Latest Future Stories posts:


Building Our Narrative Power The final residential Peer-learning and community dreaming on a narrative change residential

We ate delicious food, watched Twilight and experimented with new learning styles, in a collective journey towards better UK-based narrative change infrastructure.

Pxl 20241108 115530709

How can we build communities of learning, growth and care, focused on narrative change? This is the question we set out to ask at the start of Building Our Narrative Power (BONP) – our year-long narrative leadership programme. We’ve been led by 14 participants and a bunch of amazing facilitators, and we’re about to draw to a close. But before we share reflections on the whole programme, I’d love to tell you a bit about our second, and final, residential, that happened in November 2024.

So, let’s set the scene. We are in the beautiful countryside, the weather is as British as ever, fourteen change-makers from across the UK show up keen to reconnect and learn…

Read more

and

Challenging Divisive Narratives Confronting Far-Right Extremism in the UK 1 Building narratives that unite us

Content warning: this piece contains mentions of racism, Islamophobia, Nazism and genocide

The recent wave of far-right extremism in the UK—manifesting as violent riots targeting mosques, places of refuge, Muslims, and people of colour—has been deeply troubling to watch. But for many, ourselves included, the events are unsurprising. These racist attacks resulted from years of divisive narratives pushed by the media and politicians, and repeated excessively throughout UK society.

Read more

Building Our Narrative Power Half way there! Reflections from the first half of our narrative leadership programme

It’s been five months since we officially launched Building Our Narrative Power (BONP) and began working with our cohort of 14 community organisers, campaigners, and activists.

Post-it notes of various colours mapping out the upcoming sessions and dates of the Narrative Power programme

January

We hosted our first residential in January, nurturing a space to build trust, community, and to strengthen group dynamics. Together, we celebrated a shared sense of leadership, renewal and building connections and bridges between our issues and work. In laying these initial foundations, participants opened up and engaged in honest, meaningful discussions, while beginning to take ownership of crucial aspects of the programme – including leading their own sessions. It was a joy to see the non-hierarchical and co-created approach that we envisioned underpinning this journey, being reflected so early on.

You can read more about the residential here.

Since then, a strong spirit of community has continued to flourish. Following the residential, participants set up their own ‘Community of Practice’ calls between BONP sessions, sharing tools, resources, and opportunities with each other. They’ve organised their own in-person meetups and peer-to-peer learning. Through this self-contained space, they’ve created a shared “narrative north star” to guide them through the year.

…you could really tell how invaluable being part of a group was. I think bringing isolated campaigners to the space was a good idea.” – Facilitator

Read more

Building Our Narrative Power Fourteen change-makers Reflections from the first residential of our narrative leadership programme

Since launching Building Our Narrative Power last summer, we have had the incredible opportunity of working with 14 community organisers, campaigners and activists. The folks we’re working with come from a variety of different backgrounds and social justice struggles. We have been working together to shape the programme, bringing in their ideas, skills and experiences to co-design a year of learning and leadership development.

Group Photo!
Read more