Relational Activism
“I don’t want to be waving a placard outside the high court or outside the council, but I do want to be active in making change, and I do see myself as an activist. ”
In Camden, we talk a lot about relational activism.
Who is a Relational Activist? We think someone working with empathy, compassion, the ability to connect and form networks, with an understanding that change happens through relationships
Camden is blessed with communities who show, time and again, their desire to look after each other. The values already alive – of relationships, cooperation, participation and activism – have undoubtedly underpinned and enabled the Camden FAB journey.
The importance of relationships to a healthy, helpful and compassionate society has begun to re-emerge strongly on a global scale, an alternative perhaps to an individual cultures that have dominated over recent decades and contributed to some of the worst aspects of our relationships in the political and social worlds. FAB can only continue to thrive and be well if the social fabric on which it depends is strong and resilient.
In the spring of 2019, we began exploring how the idea of relationship – based thinking and feeling could be expressed as a form of activism to help secure that social fabric. We had seen for ourselves in the development of FAB that nourishing pathways for compassion, opening spaces for sharing stories, putting the emphasis on social supports, on the surfacing of community power, and on the cumulative effect of individual acts, was helpful. The question was how to put a language to it. We started to talk about Love.
‘Love Shows Up’
watch our film at