Movement Learning Catalyst Strategy Training

2 to 9 Dec 2023

developing longer term and responsive strategies for deep social transformation

 

We aim to create a space to think critically, to ask challenging and transformative questions, and to find deeper inspiration and understanding to empower social change. It will support us to learn from each other’s struggles and experience, combining new analytical frameworks, deep reflective inquiry, and applied learning.

The training will be integrated with the Movement Strategy Module of the MLC year+ programme, as well as kick off themes related to the Movement Learning Module.


We will be exploring the key challenge we hear again and again across our movements: that our movements lack the capacity to develop longer term and responsive strategies for deep social transformation. Social change is highly complex, as are social movements themselves, and strategising at this level requires more than simply upscaling the tools we might use for individual organisations and campaigns. We’ll look for responses to this challenge by drawing on case studies, and exploring skillsets and tools for strategizing at scale and amidst volatile and unpredictable conditions.

We’ll explore themes including:

  • Patterns of social movements and their contribution to social change today and in the past
  • Developing and sustaining transformative strategy and transformative ambition at scale
  • Revisiting the ecology of movements in the context movement strategy
  • The role of narrative and vision
  • Learning from complex living systems
  • Applying VUCA skills (for working and strategizing under conditions that are volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) to movement strategy
  • The role of movment learning in adaptive and responsive strategy
  • Understanding agency and influence amidst the complexity of social change

The event will be designed to complement the Movement Strategy module of the year-long Movement Learning Catalyst Programme.

Preparation and follow up

The course will be designed to integrate with the Movement Strategy Module and some additonal preparatory reading and reflection may be required, as well as some participation in an online discussion forum with co-participants. An online follow up process will help us to continue to share our learning with each other as we carry our learning back into our day to day work.

Venue

The training will take place at the Ulex Project centre in Catalunya.

To Apply

Use the button on this page to apply. All MLC participants will be offered a place as priority until October 8th. After this any reamining places will be opened up to other applicants. Places are limited and places will be allocated to eligible applicants on a ‘first come, first served’ basis.

Travel Support

Limited bursaries are available to MLC programme participants. If you require travel support, please indicate in the particpant form and one of the Ulex team will contact you to discuss details.

Financial Contributions

Ulex operates on a solidarity economy basis. We don’t charge for our work and do not expect financial contribtions for attendance. However, if you can support our work, please do consider making a contribution. See the solidarity economy description following the link below.

Suggested Contribution
In the solidarity economy: €400/€700/€1200
(see the details of our approach to Solidarity Economics for details)

The Team

Our Name

Ulex: Latin (argelaga Catalan, gorse English) noun:

1. A thorny-evergreen flowering shrub, with a high capacity for regeneration and resilience. Its seedpods open in contact with fire and it reshoots from charred stumps. A successionary plant that grows well under challenging conditions. It improves soil fertility through nitrogen fixing, preparing the way for renewed biodiversity.

2. A traditional choice for igniting fires. Burns hot and bright.

3. A networked project adding nutrition and fertility to European social movements through training and capacity building. It kindles the realisation of social justice, ecological intelligence, and cognitive vitality.