Here's today's wonderful news
about a wonderful world!
This
is part of a series of daily reminders that a more wonderful world
is being built from the actions of millions of people, each day. You
are offered examples to explore whenever you would like to be uplifted
and inspired, energized and reassured. This is a wonderful type of world
news!
It seems obvious that we experience what we are paying attention to, so if we want more life-enhancing experiences, we should direct more of our attention to more life-enhancing news, happenings, and stories.
Also,
when we feel life-enhanced, we are radiating, broadcasting those
"vibes" outward, and others are uplifted into resonance, to some degree.
And the more of us radiating, the more others are uplifted. So joy is
service!
In
this series, we emphasize discovering whole groups of people who are
creating a more wonderful world, each in their own way.
You
can add things you find, for others to discover and pay attention to,
via commenting on this post, or any post in the series. You can access a list of links to each post in the entire series by clicking here: https://divinelightchurch.blogspot.com/2020/11/wonderful-world-news-list-of-published.html
DAY 158
"What would “neighborocracy” look like? We have been investigating the power of localism/localisation, and democratic innovation, since the start of A/UK. As we observe the flourishing of mutualism during the Covid pandemic, our interest seems ever more relevant.
One of our participants in our The Elephant Meets… sessions, Nathanial Whitestone, recently conducted a video interview (embedded above) with the practitioners of “neighbourhood democracy” in India (it’s the context for the Indian children’s parliaments we blogged about a few years ago).
.........We asked Nathaniel to write us a general introduction to the crossover between the neighbourhood parliament movement and the sociocratic method they practice:
Let me tell you about a bottom-up revolution that will secure our democracies and fulfil the promise on which they were founded - a sustainable community movement.
I joined this movement in 1996 as a co-founder of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ecovillage.org) and I’ve been serving it in one way or another ever since.
Right now I want to focus on what I think may be one of its most important initiatives: the Neighbourhood Parliament movement - which is connected to the “children’s parliament” phenomenon in India [reported on previously in A/UK.]
Neighbourhood Parliaments originated in India, where over the last thirty years they have developed 400,000 local mutual aid groups under the Neighbourhood Parliament banner (see a recent example here).
Approximately half of those groups are now using Sociocracy, a form of consent-based governance developed in the Netherlands in the 1970s which has since spread around the world as a global standard for governance in which every participant has a real voice.
[For more on how this works, see this collection of presentation materials from Indian Catholic priest Father Edwin John, a leader in this movement. Also a November 2019 report on Fr. John, taken from Badische Zeitung, made during his European tour supported by the European Commission - ed].
In sociocratic Neighbourhood Parliaments, every household in a neighbourhood of 20 - 30 homes contributes a representative. Every representative has a ministerial role in their Neighbourhood Parliament, and together they work on the projects they decide are most important for their neighbourhood, using the organising focus of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
These Neighbourhood Parliaments then connect to one another, forming village, district, and state parliaments made up of representatives elected upward.
Where Neighbourhood Parliaments are widespread, local politics transform, with a majority of women elected to office and a reduction of corruption. In times of disaster, relief aid is distributed more equitably, because people in the villages have a say and food or construction materials cannot easily be diverted for private profit.
In times of calm, the Parliaments build bridges and fight child marriage and plant trees, pursuing local priorities.
This movement - the Neighborocracy movement - is now spreading around the world, to Africa and Latin America and Europe. You can find the links here. Other global networks, the Ecovillage networks and Transition Town networks for example, are connecting up - a project between them is being launched, to develop manuals and training materials for a European version of neighbourhood parliaments.
Finally, our revolution doesn’t need to overthrow democratic states. We are saving our democracies."
Now
it's your turn. Inspired by what you've discovered, what is one thing
you will do this day to make the world more wonderful for yourself and
perhaps also for someone else?
Right
now there is no good way to get notified of new posts in this series.
Do sign up as a Follower, though, and I can make sure you are told when
such a good way exists.
This
series is a ministry of "Amplifying Divine Light in All" Church. We
have no relationship with the resource described in this post, except
our appreciation of them and desire to share their value with you and
others.
All
of our ministries are offered to you and the world as our freewill
gifts. The funds necessary for the food, shelter, internet service, and
other expenses that make this and all our ministries possible come from
freewill gifts provided by those wanting to see us able to continue our
offerings to the world.
You can send us a gift via https://www.paypal.me/giftADLIAC or write us at divinelightchurch at gmail.com for other methods.
Gifts are not tax-deductible. You can read more about the gift economy our church lives in, here: http://organizationalintelligences.blogspot.com/p/what-is-gift-economy.html
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