Fall 2021 Updates from We Who Engage!

Hello, fellow Engagers!

After a short summer hiatus, We Who Engage is back! We hope you’re practicing self-care and remaining healthy as we transition into our ‘new normal’ quotidian lifestyles. Without a doubt, the pandemic has posed new challenges to the ways in which we engage each other and our systems and has further moved us to collectively transform our civic engagement infrastructure. It has also shed light on aspects of our identity that inform how we civically engage with the world.

Over the next year, it is our goal to explore how one often publicly shrouded aspect of our identity — our convictions around faith, religion, and spirituality — informs our roles as community and city makers.

To that end, we are excited to announce Season 3 of the We Who Engage Podcast and spring 2022 event below! We also invite you to join us in welcoming a new member of the We Who Engage team!

In solidarity,

We Who Engage

Theme for Season 3 We Who Engage Podcast

As you know, the We Who Engage Podcast is our longstanding signature project. Each podcast season covers a new theme and we invite a lineup of speakers — movers and shakers in their fields — who elaborate on civic design principles in action in their work.

Based on a series of conversations over the last year, We Who Engage has decided to explore civic engagement from the lens of faith, religion and spirituality in our upcoming podcast season. We Who Engage is not a religious entity. However, we understand that faith, religion and spirituality are factors that can inform our identity and the way we see the world, and can therefore shape civic participation. The goal of Season 3 is to explore how an individual’s sense of faith, religion and spirituality shapes and intersects, or not, with their sense of self as a civic agent.

Follow us to stay up-to-date on our guest speakers and recordings!

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Spring 2022 Event

Tied to our Season 3 Podcast theme, We Who Engage will be hosting an event in Spring 2022 that deep dives into many of the highlights and takeaways that Season 3 uncovers. In your company, we look forward to exploring the convergences and divergences that arise across these conversations!

Welcome to a New Team Member!

Last but not least, we are pleased to announce that We Who Engage has welcomed a new team member! Please join us in welcoming our newest member — Ana María Pérez. Ana María is a first year MCP student from Bogotá, Colombia. Her experience and interests include City Government, Participatory Planning, Community-based Development, Civic Engagement, Urban Activism, Behavioral Science, and Policy Innovation through arts, music and games. She previously led Bogotá’s District Laboratory for Social Engagement in Public Spaces, and “Farra en la Buena,” a program aimed to reduce nightlife-related violence in the City’s night districts.

We Who Engage is an initiative committed to transforming our democracy’s civic engagement infrastructure. We are motivated by the belief that America’s democracy is not designed to manage the tension that comes with inclusive public conversations. To address this, We Who Engage seeks to nurture spaces and institutions needed by our demographically complex public to engage in meaningful dialogue with one another.

Image Source: Designed by students at Doerfler Elementary School