Building a Bigger We “Insights from Our Network”
At the Better Way Network Annual Gathering at the end of 2021, we talked about the importance of building a Bigger We.
Ultimately this is a world in which:
• Everyone is heard and believed in, given a fair opportunity to thrive, and the ability to influence the things that matter to them.
• Every community comes together, looks out for each other, respects difference, and enables everyone to belong.
• Society as a whole values and invests in everyone and in every community.
There are glimpses of these things happening already and by learning from and inspiring each other we can create greater momentum for the change we want to see. Individually we can lead the way.
And by working together we can make the exceptional commonplace.
As organisers working alongside people to build their collective power to bring about change, we need to challenge ourselves to look at how we can start to create the longer term systemic changes that counter the deep structural inequalities that people are facing, rather than only mitigating the immediate impacts. It is in these times of crises that we need to break free from the traditional shackles of organising that leads to siloed approaches in separate organisations and issue-based areas and look to build the bigger we.
The essays in this collection give a taste of what is possible. As the pandemic has shown, mountains can be moved when there is a common purpose and when there are strong relationships within communities and across organisations.
