Share Stories that Lead to Action – Community Organising Foundations

Stories have always been how we make sense of the world and inspire others to act. This training introduces you to public narrative – a leadership tool that connects your personal experience to shared values and collective action.

Through interactive exercises and real examples, you'll discover what makes a story compelling and learn to identify the key elements of effective public narrative. You'll then focus on developing your own ‘story of self’ – the specific moments and experiences that shaped what you care about and why you're called to lead. You'll practise sharing your story and coaching others on theirs, building the skills to develop storytelling across your organising work.

Outcomes:

• Understand why we use public narrative as a leadership tool for organising.
• Practise developing and sharing your own story.
• Reflect on how you can apply these principles to your own work.

This training is part of our foundations series, designed for both new and experienced organisers who are ready to develop practical organising skills. We recommend taking the introduction training first to understand the core concepts of transformative community organising.

Meet the facilitators

Stephanie Wong is a community organiser, facilitator and collective care practitioner. She has won with many others on issues from citizenship for young people, securing better wages for 1000s of staff and winning housing for those seeking asylum. She has trained hundreds of community leaders who have gone on to win local and national policy change and political elections. She has taught at Stanford, Harvard, UCL and LSE University. She built Act Build Change with her husband Ricky in 2018 in response to some of the inaccessible ways organising was taught in the UK. Together, they hoped to give a contribution to the field of organising that would allow more of us to get great organising training in accessible, dignified and transformative ways.

Kennedy Walker is a trainer, coach and facilitator. They’ve helped individuals, groups and organisations move through conflict, build power, cultivate knowledge and strengthen skills for over ten years. They’ve trained with the Gestalt Centre in London, Navigate, Action Learning Associates and more in counselling skills, trauma informed facilitation, coaching, and mediation. They've co-founded organisations such as Kinfolk Network in 2017 and others that aim to strengthen collective care, learning and power. Kennedy holds a master's degree in Human Rights, Culture and Social Justice and is currently a trainee counsellor.

Cost

• Free for Full Members (those with a paid membership) using the discount code on our website event page.
• £15 for everyone else.

If you would like to become a Full Member (and get access to lots of other great events, trainings and more), visit our membership page to get started.

Access

This event will be held online using Zoom. The link will be shared with registered attendees before the start of the event.

To avoid difficulties accessing the workshop, please ensure that you register for the event with the same email address that you intend to use on Zoom.

Please get in touch if there is anything we can do to support your participation in this session. This includes, but is not limited to, language, comfort, and access (physical, emotional, technological) needs.