Solidarity Stirring
My thoughts have been running to leadership - in a time of crisis what kind of leadership emerges and what kind do we really need?
The most commonly used metaphor telling us how to understand the problem we’re facing right now and how to deal with it is war. Top down control. State co-ordination and control. That’s what emerges. In a very grave situation like a pandemic these things are, in good part, needed, I know.
Organised volunteerism emerges too and I am personally benefiting from it – having proven the vulnerability of my partner and why we are both isolating, neither of us will have to queue in a tiny pharmacy for his prescriptions. It’s been efficient and reassuring.
But these types of leadership are both EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what we have worked so painstakingly hard to establish in Coventry and Warwickshire and they can’t be features of our own response now.
We have always been driven to work with and for those stranded on the margins – the ‘vulnerable’ and isolated - to find something new and nourishing beyond organised services - uncovering hope, identity and purpose in the process.
Uncovering leadership too. The most isolated people among us, now and always, are the furthest away from any kind of leadership role. But these are some of the people our Connecting for Good movement is made of and led by. They contribute as much as they receive, in networks where support flows freely between all members. Everyone is vulnerable or no one is. It is a very different narrative to the one we see now.
Here, as of the end of week two, are emerging alternative responses to the challenges and opportunities of covid19. So far we’ve seen improvisation with solidarity, purpose with joy.
Improvisation with solidarity: Collaboration Station
In September last year Grapevine sparked a new thing in Coventry called Collaboration Stations as host for 15 isolation tackling initiatives. It’s the minecraft school of power and leadership, a long way from top down command and control. It’s an open space where people decide what they need and what they want to create. They build it together from the ground up. Collaboration Station has a core team – it’s Jo, an employed professional, Umar with autism, Amanda with a physical and learning disability, and for now, our worker Gemma.
The point of bringing all initiatives together in a Station was to show this eco system to itself. If it’s all visible, we reasoned, it’s more likely to interconnect and strengthen.
I can’t stress enough how very important visibility and intermingling in an open and public space was to the concept. And then the crisis began - no more public gatherings.
Last week the team took CS to the screens of 37 people including 12 we’d never met asking for everyone to create new ways to come together while being apart. We jazzed up our welcome – you really need to dial up the fun if you want to engage 37 people including strangers for two hours on a screen. 3 of the existing initiatives re-worked their plans and James, new to the station, was helped to develop his idea for a Desert Island discs style digital short cut to getting to know each other. Meantime we all modelled being brave and giving something none of us were sure of a go.
Check out how we ‘dialled up’ the fun https://youtu.be/MRxKp347RsU
Purpose with joy – Lads and Dads
Lads and dads’ leaders include fashion industry professional living with a chronic health condition, a suicide survivor and a man recently made unemployed. We are not a health service alternative they say but a force for change in the mental health and well-being of all men in Coventry. They’d planned a big programme of activity with City Of Culture 2021 to boost their message and their numbers. It included a pop up Rum Shack to get passerbys curious and talking about their movement for dads and call for other men to join them. It was all stations go – and then the crisis began.
Instead last Friday was the first digital event in a new four week plan to get more men showing up and taking part, sharing skills, and offering to be contacted for follow up conversations. To mark the end of term they asked dads, grandads or just those ‘being dad’ to an online party, to get creative, make DJ booths, join the chat, request a song, have a dance‚ let off some steam and energy before the kids’ bedtime. Each Friday has a theme to relieve some pressure, arouse some curiosity, and grow the movement.
Will these kinds of digital interactions be as memorable, as meaningful, as sustaining as our regular direct personal contact? Do they have the same power to fuel relationships and then action? We don’t know yet. But we will as always capture what we learn to help us shape what we do next.
As a society we have a rare moment in which we view our problems – of an isolated and restricted life - as shared. If Grapevine can use its many micro moments of digital connecting to stir solidarity then maybe more and more of us won’t want to go back to the flawed normal too many are isolated or lonely.
What was it Obama’s adviser said in 2008/9? – Never let a crisis go to waste.
Clare Wightman is the CEO of Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire and relationships are at the heart of their work. Clare’s particular interest is working in a way that develops and connects networks of local people for mutual help and support.
