Wolverhampton Neighbourhood Doughnut Economics Learning Journey — part one

We have just embarked on an exciting journey of discovery together. This blog is a way of sharing, working out loud and reflecting.

I have been inspired by Kate Raworth’s book for a while, seeing Kate talk at Impact Hub in Birmingham a couple of years ago left me with the feeling of wanting to do more to help make her ideas a reality. At that point I had no idea how, and not really enough time or head space, to take action.

So, I watched with admiration whilst the ideas in the book came to life in the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), I joined-up on their website and still I couldn’t see a way to ‘do’ anything meaningful.

Civic Square and DEAL joined forces to bring about Neighbourhood Doughnut Economics in Civic Square’s ‘neighbourhood’ — a thing of beauty started to unfurl! Then, an invitation was extended for people to become hosts for an Enrol Yourself learning journey to bring together a group of peer learners to both ‘study’ the concepts of Doughnut Economics more deeply together and experiment with bringing them alive in our neighbourhood!

Late one evening, just before the deadline, I wrote the application to become a host in the hope that we might convene a local Neighbourhood Economics peer-to-peer learning group around a neighbourhood in Wolverhampton.

Here we are in the middle of the host training and it feels as though the stars have aligned. The teams at Enrol Yourself and Civic Square have joined together to curate, share and develop this gentle, soulful training. In February the wider journeys begin with 12 hosts gathering groups of 12 people from different areas in the country and I am pinching myself that I will be able to share this journey with 11 wonderful people in Wolverhampton. I heard this quote from the Art of Hosting the morning before I started the host training and it felt so fitting:

I want to learn to host myself, be hosted by others, host others and host well together.

If you live in Wolverhampton and you would like to apply for a place in our local neighbourhood doughnut economics peer-peer learning journey (running between 1st February and 30th September 2022 - contact me for an application form by emailing Saffi at sprice@wolverhamptonvsc.org.uk closing date for applications: 17th December 2021