Reflecting with RLabs: resources

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En provenance du cours de University of Cape Town

Becoming a changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation

251 notes

University of Cape Town

Becoming a changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation

251 notes

This free 6 week course is for anyone who wants to make a difference. Whether you are already familiar with the field of social innovation or social entrepreneurship, working for an organization that wants to increase its social impact, or just starting out, this course will take you on a journey of exploring the complex problems that surround us and how to start thinking about solutions. We will debunk common assumptions around what resources are needed to begin acting as a social innovator. We will learn from the numerous examples of social innovations happening all over the world. You will be challenged to get out of your comfort zone and start engaging with the diverse spaces around you. By the end of the course, you will have formed your own approach to social innovation, and you will have begun to develop the concepts, mindset, skills, and relationships that will enable you to start and evolve as a changemaker. You will be able to purchase a Verified Certificate if you wish to show evidence of your achievements, but this is optional, and you may apply for Financial Aid if you are unable to pay the certificate fee. The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship co-created this course with RLabs, a social movement ‘born-and-bred’ in Bridgetown, Cape Town that is now active in 22 countries. The movement empowers youth through innovative and disruptive technology by teaching them vital skills and providing much needed support and a sense of community. Advocating and supporting initiatives such as RLabs forms part of the Bertha Centre’s mandate. The Centre is a specialised unit at University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, and is the first academic centre in Africa dedicated to advancing social innovation and entrepreneurship. You can view the course trailer at www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcWYG64WO20 Tweet about this course using the hashtag #socinnMOOC

À partir de la leçon

What do we have to work with?

One of the hallmarks of very innovative organizations and people is that they see resources where other people don’t, and they can bring those resources to bear to create new innovative solutions. There’s transformative power in shifting from looking at needs, gaps, and what’s wrong, to appreciating strengths, resources and what’s right. Through developing a strength-based mindset and an appreciative approach you can discover hidden or underused resources. These resources might be people, kinds of knowledge and expertise, time, and physical spaces. As soon as you start seeing resources all around you, not only can you move forward but you become energised and hopeful, and creative things start to happen. You’ll find that you might be a lot richer than you think in terms of what you have to start building your own social innovation with.

RLabs: Journey of Hope Part 26:59

Discovering resources3:16

Appreciative inquiry6:45

Case study: The Street Store5:59

Finding hidden resources6:21

Reflecting with RLabs: resources10:06

Rencontrer les enseignants

François Bonnici
Director
Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Warren Nilsson
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Marlon Parker
Founder
RLabs

[MUSIC]

We're here now talking to Marlon and Craig from RLabs about resources.

And I think if I had to define the single biggest strength or gift of RLabs and

in everything that you do, I think it's your ability to see resources where other

people only see problems and needs, and you do this in so many different ways.

So when you introduced this part of your story,

in the beginning when you were starting out and

wanting to move beyond just counseling and to expand your counseling.

And you didn't have a computer, you didn't have access to the Internet, and

you just started looking around for what's there.

So, right at the beginning it came quickly that your mode of operating,

what can we find?

Even the physical, tangible things.

Can you talk a little bit about where that comes from, and

how you get good at spotting those resources that other people might miss.

All of a sudden, you get an expectation for people that say we can do this.

We can provide counseling using computers, so we need to have access to the Internet.

And fortunately, we were working with a local partner who had a community space

and they said the only room they have available is like a little store room and

we said, you know what, we'll take the storeroom.

Doesn't matter if it's not a computer lab.

We've got a room and they had some dial-up connection at the time so

we could actually connect to the Internet.

And they had an old computer over there, but later on as we started growing in numbers,

it meant that we needed to find more computers and

there was no equipment available.

And that is when we started to think about, who do we know

who has a computer that is underutilised at that particular time in the day.

And we were amazed how many people might have had a secondhand laptop or

a machine, that we could actually go and fetch just for

that two three hours session could do the connection.

Bring it back to the centre.

Set it up, quickly, have our session and then pack it down and

deliver it again to the people.

And so we literally looked at the assets we had in the community.

Not just in the sense of the physical assets but I mean,

we didn't know how to set up a network or a computer lab.

And there was someone in the community that was doing that as a job and

they came to show our guys how you actually set up the laptops,

how you put on the internet.

And so these kind of the little things that we started thinking about and

it was, truth be told, it was out of desperation.

because we really wanted to see the change in our communities.

I love this theme we talked about a bit during the week of there's so

many resources that are there and that people use, but they don't fully use.

There are rooms that are empty most of the time, cars that are empty most of

the time, computers that are being used 2 or 4 or 8 hours a day, but not 24.

And we start recognising that and

that we don't necessarily need to buy new things and bring that in at a very

tangible level kind of the world starts to feel more wealthy to us.

And we have access.

You now are in a position where you're inspiring many other people to go out and

start their own projects and look for ways to change their community.

What do you do to kind of get them to think about what resources,

because you don't have all the resources to give to them.

What are the kinds of ways you inspire them, what are the other things that

you've seen in the different projects that have been incubated here?

I think probably with what we do, when we do any kind of class give an example,

always bringing our personal stories, our journeys.

And many times you do find that some community members would say that I

actually don't really know, how am I going to get started with this?

It looks a little bit big for them.

They also really desire to bring about a change, and

then some is just the simplest words they could say, you know what?

You've got this one particular skill.

There's this one person,

down the street, you don't need to necessarily need to reinvent everything.

You could simply just take what you know and partner with somebody

down the road who's doing something that is similar to what you do, but

just missing that one bit of inspiration that you have.

So instead of using- if you want to work with kids for example.

You don't necessarily have to open up your own creche.

You don't need to have all the resources.

Sometimes in our classes that we offer, we encourage them really to work together and

to identify the skills of the persons right in their teams so

therefore we break them up into groups.

And say you think about something you want to do and so some simple examples

would be someone would mention that down the road the young kids who don't have

IDs for example or their parents are not always there, what can we do for them?

And then you find it as individuals, create a project plan for them and

say, let's do something for these kids.

We see the potential, we see the possibilities.

And we shared that with them.

And so fortunately we can use our personal stories as an individual and

as an organization how we have grown over time.

Believing in what we are doing and living out our passion and our purpose,

and the reasons why we do things.

And then things fall into place after that.

I love how you guys go back and

forth between these very tangible resources and also very intangible.

Like skills you might not have ever seen as a skill.

Maybe you've been in a gang and you've had to do a lot of organizing and managing.

That's some knowledge.

Maybe it's not even a skill.

You're talking about something about a passion, or a desire to do something and

seeing that as a resource.

You've got energy, use it.

How can you use it?

How can you bring that to bear?

And I also like the way you talk about this as a daily practice.

You know it's not one time making a list of the resources we need for

this project, but it's learning to have your eyes open all around you and

inside of yourself all the time.

And as you do this more and more, that becomes contagious and

you become better at it and seeing the resources in you and around you.

I think it's very powerful.

One of the great stories from RLabs I've heard over the years has been

of Terrence and Usi.

When you're recognising knowledge as a resource, but often we recognise knowledge

as some kind of expertise, you need drug counselling, going to the counsellors.

But tell us a little bit about Terrence's story.

I love the story of Terrence because that really

I think cultivated what we are doing in a big way.

And so Terrence, meeting Terrence and

working with him and he was, having this deep conversation with him, we were just

kind of talking about what are the kind of things that frustrates you.

And he was saying being unemployed is very frustrating.

And he's been unemployed for eight years.

He wasn't able to keep a proper job and said the stuff, it's difficult!

And in saying that I asked him a question.

So, if that is your problem, what is the biggest problem in your community?

And he said it's unemployment.

There's about 70% of young people who are unemployed in my community.

That's why we have all these other social economic challenges.

And when he said that I said,

you know what, that's like the best thing I've heard.

And he looked at me like what's wrong with you.

How can being unemployed be a good thing?

And I explained to him, that eight years in any other industry,

when you have eight years experience in something you become a consultant.

You've got eight years of experience in being unemployed.

So who best understands the complexity, the challenges and

that became a resource for him.

And we're beginning to see that in a lot of other programmes.

It's about seeing how you leveraging that experience.

to actually begin to add value to your solution or your innovation.

>> It seems to me that when you start thinking this way in community,

you go from looking at your community and all of its needs and

assuming the resources are all out there to recognising that you're literally

awash in different kinds of resources that it's not that you don't have enough.

It's you may have too much,

how do we even to start to use all that we have around us.

And it doesn't mean that you don't want external resources,

or that you don't need money sometimes.

But I think those things actually get drawn into,

you more easily as you start to recognise the resources that you already have

as investments in a way in what you're doing.

And we, Craig can vouch this, we see it's so frequently like.

If someone, for example, one of our students came in and he's an electrician,

he went on to study electrical work and he saw that one of our plugs was not working

and immediately went to get some whatever is needed to fix that plug.

And there was no money or

anything to give to him but he said it's not about the money,

he doesn't want to come to RLabs one day and see that it's burnt down.

For him it was important that he fix what was broken because he understood.

So he used little resources in order to contribute to the bigger purpose to

the bigger cause.

>> I heard of an interesting story.

Lately with our youth group went out to some kind of public event and suddenly,

the senior lady came running and she saw the audience

there at this particular event sharing opportunities with the community.

And she literally, I think she's been attending our courses for the past three

years, she literally ran back into her community and fetched young people to

actually come and register and see what the opportunities are.

So these kind of things, to me it says something about how

people have really embraced RLabs and how they see themselves

as being part of what's happening in the community.

[MUSIC]

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