We are currently undergoing an organisational restructure to better streamline our fee-for-service and community offerings across different countries. Stay tuned for more details about our work when we re-launch in January 2024.

LINES OF ACTION

EMPOWERING THE INDIVIDUAL

1. Transformative Learning 

REDEFINING K-12 EDUCATION FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF GLOBAL CITIZENS

2. Life Skills
Education 

PROMOTING LIFELONG LEARNING IN FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES


3. Holistic Health
and Wellbeing

ENHANCING PHYSICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH IN COMMUNITIES 

4. Participation in Social Change

DRIVING SOCIAL INNOVATION THROUGH PARTICIPATORY ADVOCACY AND SERVICE DESIGN

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BUILDING CAPACITY OF COMMUNITIES

5. Community
Capacity-Building

NURTURING SOCIAL CHANGE LEADERSHIP AT THE GRASSROOTS



6. Economic Development

BUILDING BUSINESSES THAT CARE ABOUT PROFIT, PURPOSE AND PEOPLE


BUILDING CAPABILITY OF SYSTEMS 

7. Dialogue and Collaboration

BUILDING BRIDGES ACROSS CULTURAL DIVIDES AND FOSTERING A SHARED VISION

8. Participatory Research

GENERATING KNOWLEDGE THROUGH PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH AND EVALUATION

Shoshama Institute for Collective Wellbeing is a education and capacity-building consultancy with a growing global community of children and youth, families, educational organisations and sector leaders from over 50 countries... and counting! We deliver innovative and impactful programs that create transformative learning experiences for individuals and build the capacity of communities. 

The Edusymphony Model

Edusymphony is an innovative and evidence-informed collective impact model that uses education and capacity-building as a tool to create empowerment ecosystems: holistic and integrated systems that are responsive to, and designed in partnership with, individuals within our communities who experience high levels of marginalisation and disadvantage. 


The success of the Edusymphony model relies on all participants and partners first having a deep understanding of - and ability to operationalise - its four pillar principles. This will equip them to articulate a unified vision for change that has been developed through a process of dialogue and reciprocal learning with diverse voices and which creates a strong foundation for mutual understanding, collaboration and genuine partnership in the ongoing work of achieving individual and collective empowerment. 

In addition to designing and implementing innovative and evidence-informed educational and capacity-building programs for individual and collective empowerment, Shoshama Institute for Collective Wellbeing also seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge base on social transformation by building the capability of relevant social change systems. 

At Shoshama Institute for Collective Wellbeing, we see the empowerment of individuals and communities as both a means and an end to tackling entrenched marginalisation and disadvantage. We believe in centring communities within all our work and supporting them to lead this work, through education and capacity-building initiatives that seek to harness the unique strengths of each individual. 

We do this by advocating for, and delivering, empowering educational and capacity-building programs that empower individuals with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need for improved social, economic, physical and psychological wellbeing. This, in turn, enables them to use their unique skills and knowledge to contribute to the wellbeing of others around them. 

These individual empowerment initiatives might look like high-quality educational support for young people, training on important life skills for families, access to holistic health and wellbeing education programs, or opportunities to contribute to social change innovation by drawing on lived expertise. 

In addition to empowering individuals through such programs and services, it is also important to think bigger picture and consider the collective empowerment of communities as a whole. 

This requires educational programs which build the capacity of communities, by nurturing leadership at the grassroots and fostering socio-economic development. 

There are many other actors that each have an important role to play in tackling entrenched marginalisation and disadvantage: businesses, not-for-profit organisations, government agencies, philanthropy, schools, researchers... and the wider community. 

In the Edusymphony model, collaboration begins with each actor building the skills to become more attuned and responsive to the needs of the communities they seek to serve.

Once each of these actors reconceptualises their role within a community-centred model, they each begin to build the organisational systems and processes they need to enter into meaningful and sustainable ways of collaborative practice, with communities still at the centre. 

They also build their skills to work in genuine partnership with their target communities, not just by trying to better "reach" these communities, but by continuing to build their organisational systems and processes for long-lasting relationships with them. 

It is only by breaking down these silos and establishing this network of strong, collaborative relationships, that an ecosystem for empowerment is created. This is the environment which is needed for sustainable change, transforming the short-term outcomes of individual projects delivered through short-term funding into long-term impact. 

Each actor in this network also plays a role in a joint process of knowledge generation, thus contributing to the knowledge base on individual and collective empowerment programs, practices and systems, which can then be used to build the capability of relevant social change systems. 

This might look like a program that builds the skills of individuals and organisations to bridge cultural divides and break down silos, by engaging in constructive dialogue and build the requisite knowledge and skills for effective collaboration and partnership. 

This could also look like a program that seeks to build inclusive systems for knowledge generation by embedding participatory research and participatory evaluation into program delivery and building connections between the research community and emerging social change leaders.

All of our work is informed by the Collective Inheritance Framework and its four pillars. 

Unity in diversity | Dialogue and mutual understanding | Collaboration | Individual and Collective Empowerment

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