Laudato Si’ Lab in Zambia
The Presencing Institute has partnered with the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and Caritas in Zambia to prototype what it means to live an integral ecology. The Laudato Si’ lab in Zambia is a 5 month online to offline journey, using Theory U to bring Laudato Si’ to life.
Laudato Si’ (Care for our Common Home) is the encyclical issued by the Pope in 2015. It calls for all people to live an integral ecology: a way of living in relationship with one another (in community) and with the earth. An integral ecology shows the ways in which we are interconnected, and calls for us to respond in an integral way to the social and environmental crises that we face.
Since working with Laudato Si’ in Australia to animate an integral ecology, Megan Seneque had been inspired by how living an integral ecology could take Africa on a different development path: one that is committed to human, economic and environmental wellbeing. She and Martin Kalungu-Banda had been exploring ways of using Theory U and a lab process and agreed with CAFOD to prototype a lab in Zambia. This is a ‘sister’ program to the Ubuntu.lab, which Martin and Julie Arts have been offering across the continent. Martin, Julie and Megan have been working together on this lab.
A two-day gathering in January prepared the hub hosts from 12 dioceses in Zambia. These hosts have been inviting participation in their local hubs and engaging across civil society: religious leaders and congregations, business leaders, local government and social services, education, etc.
Since the launch in February, they have been on sensing/learning journeys in their local contexts.
On Tuesday 26th March (3rd live session) we connected with hub hosts across the country — and those they’ve engaged with in their local sensing journeys — for a shared sense-making session. We were joined by Graham Gordon, head of Policy for CAFOD in GB and Mwila Mulumbi, head of CAFOD Zambia. Another guest, who is now part of the Chipata hub, was Chieftainess Kawaza of the Chewa-speaking people in Katete district in Eastern Province, who is leading development in her chiefdom. She is a traditional leader and is fully participating in the lab.
Being a leader you have to lead by example, taking care of the environment and taking care of people and community, so that every community can be responsible.
The hub host from the Ndola hub, which draws together a number of districts, and has participants from across civil society reflected on their sensing journeys:
“It’s implementation of policy that is critical. We need to change people’s mindsets, so that we see and feel and then do something different. For policy makers it’s changing the culture; this is a serious journey that we are about to undertake.”
A participant from the Mongu hub, which is in the Western Province (the poorest of Zambia’ nine provinces), made the following observation as we concluded our call on Tuesday:
“I’m leaving this call with a broader picture; we are not just looking at the environment, but looking at humanity. It brings up the need for us to not only look at the environment separately, but as part of our day-to-day life. It also brought out the call to love our neighbour. In this sense, I mean that if you love the person next to you, you begin to realize your role or your part in preserving the environment.”
This is the work of building a platform for wise collective action: the work of prototyping, which will be the next phase of our work together.
