Our Programs
ECOSYSTEM STRENGTHENING
Gateway is committed to strengthening the wider ecosystem of civil society and community-based leaders contributing to social cohesion. To this end the Gateway offers multi-stakeholder exposure to participatory community practices, bringing together diverse Zimbabweans in processes that are transformative and culture building. Gateway Experiences is a web convening act as well as a culture building act: developing the culture and capacity for people to meet across divides, fostering healing, imagination and commitment towards new possibilities. Our processes give a lived experience of processes that connect people, awakening individual and collective agency, and building the foundation for healthy enlivened communities. Gateway Experiences are already bringing Zimbabweans together across historical divides, engaging them in a set of meaningful activities that are healing, bridging, and supportive of generating on-going responses to the ever changing context.
This arm of programming primarily offers immersive experiences of multi-stakeholder collaboration rooted in participatory community practices such as “Go Deep Community Building Game” and Community Assemblies; social processes including “Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter” and the “Theory U”: emergence and systems-based leadership, including Systems Mapping; conflict transformation processes such as “ProcessWork”; and creative arts such as visual scribing, graphic harvesting and poetry. These approaches enable leaders from across the social ecosystem in Zimbabwe to co-create a practice of shared authentic leadership.
“Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter” is an approach to leadership that scales up from personal to the systemic, using personal practice, dialogue, facilitation and the co-creation of innovation to address complex challenges. “Theory U” is a social technology for helping to bring about profound innovation and change. “Theory U” is being applied around the world by individuals, organizations and in multi-sector initiatives, generating breakthrough possibilities around pressing organizational and societal issues. We have found that this mixed basket of approaches strengthens the capacity to respond to the complexities facing our communities.
GATEWAY FELLOWSHIP
At Gateway Zimbabwe we see this time as an opportunity to imagine how we can design our society differently for a more sustainable future. It is time to self-organise around the future we long for from the grassroots up. Gateway is supporting fellows and community leaders in working with their imagination and vision to develop innovations and prototypes based on what the community cares about.
We are supporting fellows and other community leaders to prototype (initiative) ideas which not only helps to meet needs in this moment of Covid-19 but which can also be the building blocks for a more inclusive, resilient and healthy community going forward. The fellowship is an 18-month place-based fellowship program. It involves five 5-day intensive modules to cultivate knowledge of social processes, inner work practices and nature observation. This knowledge is then applied to social change and community engagement processes from an appreciative inquiry basis and an in-depth understanding of political economy, constitutionalism and active citizenship in the Zimbabwean context. The fellowship program builds an ecosystem of place-based systems practitioners and leaders who are actively living the future they want for their communities.
COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
At Gateway Zimbabwe we see this time as an opportunity to imagine how we can design our society differently for a more sustainable future. It is time to self-organise around the future we long for from the grassroots up. Gateway is supporting fellows and community leaders in working with their imagination and vision to develop innovations and prototypes based on what the community cares about. We are supporting fellows and other community leaders to prototype (initiative) ideas which not only helps to meet needs in this moment of Covid-19 but which can also be the building blocks for a more inclusive, resilient and healthy community going forward.
The initiatives are all led by members of the community and seeking to involve other members of the community. The initiatives are creative – responding to a need with creativity and they are building community capacity in some way.
We provide deep accompaniment to fellows on this journey – staying connected and alongside as initiatives are initiated and on their way – supporting a process of on-going learning, and improvement.
In this arm of programming, we support prototyping of innovative initiatives in communities identified through the Ecosystem Strengthening and the Fellowship program. We believe that our two programs foster the conditions for new responses and solutions to emerge. In 2017 we were inspired by the social lab model, and in our own prototyping we came to realize that the complexity of social change and deep process in communities cannot be accelerated in the same way.
The Community Initiatives create a space for design based on the “U Theory” social technology, where community-based fellows engage in deep sensing and listening which enable new impulses to be co-created and nurtured from a generative place. We provide deep accompaniment to fellows on this journey and offer learning journeys – for fellows and other communities – to see what is working and to learn from the processes which are enabling something different and sustainable to take root in communities.
