Greetings and Happy Midweek!
Since it’s just after mid-month, it’s time for another of our RAP sessions (Review and Process, deeper and wider). Each of these mid-month RAP sessions revisits a cross-cultural theme or topic from a previous Connect, going more deeply into what we’ve begun to explore.
This month we are going to revisit cultural activism - through the lens of advocacy. * This fits with Global SKILLs’ PROACTive strategy of Collaboration since, although it comes in countless shapes and forms, every single type of advocacy requires collaborative efforts. **
Speaking cross-culturally, we must work hand in hand with local communities for appropriate strategies and methods, adjusting our advocacy accordingly. For example, I am involved in a solar advocacy group - which basically has the goal of ‘solar on every roof-top’ across the USA. A noble goal - but one which won’t work for some here in the US and won’t work very well globally, since many roof-tops around the world cannot accommodate the panels. So, being an owner of and resident in a ‘tiny house’ (which scales more closely with the smaller spaces people live in world-wide), my personal involvement with this group has included educating people about necessary considerations when advocating for solar energy in any type of smaller space - things like rooftop capacity, battery storage needs and wiring conduit placement.
Once you wade into this type of appropriate cross-cultural advocacy in any domain, you discover collaboration at this level leads to effective, sustainable results - and occasionally brings with it some unexpected rewards, like really creative ways to ground mount solar systems using shared community-wide micro-grids! ***
How about you ~ what is one example of collaborative advocacy you would like to engage in?
Share about that with a friend or note it here.
And check out the Global SKILLs LINKs below for more on cross-cultural advocacy.
Thanks for being part of this Connect community.
Until next week,
Betsy
Global SKILLs LINKs: how might these inform your work in cross-cultural advocacy?
~ sample of culturally appropriate advocacy in Asia & the Pacific: https://www.api-gbv.org/culturally-specific-advocacy
~ resource for collaborative advocacy: https://www.cadreworks.org/sites/default/files/resources/Collaborative%20Advocacy-Final%20Accessible.pdf
Notes:
* previous Connects posts exploring activism - check these out: 10/28/20, 8/18/21,1/19/22
** Global SKILLs PROACTive Learning Strategies: PRO = PROfile, PROcess, PROgram
ACT = Application, Collaboration (which we explored this week) and Transformation
~ contact me for more information on these strategies and how you might use them in your current programming
*** great summary of some innovative solar advocacy - to reach rural areas: https://solartown.com/learning/solar-panels/rural-electrification-with-solar-energy-microgrids-vs-solar-home-systems/
2022 ~ Celebrating 40+ years of working in
intercultural communications and global community building
“It takes a community to build a community”
Please Note: this is copyrighted content.
Please do not reproduce or share without my permission (betsy.barbour@gmail.com)