Activities

Introduces the skill of questioning as a tool for identifying a need for change. Encourages people to be curious and apply questioning skills in their work.

To enable participants to experience and practise listening in different ways. Participants share a story of an incident that didn’t turn out as they wanted it to. They are listened to in different ways, and different interpretations of the story emerge.

The story introduces the idea that all of us have a piece of the puzzle and there is value in the many different ways we view the world. This activity could be adapted by acting it out – six different people playing the parts of the six elders. Or, the group could have a minute to put as many items in the middle of the space as possible and sit back down in a circle. The group could then take it in turns to say what they see in the space.

We all have a lot to learn from other cultures. One way to explore this is to research social entrepreneurs from around the world.

This activity is an opportunity to explore personal values and interests and link them with social enterprise, value driven leadership and value driven organisations. Participants draw a picture representing themselves with a heart in the centre. Around the heart they post words representing the things which are important to them. The closer to the heart, the more important it is. Participants share in pairs and in the wider group before debriefing.

A simple warm-up game that encourages participants to use their imaginations and introduces the idea of storytelling. It shows that we may see things differently and that there can often be many ways of seeing and interpreting something.

This session offer the opportunity to learn about disability as a human rights concept and what the social model of disability. It introduces models of disability and allows people to consider their current views in relations to different understandings of disability that are commonly held.

The exercise could be a more practical way of understanding different values and beliefs in the group. The facilitator should choose to be as provocative and challenging as they feel is appropriate for the group. There will be a need, as always, to be culturally sensitive when thinking about the kinds of provocative statements used and confidence as a facilitator to be able to manage disagreement within the group. It’s important to introduce this as an exercise that explores difference and that there will be differences of opinion.

Participants explore their strengths linked to the skills and qualities involved in running a social enterprise. Understanding that they need to involve the skills of others to make an enterprise sustainable is an important outcome of this activity.

Participants gain an understanding of several examples of social enterprises linking business models with achieving social impact. A deeper understanding may emerge based on how people’s values around and awareness of social, environmental and cultural factors can influence how a social enterprise is run.