This month collaboration came to our door in the form of an exemplary collaboration, which confirms that ALG is doing the work we seek to do in this region. Since the beginning of the Certificate program we have dreamed of a Central America free of inequality, corruption and poverty. When we formed ALG, we did it based on the conviction that if we could change the leadership of the region we could see a different Central America. But transformational leadership is not only having the tools, skills or wisdom, but also working in solidarity with other leaders and all humans around you. That is why we focus on both collaboration and leadership skills in our programs.

We work this way with the hope that we will receive calls like the one we received this month from Matilde Torres, graduate of the Certificate in Leadership and Collaboration from 2018, who exercises her leadership at the Melanie Gissell Foundation. This foundation accompanies grieving processes for people and families that are in great pain. In addition they facilitate certifications in Coaching, with a focus on Coaching for grief. Through her organization, Matilde will offer two places for members of the ALG community at no cost. That means that leaders already graduated from our Certificate, who may not be able to participate in this type of training otherwise, will have access to more opportunities to personally and professionally increase their impact on Central America. This is the power of collaboration, whether small or large, to multiply the waves of positive change in the world.

Collaborations of this size and others frequently pass through our growing network of leaders and with each collaboration we are closer to the world in which we want to live. A world of solidarity, peace, justice, abundance, and support.

This month in our blog Tools for Collaboration we celebrate collaboration, we celebrate Matilde Torres and countless other collaborations that are born here in our network of leaders and throughout the world. These are the people who are committed to actualizing the new world we are building together and who work every day to bring it closer to the present.

Talking Circles

Human beings are different. Across the world we eat differently, speak differently, pray differently, dance differently, connect differently, but we all do all of those things, no matter where we are from. Last month's “Tools for Collaboration” was centered around Lila Watson’s saying, “if you have come to help me you are wasting your time, but if you’ve come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then come, let’s walk together.” I think most people can recognize the deep truth that is written in these words but some of us tremble at the thought of how to move forward. How do I live solidarity? How do I, as Audre Lorde calls us to, “define and empower” rather than “divide and conquer”? At ALG, we believe that this all starts in circle. Different people, with different stories, seated in circle, fire, water, earth in the center, shared values written down, and talking piece honored. Restorative Practices have entered into every program, every practice, every conversation we facilitate, lead, and have. Starting with talking circles, we will show you how we live the solidarity Lila Watson and Audre Lorde compel us towards.

“Circles” or “Talking Circles” are a kind of facilitated conversation in which each participant is given a sacred opportunity to express themselves while the other participants sitting with them are given the same sacred opportunity to listen. There are many definitions of circles, but our favorite comes from Kay Pranis, a globally recognized master of Talking Circles. Kay has a four-part definition of the Circle process which is enumerated below:

1. A talking piece is the primary mode of regulating the conversation, so that each person has an equal opportunity to speak.
2. Participants engage in an intentional conversation about values and a set of guidelines for how they want to be together.
3. The process opens and closes with some form of ceremony.
4. Building relationships precedes and is treated as equally important as tackling difficult issues

This process is used for any variety of things -- settling a dispute, solving a problem, celebrating a birthday, or exploring uncomfortable topics and teaching a lesson. Circles themselves have no one origin story, rather, they belong to the ancient cultures of the world gifted to the modern generations through the indigenous populations of Canada and New Zealand. The practice of sitting in circle connects us with our truest self -- the part of us that seeks unity with the ebb and flow of the natural world as well as with our neighbors.

According to Kay Pranis’ definition, the primary focus in the Talking Circle process is on building relationships. The work of building relationships is more important than anything else. This means that in any given circle, if the facilitator notices that the group sitting together in Circle is not bonded sufficiently, they will delay the discussion of the topic set in order to ensure that there is a community built among the participants before they proceed. Sometimes building relationships is all that is accomplished in a circle, and that is often big enough. Most circles, if they have a specific goal, take place in several sessions, not just one.

Of course, Kay Pranis is just one of many practitioners in this field, the most grounded being the indigenous people themselves. At ALG we also take from International Institute of Restorative Practices and Parker Palmer’s Circles of Trust. There are a myriad of shapes and sizes and styles to practice circles and as long as you are doing them from a place of solidarity, from equity and understanding that each voice is sacred, each story valid, and no one is more important than the other then you are doing it right.

Herramientas para Colaboración is a blog series we’ve started at ALG with the intention to share the tools we use to inspire more frequent collaborations between people and organizations in the world. Collaboration is a big part of our mission, and we are delighted to share these tips and tools with you, our beloved community. 

In our last post, we introduced the series by sharing a bit about why we collaborate and with this post we begin to dive into how we collaborate. When ALG was founded we had only one program -- the Certificate in Leadership and Collaboration. This is our flagship program and the program we are known best for. We have since added on an additional two programs -- the International Collective of Restorative Practitioners and the Traveling Workshop. These two programs, although quite different from the Certificate program, are based in the very same values that the founders of ALG hoped to promote through the Certificate program. These values are diversity, integrity, responsibility, and solidarity, among others. To begin to understand our how when it comes to collaboration we have to spend some time understanding what that last word, solidarity, really means.  

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Australian indigenous woman and activist Lilla Watson is widely recognized as the source for this radical statement which admonishes the idea that hierarchal, one-way help is constructive. In order to change the world for the better, we must first humble ourselves and recognize that all suffering is universal. If another human being -- no matter where they live -- suffers, I suffer too. From the place of that mutual suffering, we, as human beings, are able to create healing and transform systems of inequality. This is a solidarity mindset. In solidarity, hierarchy is abandoned, barriers and borders are abandoned, there is no “other” there is just us, walking hand in hand creating healthy relationships and conditions in the world. In the words of Audre Lorde, “divide and conquer” becomes “define and empower”.

To make oneself available to collaboration is to say to another person, peoples, or organization that you see them as part of your own being, with needs and goals and ideas that are just as valuable and so important that they are worthy extending the resources you have to help those people pursue their needs, goals and ideas at the same time you pursue yours. To collaborate is to say, “I am here in solidarity with you. We have different skills, we have different stories and shapes but we are one. My liberation is bound with yours, let’s work together.”

Without a solidarity mindset collaboration is impossible. Collaborating parties must see each other as equal, as partners in a shared mission to make the world a better place. Solidarity is the base of each and every collaboration that ALG participates in.

For those interested in collaborating more as an individual or an organization, we challenge you to reflect on the words of Lilla Watson -- are you hoping to help? Or is your liberation bound up with the liberation of your neighbor or the person/organization you hope to collaborate with? Have you abandoned all sense of “other”? Are you ready to walk hand in hand, side by side, with all beings? If so, then you are working from a place of solidarity and you are ready to collaborate. 

When you walk down the street in most parts of Guatemala, you don’t see people with headphones in their ears. You’ll seldom find someone walking and staring down at their phone. The people won’t be walking fast. And you’ll hear a chorus of “buenos dias”. People will be greeting you, stopping to talk to their neighbors and the guy who is making orange juice on the street. At least, that’s the way it is most of the time. 

Parker Palmer wrote in his book Healing the Heart of Democracy about the threat of the globes current trend towards individualism. He writes, “the greater our tendency toward individualism, the weaker our communal fabric; the weaker our communal fabric, the more vulnerable we are to despotic power.” Individualism is now the greatest threat to democracy, and it is worth every ounce of our energy to deconstruct it so that more people are lead free, joy-filled lives. ALG holds that collaboration is a key antidote to individualism and this belief influences the way we design our programs immensely. 

There is no end to historical examples of times when people have bonded together in collaboration to create change. “Strength in numbers” we say, “stronger together” we chant, “the people united will never be defeated” we sing, “teamwork makes the dream work”, we joke. The knowledge of our power as a collective is in our bones, passed down from our ancestors, but somehow we’ve left the knowledge behind and chosen to believe we can do it all on our own -- that everyone else is an “other” who can’t be trusted. 

ALG’s flagship program, Diplomado en Liderazgo y Colaboración (Certificate in Leadership and Collaboration), was born of our founders concern with the prevalence of individualism both in people and organizations. It is a six-month long leadership development program that gathers thirty leaders from diverse cultures and career fields and equips them with tools and practices that enhance their constructive impact in their communities. Woven between and among lectures and workshops on different leadership skills, is different exercises which ALG designs or utilizes to create opportunities for the leaders to forge connections with one another -- for them to bond and become vulnerable with one another. This intention is one of the key factors which sets the ALG Certificate program apart from other programs out there. Leaders enter our program strangers, and leave committed to helping each other develop their projects and supporting each other in whatever way possible. Graduates are immediately connected to a growing network of leaders across Central America who have been through the ALG Certificate program and live to make the world a better place than they found it.  We are working to weave a strong social fabric, one that can resist despotic power, by creating opportunities for our leaders to remember they are members of one another. 

This is the first post in a series we want to introduce as Herramientas para Colaboración (Tools for Collaboration), which will share the specific ways we facilitate collaboration and encourage the shift away from individualism and towards community. We hope you enjoy it.