#MUNIonThis: What if you can mobilize your ideas with a couple of hours conversation?
Last August 7, ChannelGood Advocacy Communications hosted the first ever Pro Action Café in the Philippines, with Singapore-based Pro Action Café facilitator DJ Reyes.
Pro Action Café, DJ explains, is a blend of Open Space Technology and World Café. It is a conversational process, a methodology that ignites creative and inspirational conversations wherein the main goal is to move ideas and questions into actions. Participants are invited to pose a question (about their projects, ideas, etc) and get further questions, knowledge, and other input from other participants with various experiences in different fields willing to share and contribute to the conversation.
“Take responsibility for your passion and be passionate about your responsibilities.”
That morning, participants from various areas of the community – NGOs, banks, advocacy groups, and more, were asked to: Explore, Discover, Unlearn, Engage, Develop, and Co-Create.
Separately, these concepts weren’t that difficult to conquer but taken together, it posed a series of questions:
How do we explore?
What do we do to unlearn?
What level of engagement should we apply?
How do we co-create?
After figuring out the 4 questions for that Pro Action Café session, we each had 15-20 minutes to discuss and converse our ideas and experiences in relation to the topic at the table. When time is up, we move on to a different topic, until we’ve finished all four questions.
The Value of Diversity and the Power of Meaningful Conversation
After the interactions, we were pulled back into a big group wherein the hosts shared the top three insights they got from participants regarding the problems/questions they posed. The participants, on the other hand, were asked: “How did you listen? How did you contribute? How did you question?” I found these questions amazing as they helped me re-think the way I communicate with people.
By being aware of how much we listen to others, of how we shared our ideas, and how purposeful our questions were, we are reminded yet again of how valuable and powerful meaningful conversations are into turning our ideas and passion into action.
And what I found most powerful about the Pro Action Café is that it made me realize that there is truly an amazing pool of resources in our community. And that if we know how to harness that resource, we can build and create a better world wherein individuals are more inspired to create and more passionate about mindful living.
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