One of the lovely things that we did at She is Still Sustainable last month, was to build a wonderwall of our achievements. And wow! What a lot we have achieved.
Some were very personal – surviving divorce, arranging funerals, raising children....
Some had enormous reach – training 100s of facilitators, systems change programme with Sierra Leone Ministry of Health to improve community health, part of a team delivering a sustainable London 2012...
Some were very tangible – writing books, setting up organisations, creating community gardens, renovating a house to high eco-standards, building an environmental showcase house on Trafalgar Square...
Browsing the wonderwall.
Cheerleaders
When we’d browsed the wall of achievement and organised it a bit, we cheered and applauded our collective fabulousness, and thanked each other for our contributions. It was very moving to be looking someone directly in the eye, and expressing gratitude for what they had done so far, and to have their thanks in return.
It's like a long hike. We’re part way along this journey, and have climbed high enough to deserve a rest. We take in the view, spotting the landmarks we passed earlier and remembering the tough stretches where we doubted our ability to go on. There is further to travel, and we know we can do it, because we have come this far.
Process notes
The process: we gave everyone big post-its and marker pens, and asked them to think about their achievements and choose three to write down. We encourage people to put aside any British reserve or modesty – this is a time to blow our own trumpets! A wall had been prepared in advance – lined with flip chart paper – to receive the post-its. We encouraged grouping but with a light touch and we didn’t push this: there around 40 women so nearly 120 achievements, and we didn’t want the process to detract from the amazing array of sustainability successes.
Remembering our achievements