don’t work, to make sure others are taken care of, to ensure equity of access to the basic necessities of life.

We met people like Vikki in Tanzania, who after suffering 67% burns and losing a leg in a gas bottle explosion, took her nursing skills to a remote African village to help others. We met Michael in Vienna, who left a well-paid job to start Vollpension, a café that provides employment opportunities for older women on the pension. And we met an Italian, a Romanian, a German, a Swiss, and a Mexican in the Masters in Social Innovation, who each in their own way are working to make the world a better place. We have discovered in different places ordinary everyday people who are not just living their lives in a bubble, but are passionate about creating opportunities to heal the earth, care for people and change the world.

Looking ahead to 2014, we plan to take our learning to London and explore opportunities to setup our first UK project later this year.

We still have the napkin we scribbled on in the café the day we came up with the idea for The Dragonfly Collective. It’s a reminder for us that if you’re passionate about your vision, there is no beginning too small.

We hope 2014 brings inspiration, passion and opportunities for learning and action for all the change-makers working to create a better world for others.

There is a Chinese proverb we love that says: “those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it”. Don’t let others interrupt you from following a dream, taking a risk and changing the world (even just a small part of it).

Happy change-making in 2014!

The post Looking back, looking forward appeared first on The Dragonfly Collective.

“I say to you today, my friends . . . even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream!” That dream was simple in its content but remains a massive challenge 50 years later . . . that all people are created equal and will be treated equally.

So what’s the substance of this dream? All people are created equal . . . no matter what race, religion, sexual preference, what strata of society, income, age, gender or status . . . all people are created equal and equally deserve opportunities to achieve in society, to access education, housing, medical care, safe asylum, employment and a future free of fear and discrimination.

Amazing, as it may be, that dream has only partly been achieved in the richest countries in the world like the USA, the UK, Europe and Australia, and remains a massive challenge in may other countries around the world. And given the election of a hard right-wing Liberal Coalition in Australia, that dream will be systematically attacked by neo-liberal small government policies that structurally lock people out and increase the gap between those who are doing well (the middle class consumers) and those who are struggling.

The veteran civil rights leader the Rev Jesses Jackson, currently in Britain to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, has identified how successive British governments have failed to stamp out racial discrimination, leaving racial minorities “free but locked out” of power and a fair society. He states “for people to finally get free, there must be some plan to close the gap. Here there is no plan to close the gap” (The Guardian, Saturday 7 September 2013 p. 29).

Jackson also dismissed claims that enough people can succeed on their own merit without additional measures to overcome historical disadvantage. This ‘pull yourself up by your boot straps’ ideology combined with flawed ‘trickle down’ assumptions are simply ridiculous when generational disadvantage is faced not just by white folks, but even more so for those seeking asylum who come from refugee camps with nothing but their own lives! Opening up access for those who are denied equality requires both government action and structural change as Jackson suggests: “there must be a structure to let you in, just as there was a structure to lock you out”.

Australia has just made a big decision, based on what kind of dream? In the land of the long-weekend, the bar-be-cue, the maxi plasma screen, the self-satisfied consumption, Australia could be perceived to be an island of ignorance whose only dream is self-interest. But that is not the case. A vast number of Australians, and others around the world have a different dream . . . that all are created equal and that all should equally have access to power, equally have access to resources, equally have access to justice and equally have the right to be treated as fully human.

Martin Luther King’s dream should jolt us awake. His dream – despite his assassination and those who seek to kill the dream – continues to disrupt the strategies of the discriminators, the intolerant, the ignorant, the racists and the powerful who rule only for their own interests.

Now is the time for disrupters to emerge and combine their efforts in Australia and all over the world to keep the dream alive and create an architecture of equality, justice and access to full human rights for all!

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