Rediscovering the Expertise and Wisdom Already Present in Relationships, Organizations, and Communities
“I’ve been to many trainings and workshops and gone through many programs. They are mostly theoretical. This one is spot-on. It made us alert on our feet, not staying back on our heels. It was about us as participants; it involved us directly and intimately. And it pushed us to know what we know, and then pushed us to move beyond that, into what we don’t know and who we can be.”–Zola Matutu, community leader, Limpopo Province, South Africa
I was in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, preparing for a weeklong leadership and community engagement workshop I would lead with Rev. Spiwo Xapile. I was there to steep myself as much as possible in the worlds of the workshop participants. I needed to learn and appreciate the contexts of their lives, and the challenges they face, day by day, as leaders of their communities.
Some of these grassroots leaders were surprised that I was asking them so many questions before the workshop even began. Others asked me with deep sincerity, “You’re going to tell us everything about what it means to be a leader, aren’t you? ”
“No,” I said, “You’re going to teach me what leadership looks like and means to you and your community.”
This snapshot embodies how Stories Move Mountains differs from traditional forms of leadership development and community engagement. It also reveals the worldview change it requires of everyone who practices it.
I met Spiwo in Minneapolis in 2006. Spiwo runs the JL Zwane Community Centre in Guguletu, a township outside of Cape Town. He also works tirelessly to help reduce poverty and the impact of HIV/AIDS in his home village of Malungeni, in rural Eastern Cape. When he learned that I do leadership coaching and community building, he said to me, “I’m looking for a different source for leadership development, one that is non-church based, non-hierarchical, and inclusive of women.” We spent an afternoon talking about Guguletu and Malungeni, and the hardships people face in living each day. We talked about how Stories Move Mountains helps people reclaim their own wisdom and expertise about what it means to lead and to be in community. We discussed how people can access, highlight, and bring forward unacknowledged resources to rebuild vibrant communities, even in the face of challenges such as extreme poverty, gender inequities, and HIV/AIDS. This knowledge comes from their own experiences, communities, pasts, presents and contexts. It’s not dropped or imposed on them from the outside.
