Healing Solidarity

Start 2023 in Solidarity

Over January and February, we invite you to witness transparent and vulnerable leadership across four liberating open strategy spaces as the Healing Solidarity Advisory Circle reflect in “real time” on the future of this work in conversation with YOU our members and mentors.

Please register for the events using the links below. You can also find more details on the  Healing Solidarity collective. 

 Click here to register for this event 

▶️ 15:30-17:00 GMT ▶️ 21:00-22:30 IST

▶️ 18:30-20:00 EAT ▶️ 10:30-12:00 EST

 Click here to register for this event 

▶️ 07:30 – 09:00 GMT ▶️ 13:00-14:30 IST

▶️ 10:30-12:00 EAT ▶️ 2:30-4:00 AM EST

 Click here to register for this event 

▶️ 13:30 -15:00 GMT▶️ 19:00-20:30 IST

▶️ 16:30-18:00 EAT ▶️ 8:30-10:00 EST

 Click here to register for this event 

▶️ 13:30 -15:00 GMT▶️ 19:00-20:30 IST

▶️ 16:30-18:00 EAT ▶️ 8:30-10:00 EST

Healing Solidarity started in 2018 as an online conference about re-imaging ‘international development’ that to our surprise 1500 people signed up for.

Our online space the  Healing Solidarity Collective  was created the following year as a place to gather around the work of challenging injustice in our practice & support people working to re-imagining international ‘development’ and to support members to resist the working practices that overwhelm and exhaust us.

Well over 3,500 people have engaged with our work over the past four years.

Healing Solidarity has always been a place for practitioners trying to do things differently, to re-imagine ‘development’.

But we want to ask the question, how can we best do that now in 2022?

We know that many more conferences and events are now centering conversations about transforming the sector and decolonising it, about building anti-racist practice and doing things differently. In a way, the thing we started with, has now been taken up by the ‘mainstream’.

But we still sense a need to support practitioners in the process of actually doing things differently and to help one another undo the working practices that overwhelm and exhaust us which we know are part of what keep us locked in a cycle that works against much needed change.

Since 2018 we have offered annual online conferences, a free collective space and regular events and paid courses and consultancy at the intersections of these questions. We’ve also formed an advisory circle and a group of consultants who support this work and registered Healing Solidarity as a Community Interest Company in the UK.

But we want to ask you, our members and communities more about what you think Healing Solidarity should do, be and offer next – and we are also open to hearing back that our work is done and that we should wind down this initiative.

Please take a seat in the inner circle…

Rather than sitting alone in a ‘board room’ to figure this out we are instead choosing to create the opportunity to step into a liberating collective space of inquiry. Using the  fishbowl  process where listeners can become participants in the conversations we start, we will seek to draw forth the power of our collective thinking to inform the next steps for Healing Solidarity at this time.

There will be a series of four sessions that make up this alternative process of reimagining the future of this project. You can join as many as you are able to, but joining just one is fine too.

Give what you can..

These will not be ticketed events. Instead we invite you to consider joining us as a  sustaining member . Whilst we do not know exactly where we will land from this process as Healing Solidarity – you will be supporting us to resource these intimate and powerful discussions and to sustain our  collective healing space . We acknowledge economic insecurity and therefore only ask you to give what you can.

See you there..

Bring your voice to the circle, be part of our decision making and the future wellbeing of the sector. We look forward to the Manthan मंथन, a Hindu word offered by Roshni meaning: churning, stirring, deep pondering, reflection, a hallowed place to create knowledge, molding of minds, brainstorm, introspection, realisation.

If you have any questions, please email us at collective@healingsolidarity.org

With love,

Esua, Swatee, Mary Ann, Roshni and Jennifer The Healing Solidarity Advisory Circle

We have an exciting opportunity for someone who is passionate about building community around our work at Healing Solidarity. You will be our first staff member at an invigorating moment when we need more help to sustain and build our online platform and events.

This position is offered on a part-time consultancy basis for now and is focused particularly on our online community and events. However, we are looking for someone who might be interested in growing with us and potentially in the future taking on a role that coordinates and helps to lead all of our work.

We are looking for someone who shares our vision for change within the international development sector and who is eager to support our growing community to bolster people working in the sector to create that change.

You will need to enjoy building our online platform, the Healing Solidarity Collective, and engaging people on it. You will be able to work virtually with the Directors to co-ordinate online events and our other activities.

We’d love you to get us organised – in a way that works for you and us – and contribute your own passion to developing our online community and events. You’ll need great communication and IT skills and be able to flexibly manage multiple tasks and to help organise us.

Please download the Full Job Description here and read it before you apply.

How to Apply

To apply, please send your cover letter stating why you are interested in this piece of work, CV, and a list of 3 references (names, position, relationship, and email address) for the attention of ‘The Directors’ at admin@healingsolidarity.org with the subject line “Creative Community Builder & Co-Ordinator” by the 16th July.

Black, Indigenous, people of color are particularly encouraged to apply. We also welcome applications from anyone who has experienced other kinds of systemic oppression.

Originally posted in the Healing Solidarity Collective and on How Matters.org on Monday 1st June 2020.

You will by now have heard about the protests across the USA, and spreading across the world, in response to the extrajudicial murders in May of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, Tony McDade in Florida, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, George Floyd in Minnesota, and the subjugation of Black bodies for centuries prior. 

The #BlackLivesMatter Global Network is calling for ‘an end to the systemic racism that allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken.’

It’s time for all of us to be clear about the side we are on, in our work and in our activism. Black and brown people have been murdered by the state both in the US, the UK, and other countries around the globe for far too long. Global economic and political systems and societies are racialised, as much as they are gendered. Imperialism and colonialism has created a global system of white supremacy, and that system is alive and well in our work in international ‘development’ and solidarity. It is still dominated by large global or white-led entities holding all of the power and resources, while building their organisational “brands.” All the while the communities they claim to help – destabilised in the past by colonial violence and exploitation – continue to receive little genuine reparation for harm. Instead their knowledge, energy, and ideas are disregarded, or worse, extracted and exploited by larger, more resourced “players” in global development, despite any good intentions.

Colonial practices and mentalities persist today in so many global systems and the ‘development’ system is not immune from this. 

When up against systems as entrenched, resilient, and interdependent as white supremacy, capitalism and the patriarchy, we must start right where we are.

We are either in resistance to white supremacy, or we are upholding it either overtly or by our silence or inaction in this moment. In “social good” spaces, let us find all manner of ways to call for an end to racism and the injustices perpetuated by inequality and discrimination. 

This is a moment amongst many, but it is a moment calling for clarity and action. Overturning white supremacy will likely take generations and yet – right now – there is an opening for dialogue, change, and transformation. 

So what can you do? Below are ways to support the broader struggle, to bring about change in your workplaces, and guidance for your personal care and reflection. You’ll also find resources below from here in the Collective to support your learning and connecting the dots. 

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There are many ways to be part of the broader struggle:

• If you can do so, and can do so safely (also in the context of Covid-19), take to the streets and join the protest. 
• If not, read this and decide how you will act: “26 ways to be in the struggle beyond the streets.”
• Give your own resources where you can to grassroots-led organizations, community organizers, and legal funds supporting protest and resistance.
• Offer support to those you personally know who are engaged in action. This could be emotional support, or it could be material support (finances, food, practicalities).
• Raise the issue of racism and your commitment to anti-Black racism with the people around you, with your family and friends. 
• Share your own commitment and actions with those in your professional network. 

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In your work: 

• Call for an end to all white boards and all white leadership. Highlight the lack of representation and real decision-making power of Black people, other people of colour, Indigenous peoples, and others with diverse lived experiences in your organisation. Be clear when leadership does not reflect the profile of the communities and societies where your organisation’s work is happening. Be clear about how this reflects on the mission and values of the organisation. 
• Call attention to whose knowledge, expertise and experience is undervalued. Question whose voices are being heard and respected most in the organisation overall, and do everything you can to follow the knowledge, leadership, and experiences of Black people. Make different hiring decisions and working to close the gender and race pay gap.
• Be an unapologetic advocate for the redistribution of financial resources. Far too many funding decisions are being made in international headquarters and far too much money is being spent there also. Do everything within your positional power and realm of influence to channel more resources – in more dispersed and unrestricted ways than ever before – to people with the lived experience of the issues on which you are working and involve them meaningfully in your decision making processes. These people will likely be Black and brown. Invest directly in locally-driven and female, Black, and minority-led organisations. (And for goodness sake, get them their grant payments on time!)
• Be an unapologetic advocate for communications that do not center whiteness in the world. Africans and people in the Global South have been calling for the white savior narrative/industrial complex, and bridge characters to be retired for eons. This matters because this is how stereotypes, generalisations, victimisation, exploitation, and heroism are exposed, challenged, and healed. Our organisations must no longer see communications as a means to a fundraising end, but a fundamental part of our impact strategy. 
• Examine how you live your organisational values in every aspect of how your organisation is run. Ensure those who clean your buildings, make your deliveries, collect your rubbish, provide your administrative services (most of whom are women) get proper representation, respect, good pay and benefits, proper working conditions, and a say in how things work in your organisation. 
• If you identify as white, ask other white people to learn about their unearned privilege and how we recreate the systems created by colonialism and imperialism within our global development organisations. It shows up in our ways of working in harmful ways that maintain the status quo.

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Healing Solidarity resources are here to help you to think through and challenge the ways in which all of this shows up in our organisations. 

The previous conferences are available to download here. The 2018 conversations are also available in the Collective. In particular check out: 

• Angela Brue Raebrun (2018)
• Pontso Mafethe (2018)
• the special conversation with Desiree Adaway in the Collective, 
• Edgar Villeneuva with Pontso Mafethe (2019)
• Marai Larasi & Neha Kagal with Pontso Mafethe (2019)
• Women of Colour speak about Racism in Philanthropy (2019) 
• Racism, Equity and Care – What can white people do?  (2019)

There is a reading list for “Anti-Racism & Decolonising Resources” here.

Consider signing up for Getting Ourselves Together, our practice group on engaging with Anti-Racism for people raced as white. 

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In your personal and professional care and reflection:

‘The times are urgent, let us slow down.’ ~Bayo Akomolafe 

Bold action requires us to be fully resourced. So take care of yourself and others, first and foremost. Black people, please do whatever you need most right now – run, yell, cry, sing, or let the pain be.

As much as this is a time to be in solidarity with the broader struggle, it’s also a time to make sure that we continue to do the inner work so that we may show up for what’s most needed and urgent at this time. 

• Explore the parts of ourselves that support white supremacy as a system, and that draw from mental models of dominant white culture. We all play a part in upholding this system or we choose to be part of ending it. 
• Let the self-compassion flow. Accept that you will upset people and you may make mistakes when speaking up. When standing up for justice, there is no failure – only learning and un-learning. (Note for those who are raced as white: Do not center your feelings in multi-racial spaces and discussions about racism.)
• Gather your people…because no one can do anti-racism work alone. The support and challenge offered by our trusted advisors and friendly critics is what can help us develop the self-knowledge and understanding of our own pasts, which we need to be able to make change together. So find a friend – many friends in fact. Find groups that can offer feedback, support, and resources.
• For white people, keep learning about other people’s lived experiences. Just because you are part of the global development sector, you are not given a pass as ‘one of the good ones.’ Here’s some authors to consider reading/following:
  • Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
  • Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  • and many, many more! There’s so many google-able resources to explore and ways to hear directly from Black and brown people about how systemic racism impacts their daily lives and how you can use your privilege to interrupt harm.

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Be in touch! Reach out to people in this space. Healing Solidarity – in action – is why we are here. 

Compiled by Jennifer Lentfer. Gratitude to Mary Ann Clements, Esua Jane Goldsmith, Shawna Wakefield, Pontso Mafethe, and Swatee Deepak for their feedback and guidance on this joint statement. Washington, DC·