Shared Instruments and Work´s methods

1. Instruments

• The importance of broad coordination meetings that promotes  convergence, alliances, and birth of new projects.

Coordination meetings of the alliance Terre Citoyenne (Saint-Martin-de-Londres, Saluzzo, Nant) have played an important role in promoting the crossing, convergences, and projects. And beyond meetings it self, is the way of lead them, the attention to the expression of activities, the concerns and projects of each organization that generated the exchanges. These convergences
and these new projects have been encouraged also through intermediate workshops and meetings that we have favored. 

• The site Terre Citoyenne

The Terre Citoyenne web site offer greater visibility to the Alliance and its partners, and has gived life to its membership to a international working community. It has started a dynamic sharing of texts and documents in relation with the project Coredem (Confederation of Resources for Global Democracy). Is reflected by the actions carried out: The Reñaca encounter (Chile), the Contag Congress, etc., valuing the available documents. It have allowed to introduce the presence of video documents (Global Café). It is also a place of discussion learning,  in the private area of the site, on more specific themes and linked to email.

• La Terre Citoyenne Newsletter

The Terre Citoyenne Newsletter has allowed to better visualize the actions undertaken jointly or by some of our partners (sended to organizations sites). It is distributed betwen partners and more than a thousand mail addresses. It is an important collective tool. They are available here. 

2. Methods and process of shared work

In recent years we have developed working methods and processes of different nature. They are common experiences for the majority of the alliance partners. We wish here to clarify them further and promote an exchange on this subject.

• An approach based on the issues, conflicts, points of leverage

We believe that each situation involve extremely varied actors, from local to global. For each situation, it is possible to show possible strategic themes for action. But this requires common work of analysis and of mobilization of different types of knowledge. We often found situations of conflict. It seems important in these processes to enhance the most vulnerable players, so they can play a role in social, economical and political transformation. In this sense, training of citizens and and social leaders is essential. Any problem may hold strong development if approached with legitimacy and with the creation of new relationships, and greatly go beyond the original issue.

We have had to work on emerging key and lever themes as: collective and scholar catering, the fish in the colective catering, food systems and supply chains approaches; the current importance of involving universities in popular education issues, the training of social leaders, the need to highlight by distinguishing signs artisanal fishing in the national and international trade, access to natural resources for local people (mountain communities, fishermen and farmers), the establishment of a global food convention, the role of consumers in front of supermarkets and the power of supermarket on the supply chains,  the need to engage in an international level in a relocation process adapted to food systems, etc.

• The importance of the relationship and the personal involvement

This alliance involves organizations and institutions are involved. But his strength is in personal relationships of trust between people. It's in the relationship, in the discovery of others, their feelings, their reactions, their actions and projects, that larger projects in regions, countries and internationally can be builded.

• The method of workshop-visits (or Learning Journey)

The practice of "learning journey" implemented by the “Sustainable Food Laboratory” has allowed us to make a qualitative leap in the methods of work in connection with various themes. We had developed methods of ground meeting. But a new approach of "visit workshop" where people take the time to confront their feelings and the surprises before their ideas became a method we have developed on several occasions in recent years (workshop-visit before the WSF in Porto Alegre, the Brazilian countryside; workshop-visit on fishing in China; workshop-visit around Lake Victoria in Kenya; workshop-visit included during the Reñaca meeting in Chile on "Universities and Popular Education"; Mini-Lab in China on sustainable food systems in 2008; Food Lab conference in USA in September 2008; workshop in Mexico organized by Agter on local management of natural resources in 2008, etc.). This method is a fundamental element of encounter between people, creation of presence, building of trust and imaginary prior to any work or common project.

• The launch of multi-actors processes

Being confronted with complex situations that need the involvement of as many of the involucred parts to transform it selves, has become increasingly present in our minds and in our practices. This observation has opened the ability to accept and then seek the participation of companies in multi-actors processes (see the creation of the Responsible Fishing Alliance, the creation of the Global Forum on Banana Economy, the project work on a label for Artisanal fishing, the meeting in the sugar sector in Brazil that brought various actors to establish agreements, ...). These processes are confronted in the context of Terre Citoyenne. And the projects will be developed on this subject, but also on the processes and methods used. Hervé Ott has highlighted key aspects of leaders training in connection with the conflicts approach inherent in these multi-actors processes (consult doc).  

• An interactive discussion and collaboration, knowledge generation and books (Machado Method)

This is an interactive dynamic from a reference text, following precise rules, to advance research processes or knowledge. The result of group interaction around a theme intended to lead to a relatively short publication (about a hundred pages), which can accompany all interactions, to visualize the evolution of the debate and to highlight the conclusions reached. Read more.

• Global café

We had tested this type of communication project a few years ago, with Philippe Cassard. We resume this project with Almedio, who released a beautiful series of "Global Café" at the Reñaca meeting (Chile). Global Café is a sensitive means of reproduction of an exchange between two people on a theme or an experience while taking a coffee. It is a mean of value of people, their experiences, their presence in one place at one time. Other partners such as Cafolis have interested in this project/initiative.