Moving from project silos to collaborative systems

Many of us engage activism through our passion projects. Permaculture farms/gardens, cultural work, housing, social justice and equity issues are examples. Collectively, Paul Hawkins called this “Blessed Unrest” the largest movement in the world. While all of these projects are important and necessary front line activities, siloed projects do not have the power to drive a transformational shift. The bioregional organizing strategy gives us a practical handle for integrative efforts that have the ecological complexity to build new systems.
We are challenged to move out of siloed project orientation towards integrated systems design. This workshop will facilitate mapping systems relationships in participants’ projects. This is a step toward mapping regional assets.
Permaculture teaches the importance of edges, and systems theory points out the critical location of interstices – spaces between units- for evolution. What are the environmental, economic and social ecologies that your work is embedded in? What projects are adjacent to yours in terms of values or objectives? What resource flows are up stream and down stream? Where are you located in the geography of community? Where are points of complementarity for collaboration?
Participants will break out into pairs or small groups to map out the systems interdependent with their project to evaluate how robust their project’s resilience is and where they need to develop relationships. This work is a step toward regional mapping. If time allows we will tease PROUT’s dynamic asset mapping project that is not yet ready for prime time.