Cups of Tea conversations
Our recently published report Supporting a Hidden Movement: Why Fund Inner-led Change? is based on more than 250 Cups of Tea conversations with change-agents from across 14 countries. These informal interviews explored the challenges, needs and opportunities being experienced by those trying to integrate an inner dimension into their social and ecological change work.
The conversations took place across the following twelve themes:
- Radical leadership among people of colour in England
- Power and identity amongst development workers in Nepal
- Disability and climate justice activism across Scotland, England and Bulgaria.
- Rites of passage work with young people across eight countries
- Funders across a range of countries and continents
- Integrating an inner dimension into social and ecological change efforts across; Wales, Scotland, England, Oxfordshire and Devon.
Our ongoing learnings from these ‘Cups of Tea’ processes shape our emergent strategy which seeks to help co-create a more potent collective movement for inner-led change.
Radical leadership amongst people of colour across England
The coordinators of this process, Elizabeth Mpyisi and Calvin Niles, hosted some 20 courageous conversations exploring the challenges, needs, opportunities being experienced by black and brown practitoners of inner-led change. The conversations revealed a number of areas of work that need resourcing and recommendations around our themes of Resilience, Connection, Decolonising, and Collaboration.
On the back of this Cups of Tea process Elizabeth has now been coordinating a regular community of practice/ peers for black and brown inner-led change practitioners. They meet every few weeks to share what is alive for them in their inner-led change work, to share experiences, skills and resources and to cross-pollinate across their work.
You can read about Elizabeth's reflections on these courageous conversations around radical leadership amongst people of colour here.
International rites of passage for young people:
A trans-local exploration
Israh Goodall met with some 20 rites of passage guides across eight countries to explore the challenges, needs and opportunities being experienced in regard to enabling rites of passage work to flourish. Many strong threads were revealed, the most compelling of which was the need for an ongoing community-based approach to rites of passage that sees this work integrated into the daily rub of community life with rites of passage guides working alongside the myriad others who are supporting young people in their day-to-day lives. We are currently seeking funding to pilot this community-based approach in England and Wales - and in collaboration with partners in the US, Australia and India, over a 5 year period. You can read more about this Rites of Passage work here.
If you are interested in exploring financially supporting this pilot project please contact clairemilne@starterculture.net
Nepal: exploring identity and power across the development sector
This series of conversations was coordinated by Shreya Thapa and Vipassana Karmacharya. Together they courageously delved into the challenges of identity and power within the development sector in Nepal - and inquired into the lived experiences of both non-nationals and Nepalis working in development/academia. Their exploration focused on Nepal and Nepali culture relative to colonial/western systems (e.g. professionalism, communication styles, relationships with time and how we make meaning and constitute truth and knowledge) and the implications this has on Nepali individuals, their families, and larger society. The conversations revealed and explored issues of internalized inferiority, systemic bias/oppression and imbalanced power dynamics - and began to reveal what it is Nepalis themselves long for and what change is needed for them to be able to define and manifest their own futures.
A few notable threads stood out throughout the conversations in terms of what it is within NGO culture that is preventing Nepalis from defining and manifesting their own futures:
- Professionalism serving as colonialism's Trojan Horse;
- A lack of capacity and skill amongst non-national NGO staff around deep listening and the relational and emotional attunement this requires;
- Aspects of Nepalese culture that tend to cultivate a sense of internalised oppression and sub-servience;
- Cultures of burnout that make it even harder to cultivate the presence, and prioritise the time needed to deeply listen and attune to the voices, needs and longings of local Nepalis.
These conversations revealed an urgent need for a dedicated safe/ brave space for development workers - nationals and non-nationals, to come together and explore these issues between them.
The gift/ challenge of disability within climate activism
These conversations explored what it is like for those living with disability to engage in climate activism and how their experience offers vital gifts to our movements and how we go about bringing about change. Olivia Nathan coordinated these conversations and has been hosting a series of ‘meet ups’ for participants keen to connect and explore continuing this important thread.
These conversations explored what it is like for those living with disability to engage in climate activism and how their experience offers vital gifts to our movements and how we go about bringing about change. Olivia Nathan coordinated these conversations and has been hosting a series of ‘meet ups’ for participants keen to connect and explore continuing this important thread.
Covid and its associated lockdowns have highlighted the vital gifts that those of us with years /decades of experience navigating disability and chronic health conditions have harvested - and which are now so very vital in these times of increasing uncertainty, volatility and challenge. The most obvious of these are refining our ability to work with emergence (rather than being at the mercy of the illusion of 'predict and control') and JOMO: Joy Of Missing Out! in the face of modernity's widespread FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) epidemic.
These times, more than ever, are a wake up call to find ways to listen to the experiences, needs and longings of those with disabilities. More often than not the main reason for turning away from, minimalising, ridiculing and/or denying the experiences of those with disabilities, is our fear of facing and relating with our own vulnerability and the very real possibility that one day it could be us. And perhaps equally common is an unconscious fear that if we were to turn towards other people's disabilities and suffering, our heartbreak might make it impossible to keep on with all the doing that distracts us from our own vulnerabilities.
Cymru (Wales):
Integrating an inner-dimension into
our social and ecological change efforts
Simon Griffiths, Lucy Morus-Baird and Julia Forster from Eginiad coordinated this Cups of Tea process exploring the challenges, needs and opportunities being experienced by those in Cymru/ Wales attempting to integrate an inner dimension into their efforts around social and ecological change. The threads emerging from these conversations were striking in both their particularity to Cymru/ Wales and the flavours and fragrances of cultural and historical uniqueness - as well as how resonant they are with what is emerging from many of our other Cups of Tea processes.
One of the strong needs their Cups of Tea process revealed was around support to cultivate healthy organisational culture. Eginead are now seeking funding to be able to offer this inner-led support to thosse organisations in Wales wanting to learn how to grow more healthy organisational culture.
Bristol, England:
Integrating an inner-dimension into
social, ecological and arts-based work
Danny Balla and Bex Baxter from Co-Resist explored how to support inner-led change across Bristol - a city renowned for its radical social and ecological change work and its rich community of artists, (re)makers and performers. Their Cups of Tea process explored the challenges, needs and opportunities being experienced by those attempting to integrate an inner dimension into their efforts around social and ecological renewal and justice.
Ill health sadly meant it was not possible for a report to be drafted for this Cups of Tea process. Navigating the reality of ever increasing health challenges (physical and mental) is a strong inquiry within our work at Starter Culture and we are continually co-evolving our organisational culture to be able to dance with this.
Exploring funders relationships with inner-led change
David Crook and Claire Milne have been engaging funders in an inquiry around their relationships with inner-led change. An initial Cups of Tea process with some 20 funders (including both those who work for philanthropic trusts and funding bodies, as well, philanthropists themselves) highlighted a real diversity around what was understood to constitute inner-led change, and how this relates to them as funders.
The conversations explored; how, if at all, funders are integrating an inner dimension into their own organisations; what, if any, inner-led change work they are already funding; and what they perceive to be the challenges and opportunities in regard to making more funding available for inner-led change.
Our report Supporting a Hidden Movement: Why Fund Inner-led Change is an invitation to funders to explore how funding work that integrates the inner and relational dimensions of change could amplify the impact of their investments. The report also outlines ways in which funders can go about this, for example by centring inner-led change and relational culture within their theories and practices of change and their funding priorities and criteria.
To order a free printed copy of the report email hello@starterculture.net with 'report pre-order' in the subject heading.
If you are a funder interested in inner-led change then please be in touch with Claire Milne, Starter Culture Coordinator: clairemilne@starterculture.net
Pilot Cups of Tea processes
We piloted our Cups of Tea methodology that drew on informal conversations to explore the challenges, needs and opportunities being experienced in relation to integrating an inner dimension into social and ecological change efforts across Alba/ Scotland, England, Oxfordshire (south east England), South Devon (south west England), trans-locally (with those working outside the British Isles) and internationally (those working at an international level of scale).
A number of common threads and collaborative initiatives emerged from these pilot Cups of Tea conversations and it was striking that simply mapping and connecting those interested in inner-led change was incredibly supportive and generative in and of itself.
Our Cups of Tea methodology: centring relationality
The simple act of making space to talk about how it is to try and integrate an inner dimension into our work and groups enabled valuable connection and solidarity. This instantly felt transformative in and of itself. Simply connecting around this common theme resulted in us feeling much more confident to speak more boldly about the importance of inner-led change.
Our conversations also highlighted that whilst a collaborative approach is common within outer focused work, efforts around inner-led change still tend to happen quite disparately and in the margins. This seems to be significantly hindering the potential for deepening and scaling up this vital work.
Our Cups of Tea process really highlighted then how vital it is to make the time to have spacious informal conversations. We are immensely grateful that a funder had the wisdom to support us in this process and we hope that it will serve as a clarion call to other funders to provide funding for the time it takes to meaningfully cultivate relationships across difference. We feel sure that funders do not want their grantees to rush and 'bodge' relationship building as a tick-box exercise for funding applications. However unless this process is funded then this is likely to remain the case.
