WAYS OF BEING, WAYS OF DOING

The Anne Matthews Trust is inspired by the Highlander Folk School, of Monteagle, Tennessee, who offered an essential training ground in the Appalachian Mountains for organisers in the civil rights movement, from 1932-1961.  

 

We are very aware that if we are 'talking the talk', and offering critical education experiences for other people, we must ensure that we are also ‘walking the walk’, and doing everything we can to build an anti-oppressive organisation, from the bottom up.

 

Ways of Being, Ways of Doing is a phrase we have borrowed from the concept of Indigenous Ways of Being, Knowing & Doing, which is a term which encompasses different ways of thinking, feeling & believing that are outside of modern concepts of knowledge.

 

Under this stream of work, we are researching, experimenting with and creating rituals, policies and practices to ensure that we are trying to challenge oppression in ourselves, each other, and society, and facing insidious power dynamics inherited from an unhealthy system when they creep into how we work.

 

Our Ways of Being, Ways of Doing sessions should eventually inform everything we do; including our governance, our HR policies, our safeguarding practices, our team meetings, our reflective spaces, our cleaning, our emails, our wages, our fundraising strategies, or our wellbeing rituals as much as how we host everyone who walks through the door at the Braich Goch.

 

Soon we hope to be able to share anti-oppressive policies we have written so that other organisations can benefit from our thought processes and experience.

 

If you would like to ask us more about our Ways of Being, Ways of Doing, please contact us using the form below.