Agility - new routes to learn together
Voice adjusted with the world, just as oth- ers have also learned- making sign and lan- guage interpretation and closed captioning available, being mindful of time duration in an online space, among others. While grantee partners shared good practices around this digital shift, there remain chal- lenges: How do we work towards groups who are excluded from the digital space due to inaccessibility? To what extent can Voice support grantee partners whose focus and needs are more toward humanitarian aid? How does this change the way we define inclusion? How do we co-create safe online spaces? This transition created, positively forced Voice to reflect on itself, and upon doing so realised or strengthened its belief that:
“To be frank about it, at first we view the Voice L&L activities as part of the requirement. But it changed when we realized that we could learn something from joining the activities. I always look forward to joining the L&L activities because I knew that I could learn something new. What is good about L&L is that they try to connect with the target audience. The sessions were delivered in a creative way given our challenges because of the pandemic.” Timothy Salomon, BUKLURAN (PH Sudden Opportunity Grantee Partner)
the Sudden Opportunity grantee partner, reached out to YGOAL and initial meetings resulted in linking them with the National Society of Parliamentarians (NSP) for possible partnership. NSP was the co-convener for the Legislative Advocacy pathway sessions of the Linking and Learning component in the Philippines. Both organisations are now working together in implementing the Indigenous Peoples Academy programme. Bukluran’s Indigenous Peoples Academy-
One example of an agile response is that from YGOAL, Inc., the Linking & Learning Facilitator in the Philippines. It was seen that the sustained engagement caused tighter connections among grantee partners and the Linking and Learning team. More than attending the Linking and Learning activities conducted, there were instances when grantee partners were able to express other needs in terms of advocacy building and sustaining connections and support within the Voice Philippines community. Their inputs were used to make creative content which was featured weekly through Voice and YGOAL’s social media accounts. Weekly digest posts were made to highlight a weekly gallery, and weekend livestream wrap-ups were conducted to talk about the weekly gallery and explain the message. With this, facilitating linkages became a non-structured process, also outside the Voice community. As YGOAL manoeuvred through these changes, they also facilitated virtual exchanges around six Linking and Learning pathways for Voice in the Philippines and integrated a creative element to it all. Grantee partners were in the lead in the different pathway sessions as is described through the stories of change in the next chapter. The virtual approach attracted a high number of participants from grantee partners, rightsholders and other actors. These pathways resulted not just in capacity strengthening of the grantee partners’ organisations and rightsholders, but have sparked productive collaborations, such as those illustrated in the following examples:
Common Purpose’s Immersion with Cameleon
Safe spaces are not created by Voice. They are co-created with people within the space and is only safe if all in the group feel safe to speak up and share.
The task is to create an enabling online environment where everyone will remain to feel respected, an environment not run by assumptions.
The Online Leadership Development Programme 2020 was customized and co- designed by Common Purpose and the University of Hong Kong (HKU) to offer an opportunity for their students to develop the skills and competencies to be successful in the 2!51 century. The 120 participating students were selected and offered a virtual immersion experience in working environments in a city different from their own, thus working across cultures. The three cities were Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Phnom Penh. Cameleon was identified as one of the immersion partners in the Philippines. Two sessions were facilitated by Cameleon and YGOAL.
One element of being inclusive means accepting that it is up to each individual to decide how much they are willing to share, or how vulnerable they are willing to be.
Intentionality shall be further emphasised. At the same time, we shall also be clear about our limitations, being true to the fact that some aspects, these limitations can tend to exclude certain individuals.
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