[Music]
believe it or not it was love at first
sight when I first stepped on to this
five acre farm we bought this place two
years ago and worked hard to repair the
land and restore the the broken orchard
this experience has changed everything
about the way I see my own hurried life
and my work in citizen participation I
grew up in the city I knew nothing about
farming
so I started by reading a lot and
looking for local wisdom and reaching
out to anybody who is willing to teach
me we spent a lot of time learning how
to build the soil and experimented with
planting schemes and made a lot of
mistakes the first year I planted a
whole bed of potatoes and I forgot where
they were and I couldn’t find them for a
whole year but we worked hard and one
day in early spring I was standing
beside this bed
I knew I’d planted something in it I was
waiting for the garlic to show some
signs of life and it was feeling rather
impatient because I didn’t seem to be
emerging I may be worried that I’d lost
them is one as well but I had an
epiphany
in that moment I realized I can’t force
this garlic to grow
I can only create the conditions for it
to grow I can prepare the ground but I
calf tur that it’s out of my hands we
worked hard on the land that first year
and our efforts paid off nature
responded and the yield was more
bountiful than we could have ever
imagined and what I learned from the
farm that first year that has informed
my work in participatory democracy and
that is preparing the ground is
everything even in a place like this
this is Simon Fraser University’s Morris
Jay WASC Center for dialogue and this is
a place that was designed with the
optimum as the optimum environment for
participation in public conversations
and I spent 10 years here working as a
director of program and I had was had
the fortune of seeing many interesting
exciting experiments in public
participation including the BC citizens
for electoral reform and the model of
the citizens assembly has been
replicated around the world and brought
to bear on many other public challenges
and it’s really about empowering
citizens to to be contributors to the
decisions that affect our public life I
spend a lot of time also preparing the
ground for presidents and policy
advisers and people from all walks of
life who came into this space seeking
breakthroughs in by thinking together
with others in dialogue and preparing
the ground for these kind of
conversations is complicated work and it
involves a lot of moving parts and often
we have to wrangle policy experts and
very passionate citizens in the in the
process but I have to say that wrangling
these experts does not compare to the
wrangling that takes place with these
little ones but seriously what does it
take and what are the conditions that
will support participation of citizens
working together with governments and
other experts to truly make progress and
some of our most complex challenges and
I think that the the conditions are
really the same as what I’ve observed on
the farm and they are like things that
you would imagine a favorable climate
for growing good growing materials tools
a lot of care and attention to the
details patience for waiting to result
for results to emerge and resilience to
stick with it even when the conversation
gets very difficult I’m excited to tell
you about a project where models and
cases of citizen participation are
located it’s called participe dia and it
is a global project that was initiated
by political scientists from Harvard and
the University of British Columbia with
the aim of mapping innovations in public
participation and making them widely
available on this digital platform
participe dia is like a seed bank of
ideas for public participation and as
one of 30
research partners from universities
around the globe we’re working on
documenting cases of citizen involvement
in public issues from climate change to
participatory budgeting and we’ve got
over 800 cases on the site right now
we’re also interested in the methods and
the organizations that support this work
so I want to share a few stories and
examples from the site to give you a
sense of what’s what’s there this first
one the kitchen table conversation I
like this method I use a lot in my
teaching and also in my community work
and I think we can all relate to what it
means to sit around the kitchen table
but with just a few simple guidelines
like take turns or wait you know wait
your turn
take turns don’t interrupt and be sure
to stay open to ideas that you’re not
familiar with this has the effect of
transforming what is a simple table
conversation into something that can be
incredibly valuable and and meaningful
for citizens to be a part of so this is
a method that’s written up on the site
this is another one that really is very
exciting it’s about still Creek and
still Creek is an urban stream that runs
17 kilometres through congested and busy
Metro Vancouver and this Creek was all
but forgotten because it was covered by
debris and it was polluted by industrial
waste and for 80 years it it was
basically invisible to the community
until this woman Carmen Rosen who is a
community artist she what woke the
community up by bringing attention to
the creek and citizens rallied round as
did ecologist and stormwater management
specialists and the creek has now been
restored to its former glory after 80
years of disrepair but what’s remarkable
about this story is the participatory
arts that she brought to rally the
citizens together theater and lantern
festivals and music and sidewalk
painting all allowed the citizens then
to see what was invisible what was
running right underneath there
communities was now visible they started
to see it they started to care about it
and now this restored Creek is habitat
to the the Reds winged blackbird and the
Blue Heron and it’s also there are
spawning chum salmon in the creeks so
it’s so exciting I think in a remarkable
example of citizen participation and the
use of arts I think is also something
that has informed the work of this
organization that we’ve profiled on the
site called apathy is a boring and after
the is boring it’s based in Montreal
they work across the country and they
reach out to disengage youth who don’t
vote their social media campaigns are
amazing they have engaged over a million
young people and their message about
democracy is landing they say democracy
is about making informed choices and one
way to express those choices is through
voting and it is changing the the voter
turnout youth voting is on the rise from
40 percent in 2011 to 58 percent in 20
and the 2015 election so there this
organization a fee is born has inspired
and collaborated with many other
organizations and civic experiments so
if you’re interested in those those are
also available on the site participate
relies very much on a team of
researchers but it also is about
crowdsourcing so if you have a example
of a citizen participation activity or
event or a story that you would like to
share there is a quick submit function
on the site which enables all of us to
be contributors to this project
participating is like this wide open
funnel and it’s gathering together all
kinds of examples of people in places
that are allowing us to create this rich
body of knowledge from this about this
emerging field the the goal of participe
dia really is to have this knowledge
about citizens participation seep into
and influence the way government’s and
the way communities plan public
participation and I think it’s working
it’s this kind of information really get
does spark action and that’s the part
that I’m really interested in people
often say to me I don’t get involved in
public issues because I don’t know
enough about the issue I I’m not an
expert I don’t understand the ins and
outs of it but I say to them I don’t
think that information is really the
biggest barrier I think the biggest
barrier is thinking alone and when I go
back to my experience of learning to
farm I did start with gathering
information yes that makes a lot of
sense gather as much as you need to need
to and can but when it came to action
I needed to involve others in my
thinking I needed others to help me
understand what I needed to do and then
I needed to get my hands dirty I needed
to get into practice and that is how I
really learned so the first year on the
farm what it taught me was even with our
lack of experience and the many mistakes
that we made the yield was more
bountiful than we could have ever
imagined and so I say yes it’s great if
you’re really interested in issue
thinking about it and studying about it
and learning about is a great place to
start but if you really want to get
active and you really want to make a
difference on that issue then I’ve just
got a few simple suggestions that I’m
going to leave with you and they go back
to my experience on the farm so seek out
local wisdom embrace anyone who’s
willing to teach you and there are a lot
of people who are willing to teach you
there are a lot of organizations whose
work you may learn from experiment try
things out get your hands dirty like the
people in the steel Creek ravine who
actually got out there and cleaned up
the creek try out new participation
methods that will improve the way your
own conversations in your own planning
will go and then notice what happens
notice how the ground shifts what I’ve
learned from the farm is that we can’t
force a seed to grow and we cannot make
citizens
participate in public life but if we
work really hard and we are creative and
we bring care and attention and have
patience we just might create a revolution of participation thank you
believe it or not it was love at first
sight when I first stepped on to this
five acre farm we bought this place two
years ago and worked hard to repair the
land and restore the the broken orchard
this experience has changed everything
about the way I see my own hurried life
and my work in citizen participation I
grew up in the city I knew nothing about
farming
so I started by reading a lot and
looking for local wisdom and reaching
out to anybody who is willing to teach
me we spent a lot of time learning how
to build the soil and experimented with
planting schemes and made a lot of
mistakes the first year I planted a
whole bed of potatoes and I forgot where
they were and I couldn’t find them for a
whole year but we worked hard and one
day in early spring I was standing
beside this bed
I knew I’d planted something in it I was
waiting for the garlic to show some
signs of life and it was feeling rather
impatient because I didn’t seem to be
emerging I may be worried that I’d lost
them is one as well but I had an
epiphany
in that moment I realized I can’t force
this garlic to grow
I can only create the conditions for it
to grow I can prepare the ground but I
calf tur that it’s out of my hands we
worked hard on the land that first year
and our efforts paid off nature
responded and the yield was more
bountiful than we could have ever
imagined and what I learned from the
farm that first year that has informed
my work in participatory democracy and
that is preparing the ground is
everything even in a place like this
this is Simon Fraser University’s Morris
Jay WASC Center for dialogue and this is
a place that was designed with the
optimum as the optimum environment for
participation in public conversations
and I spent 10 years here working as a
director of program and I had was had
the fortune of seeing many interesting
exciting experiments in public
participation including the BC citizens
for electoral reform and the model of
the citizens assembly has been
replicated around the world and brought
to bear on many other public challenges
and it’s really about empowering
citizens to to be contributors to the
decisions that affect our public life I
spend a lot of time also preparing the
ground for presidents and policy
advisers and people from all walks of
life who came into this space seeking
breakthroughs in by thinking together
with others in dialogue and preparing
the ground for these kind of
conversations is complicated work and it
involves a lot of moving parts and often
we have to wrangle policy experts and
very passionate citizens in the in the
process but I have to say that wrangling
these experts does not compare to the
wrangling that takes place with these
little ones but seriously what does it
take and what are the conditions that
will support participation of citizens
working together with governments and
other experts to truly make progress and
some of our most complex challenges and
I think that the the conditions are
really the same as what I’ve observed on
the farm and they are like things that
you would imagine a favorable climate
for growing good growing materials tools
a lot of care and attention to the
details patience for waiting to result
for results to emerge and resilience to
stick with it even when the conversation
gets very difficult I’m excited to tell
you about a project where models and
cases of citizen participation are
located it’s called participe dia and it
is a global project that was initiated
by political scientists from Harvard and
the University of British Columbia with
the aim of mapping innovations in public
participation and making them widely
available on this digital platform
participe dia is like a seed bank of
ideas for public participation and as
one of 30
research partners from universities
around the globe we’re working on
documenting cases of citizen involvement
in public issues from climate change to
participatory budgeting and we’ve got
over 800 cases on the site right now
we’re also interested in the methods and
the organizations that support this work
so I want to share a few stories and
examples from the site to give you a
sense of what’s what’s there this first
one the kitchen table conversation I
like this method I use a lot in my
teaching and also in my community work
and I think we can all relate to what it
means to sit around the kitchen table
but with just a few simple guidelines
like take turns or wait you know wait
your turn
take turns don’t interrupt and be sure
to stay open to ideas that you’re not
familiar with this has the effect of
transforming what is a simple table
conversation into something that can be
incredibly valuable and and meaningful
for citizens to be a part of so this is
a method that’s written up on the site
this is another one that really is very
exciting it’s about still Creek and
still Creek is an urban stream that runs
17 kilometres through congested and busy
Metro Vancouver and this Creek was all
but forgotten because it was covered by
debris and it was polluted by industrial
waste and for 80 years it it was
basically invisible to the community
until this woman Carmen Rosen who is a
community artist she what woke the
community up by bringing attention to
the creek and citizens rallied round as
did ecologist and stormwater management
specialists and the creek has now been
restored to its former glory after 80
years of disrepair but what’s remarkable
about this story is the participatory
arts that she brought to rally the
citizens together theater and lantern
festivals and music and sidewalk
painting all allowed the citizens then
to see what was invisible what was
running right underneath there
communities was now visible they started
to see it they started to care about it
and now this restored Creek is habitat
to the the Reds winged blackbird and the
Blue Heron and it’s also there are
spawning chum salmon in the creeks so
it’s so exciting I think in a remarkable
example of citizen participation and the
use of arts I think is also something
that has informed the work of this
organization that we’ve profiled on the
site called apathy is a boring and after
the is boring it’s based in Montreal
they work across the country and they
reach out to disengage youth who don’t
vote their social media campaigns are
amazing they have engaged over a million
young people and their message about
democracy is landing they say democracy
is about making informed choices and one
way to express those choices is through
voting and it is changing the the voter
turnout youth voting is on the rise from
40 percent in 2011 to 58 percent in 20
and the 2015 election so there this
organization a fee is born has inspired
and collaborated with many other
organizations and civic experiments so
if you’re interested in those those are
also available on the site participate
relies very much on a team of
researchers but it also is about
crowdsourcing so if you have a example
of a citizen participation activity or
event or a story that you would like to
share there is a quick submit function
on the site which enables all of us to
be contributors to this project
participating is like this wide open
funnel and it’s gathering together all
kinds of examples of people in places
that are allowing us to create this rich
body of knowledge from this about this
emerging field the the goal of participe
dia really is to have this knowledge
about citizens participation seep into
and influence the way government’s and
the way communities plan public
participation and I think it’s working
it’s this kind of information really get
does spark action and that’s the part
that I’m really interested in people
often say to me I don’t get involved in
public issues because I don’t know
enough about the issue I I’m not an
expert I don’t understand the ins and
outs of it but I say to them I don’t
think that information is really the
biggest barrier I think the biggest
barrier is thinking alone and when I go
back to my experience of learning to
farm I did start with gathering
information yes that makes a lot of
sense gather as much as you need to need
to and can but when it came to action
I needed to involve others in my
thinking I needed others to help me
understand what I needed to do and then
I needed to get my hands dirty I needed
to get into practice and that is how I
really learned so the first year on the
farm what it taught me was even with our
lack of experience and the many mistakes
that we made the yield was more
bountiful than we could have ever
imagined and so I say yes it’s great if
you’re really interested in issue
thinking about it and studying about it
and learning about is a great place to
start but if you really want to get
active and you really want to make a
difference on that issue then I’ve just
got a few simple suggestions that I’m
going to leave with you and they go back
to my experience on the farm so seek out
local wisdom embrace anyone who’s
willing to teach you and there are a lot
of people who are willing to teach you
there are a lot of organizations whose
work you may learn from experiment try
things out get your hands dirty like the
people in the steel Creek ravine who
actually got out there and cleaned up
the creek try out new participation
methods that will improve the way your
own conversations in your own planning
will go and then notice what happens
notice how the ground shifts what I’ve
learned from the farm is that we can’t
force a seed to grow and we cannot make
citizens
participate in public life but if we
work really hard and we are creative and
we bring care and attention and have
patience we just might create a revolution of participation thank you
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