Participation in Göteborg

The big event for the Festival for Climate this weekend was today and the reason why I first and formost wanted to go to the whole festival; my dear friend Jonas Gren, a talent journalist and a wonderful human, talked about the Transition Town idea and his own experience when he met people in the Transition town movement in England.

The session today inpired a whole workshop to discuss the question how to work with the issue here in Gothenburg. More than 40 people participate in an open space themed workshop, it was runned just in a short of time but with a lot of intelligent and active people that wants to act now.

The most important part is in the starting point and how to get people involved in the processs, a process that have to be in the community and within the community.
 We agreed that if we want a transiton it would work the best way to arrange a meeting with already existing organistations or groups. We can from those groups take the key person to see what they want to do, what their goal are, with the arrangement they are already involved in. In this process we will get the information to continue the work.
 When gathering people in this way, we see a lot of issues they have in common, and also what they really want to do within the community.

To listen to this and to help the key people to themself develop their thoughts, will inspire them to do more for their work.

A special room or house for this kind of work is important. In the room the thoughts should be on the wall, so everyone can see it and in this way participate in the process, and also be inspired to participate in the next meetings.

We can only do something with the society if we carefully listen to what people wants. And when we collect them, they will understand it even more and work together to reach their goals.

I hope we can use participatory methods in a larger scale. Some people asked me about a lecture or a guide today, it's just to start the participation work!