For planet earth to survive, nature organizations play a crucial role. Environmental research and lobby for new environmental laws form an important part in protecting our planet. Yet, the hardest part seems to be getting local people on board to contribute to protect the environment. Participatory Action Research helps to find the energy within a community to become active in a way that suits their needs, values and culture.
Our vision on how to protect nature using PAR
We believe nature can recover and be protected by involving what we have in abundance on planet earth: people. Not by trying to convince them to join someone else’s project, but by allowing them to co-design projects together, based on their knowledge and shared truth of the situation and their values and needs. Projects they feel ownership of. Projects for which they feel intrinsic responsibility to make it a success. Projects that directly or indirectly contribute to the goals of the involved nature organization, yet in a way we could not have thought of beforehand.
The Community-up approach
Traditional approaches, where organizations and governments take action based on their own views are often referred to as “Top-down” approaches. A counter movement are the so called “Bottom-up” approaches, where citizens themselves take action. In both cases professionals (“the top”) and citizens (“the bottom”) are not cooperating. SevenSenses founder Madelon Eelderink coined the term “Community-up” to refer to professionals and citizens joining forces and jointly tackling issues. The term Community-up by now has been widely adopted. Participatory Action Research (PAR) allows all stakeholders to view each other’s perspectives and qualities and discover how they can enforce each other. As a result, PAR is an ideal Community-up approach to support people in developing projects that allow nature to thrive in a way that makes people thrive too.
Free virtual brainstorm
Are you curious to hear more about what SevenSenses can do specifically for you? Please don’t hesitate to contact us to arrange a free one-hour virtual brainstorm with us.
Facing barriers? Let us guide you!
Do you feel PAR is the right approach to tackle the sustainability challenges you are working on, but encounter barriers within your organization to execute PAR? For example, that the rigid structures of your organization hampers you from allowing stakeholders to participate? SevenSenses Institute has done extensive research into the barriers faced within (sustainability) organizations to implement PAR, and how these barriers can be overcome. Our PAR experts are happy to guide you in the process of bringing PAR to the table among decision makers or other authorities and taking away the threshold to implement PAR. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for a one-hour free advisory session! From there, we discuss how we can further guide you in this process.
