Building a Brighter Future for The Gambia, Africa, and Beyond Building a Brighter Future for The Gambia, Africa, and Beyond

Stories from the Hearth

Guest post by:

Dr. Margor A. Green-Harris, MD

Medical Officer, Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital

🌍 Banjul, The Gambia

Once upon a time, in the heart of Sengeal “Rew Taranga” a diverse group of changemakers gathered for The Wellbeing Summit Dakar-Thiès —a transformative event that promised to reshape the future of the continent. Among them was I, a passionate advocate for social and behavioral change and holistic wellbeing.

As the Summit unfolded, I immersed myself in a rich tapestry of workshops, discussions, and cultural exchanges. I eagerly participated in sessions on yoga and mindfulness, recognizing their potential to enhance my wellbeing and activism.

During a panel discussion on “The Africa We Want,” I experienced a profound shift in perspective. Inspired by the vision of a continent united in peace and prosperity, I realized the power of collective action to bring about meaningful change.

However, I also became more aware of the challenges facing grassroots movements and community initiatives. Too often, well-intentioned projects were sometimes derailed by external interests and agendas, leaving local communities disenfranchised.

Determined to make a difference, I resolved to prioritize the voices and needs of my fellow activists and volunteers. I refused to let external sponsors dictate the direction of our work, advocating for autonomy and integrity in all our endeavors.

As The Wellbeing Summit Dakar-Thiès drew to a close, I felt a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. Armed with new insights and connections, I returned to my community with a commitment to holistic wellbeing, grassroots activism, and the Africa we all wanted to see.

And so, inspired by the spirit of unity and determination I had witnessed at the Summit, I continued my journey, knowing that together, we could build a brighter future for The Gambia, Africa and beyond.

EXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHEREXPLORE THE REGIONAL SUMMITS FURTHER

Dive Into Stories From Around the World

Discover the Wellbeing Movement in AfricaDiscover the Wellbeing Movement in Africa

Meet and hear stories from the changemakers championing the wellbeing movement in Africa.

Strengthening Community Resilience in Kuwait with Storytelling Strengthening Community Resilience in Kuwait with Storytelling

Insights from en.v’s Eleanor Burton and Mohammed Marafi

With a vision of a united, compassionate and resilient society, a small organisation is making a big impact on collective wellbeing across the Gulf states.

en.v facilitates positive social transformation within Kuwaiti society with an integral focus on empowering Kuwait’s migrant population – as well as youth and other traditionally silenced communities – through storytelling. Recognised by the International Labour Organization (ILO) for its impactful work supporting the human rights of migrant workers, en.v practices community-building through socially responsible ways. We talked with Eleanor Burton, en.v’s training and relationship manager, and Mohammed Marafi, en.v’s programs manager, about their use of storytelling as a tool for social transformation. Here’s how they do it.

Storytelling to Build Trust, New Narratives, and Healing Bridges

As an organisation committed to the collective wellbeing of communities in Kuwait, an integral focus for en.v is on the country’s migrant population, whose wellbeing is significantly impacted by the grave consequences they often face working under the Gulf labour market’s kafala system. Broken trust, mistreatment, and abuse are common, as are trauma and mental health struggles. Beyond legal frameworks, cultural attitudes in Kuwait have helped normalise the effects of the kafala system: with certain long-held beliefs about migrant workers and commonplace employment practices, de-facto segregation and a deeply ingrained power balance are the norm. 

While important efforts are in motion to update migrant worker schemes in the Gulf and protect migrants’ wellbeing, en.v recognises migrants themselves are missing from these conversations. In response en.v passes the mic to the migrant community in Kuwait to support systemic change from the ground up. Working with employers of migrant workers and the migrant community, it offers spaces for both groups to meet and begin to build healing bridges. The process is complex, but it is working, and its Global Migrant Workers Network (GMWN), Compassionate Communities programme, and BUILD Ideathon community projects have been recognised as important actors in this process.

“The insight and connection with and from the vast network and community that en.v has nurtured over the years is unrivaled. Their ability to get straight to the beneficiary and those most in need has been inspiring to witness, and a great honour to support.” – International Labour Organization

en.v’s Theory of Change (Credit: en.v/@blancheillustrates)

en.v’s community-led approach to social change is founded on bringing different groups together to work across differences. Building bridges that lead to social change is a complex process – and for en.v, it all starts with a story. 

“In every single piece of our work, whether it’s with labour inspectors, activists in the migrant community, domestic workers, students, academics, or officials from the ministry, we always start with storytelling and connection,” says Eleanor. “We start with some sort of space where we try and get people into an intimate, authentic conversation with each other. It’s in every single thing that we do – having that first moment of building trust and connection, but in safety.”

As different people come together – many for the first time – to express themselves and listen to each other, these moments of connection are rich with opportunity. They help pave the path to reconciliation by the way of self-exploration, bonding, and movement-building. With long-held beliefs contributing to divisions within the community, this is an important step towards sustainable behavioural change.

“It changed my viewpoints on others around me. I lived in a bubble and thought that there wasn’t a community of people who genuinely wanted change too.” – en.v BUILD Ideathon Participant

The AWAKEN journey.

In supporting the migrant community, this storytelling can involve facilitating conversations between workers and employers and creating space for both groups to reflect on their experiences with their peers. For example, generations-long employment practices in the Gulf shape how employers view domestic workers and how domestic workers view themselves. Through dialogue, en.v encourages everyone to practice self-inquiry and reflection. Sharing one’s story and listening to others serves as a foundational, and often emotional, step towards reconciliation. 

“With storytelling, we can think about roots and forces shaping our value systems,” says Eleanor. “We can ask questions: what’s your power in the society? What privilege do you have? How do you move through the society? It’s ultimately a practice in building empathy, deconstructing a lot of the cultural norms, and thinking about how we relate to one another.”

One example of a project defined by storytelling is en.v’s Women’s Circle Project. Held in partnership with the International Labour Organization’s FAIRWAY Project, it brings together female employers of domestic workers in safe spaces to talk about employment practices. These Women’s Circles help to shift employer mindsets, leading to improved relationships and increased fair treatment of workers.  

Storytelling with the migrant community also focuses on understanding values and shifting mindsets, while also caring for the deep traumas felt by the community. Their experiences in Kuwait are often defined by deep feelings of loss: a loss of self while facing exploitation at work and having to support family back home, and a loss of community due to the transient, impermanent type of residency available under the kafala system.

In response, en.v uses storytelling to help the members of the migrant community create a new sense of self and belonging, which can help strengthen their resiliency, increase feelings of agency, and promote healing – an empowering process that helps unlock doors to a new future. 

Mohammed explains this process is essential for empowering community-led action: “If you want for people to really feel like they want to change this place, they first have to feel like they belong here. A lot of what we try to do in our work is try to create a space within Kuwait where they can at least feel like they belong to each other.”en.v helps create these spaces physically – with community gatherings such as its AWAKEN festival or its Aswatna program promoting inclusion in the country’s schools– and figuratively, through various activities such as Mapping Belonging and art therapies. Through different methodologies practiced in safe spaces, migrant and other traditionally silenced or marginalized communities are offered the opportunity to own, share, and rewrite their stories.

While the process of behavioural and systemic change is complex and challenging, these meaningful moments of storytelling are also important marks of progress. At the heart of this storytelling is a true sense of compassion and unity, says Eleanor: “It’s very intimate. It’s really loving work we do, that creates a space where people can really connect.” 

With a vision of solidarity among communities in Kuwait, these emotional connections are the first step towards community wellbeing and healing. 

en.v is a proud member of The Wellbeing Project’s Wellbeing in Higher Education Network. Learn more about en.v’s work to foster transformational leadership and community-building in the Gulf at www.envearth.com.

Welldoing ToolWelldoing Tool

Mapping Belonging

Contributed by en.v (Kuwait)

“Mapping Belonging” is a social cartography exercise that consists of identifying the different emotions that we associate with the different places where our lives (and the lives of other members of our society) take place. It encourages us to explore, from a place of curiosity, our conceptions of identity, belonging, difference and otherness, and gain deeper insights about our individual and collective lived experiences. 

It is a tool that serves as a participatory and experimental research method, while also creating a positive impact on the participants in the process of being implemented: it increases our ability to understand social diversity and empathize with other perspectives and values. 

Collective emotional mapping takes us out of the bubble of our individual worldview and shows us that we are part of a larger system where many different people find many different sources of meaning. A higher sense of self-awareness and social awareness are both key ingredients to the process of strengthening community bonds from a place of compassion and resilience, and they establish the grounds for positive interpersonal interaction and transformative change. 

en.v has been working with its AWAKEN Community of Practice to further refine and test out this tool, and facilitate it across diverse communities in Kuwait, collecting valuable data and promoting self-reflection and connection.

How to Practice

What you will need: a map of your location, coloured stickers corresponding to the emotions chart, cards, and writing materials

Step 1

Welcome participants into the space and tell them a little bit about the exercise. Facilitators can add whatever they consider suitable to this explanation and refer to examples from their personal experiences.

Step 2

Introduce a warm-up / ice-breaker. Before the mapping activity, invite the group to do a short exercise to warm-up and break the ice for about 10 minutes. The activity is called “story-slam”: participants will be asked to get into two lines facing each other and give a 1-minute answer to the person in front of them (at each turn) to the questions that the facilitators will ask out loud. After one minute, one of the lines will move one spot and each participant will be facing someone new and giving an answer to a new question. Facilitators can choose any of the following questions during five rounds:

What is your favourite place in [location]?

Where do you live and have you ever lived in that area?

What place in [location] brings up happy memories and why?

Where do you go when you want to relax?

Where in [location] do you eat the best food?

What are your favourite family spaces?

What is a space that doesn’t feel like [location]?

Are there places in [location]that you avoid? Which ones and why?

What are the places you frequented as a child?

If you have a friend coming to visit [location] for the first time, where would you take them and why?

Step 3

Begin the Mapping Belonging exercise. Start by explaining the activity: it’s an exercise that consists of identifying the different emotions that we associate with the different places where our lives take place. Facilitators will ask the participants to look at the map of their location, with its different zones and areas, and identify the places where they feel these emotions:

While looking at the map and identifying the areas where they feel the different emotions (they can choose 3-4 places for each emotion), participants can take coloured stickers that correspond to the emotions and place them on the chosen areas of the map. This part of the activity can last 10-15 minutes.

Step 4

Go deeper with story cards. After they have finished placing the stickers in the corresponding areas, facilitators will give them a set of cards that contain some questions about the mapped emotions and ask them to write their answers on the cards. Encourage participants to keep their answers short and sweet and use only the space on the cards. This part of the activity can last 20-25 minutes. 

Step 5

Conclude with a group discussion. After participants are done filling in the cards, host a short collective debrief (5 minutes) around the two following questions:

What did it feel like to place the emotions on the map? Are there any reflections or emotions that this exercise brought up for you?

How can we make spaces in [location] more inclusive?

About en.v

We are a culturally diverse and interdisciplinary team of current and former Kuwait residents and nationals working together to foster a more united, compassionate and resilient society – locally and globally. Over the past decade, we have been working with and building bridges between a wide array of stakeholders, including corporates, governmental, intergovernmental and international institutions, foundations, educators, youth, civil society organizations and migrant community groups. Leveraging our own and our partners’ learnings, experience and networks, we design and facilitate inclusive and participatory processes that support the development of more equitable solutions and narratives. Specifically, we:

Develop training and programming which promotes informed empathy, critical thinking, and intersectional frameworks

Support the development and institutionalization of more inclusive and equitable processes and policies

Bring together multiple stakeholders to collectively address complex problems, envision possible futures and promote social transformation.

Wellbeing in West Africa: How We Gather TogetherWellbeing in West Africa: How We Gather Together

Guest post by:

Carina Ndiaye, Chief Partnerships Office, Tostan

In Senegal, we call it Teraanga. It stands for openness and sharing, meaning: “we invite you to come in.” This cultural norm is present throughout the region and across the continent. Words like Ubuntu in southern Africa portray acknowledgment, respect, and coexistence. In Senegal, through Teraanga, the concept behind the Hindi word Namaste (meaning: “the light in me sees the light in you”) is extended and reinforced to say, “what is mine is yours.” This applies not only materialistically but also to the earth, the sun, the sea, and the unseen. From visitor to member, from transitory to influenced, in our culture, the ‘you’ never stands alone. What affects you also affects me and my community, and community includes anyone who walks our way and crosses our path.

As Tostan agreed to host the first African Wellbeing Summit, joining The Wellbeing Project and key partners hosting similar summits around the world, Teraanga has been a foundational concept for us. It is an entry point into the broader West African cultural systems that value people and their shared history and interconnectedness and that prioritize interdependence over independence.

Our upcoming African Regional Wellbeing Summit Dakar-Thiès 2023 reflects our dedication to embracing community-centered models that resonate with our core values. Locally-driven initiatives and capacity development for communities are critical paths forward, as our CEO Elena Bonometti has pointed out. But at the heart of our vision is Teraanga, where openness and sharing guide us in meeting the multifaceted challenges that our world faces. In Senegal, when challenges arise, a community gathering – referred to as a “pénc” in Wolof – is called to bring together the community for discussion. The Summit will be a globally-connected pénc, embodying the essence of African-based, African-led collaboration and growth in wellbeing. This is not just a “nice to have”; it is essential to our collective wellbeing and social cohesion.

There is a deep respect here for where people come from and for who and how they are. Many traditions create space for people to be seen, acknowledged, and recognized. Through greetings, names, joking, showing respect, and almost countless ways of engaging, we witness and reinforce one another. We see more clearly the threads interweaving our collective well-being. These traditions aren’t technical solutions or abstract topics; they are ways of meeting and gathering together, of creating spaces and openings where we can understand one another, share our perspectives and passions, and work better together.

With over 32 years of experience as a Senegal-based organization, welcoming partners from more than 50 countries far beyond Africa’s border, at our Tostan Training Center, we have come to understand that these ways of welcoming, these traditions for creating space, for seeing and being seen, can be powerful. As our global community seeks to find ways to support increased wellbeing in a context of increasing urgency and challenge, we hope our African Regional Wellbeing Summit Dakar-Thiès 2023 can contribute and share these ways of coming together.

Through our collaborative planning for the Summit, we have found some important themes to explore together. These include mental health, digital wellbeing, wellbeing in the workplace, and others. But the success of our conference won’t be limited to topics, action plans, or best practices. It will also depend on how people feel when they leave, how they can sustain connections, and whether they have found some new ways of inviting change into their lives, their organizations, their work, and our world.

About the African Regional Wellbeing Summit in Dakar and Thiès, Senegal

Join us for the first African Regional Wellbeing Summit in Dakar and Thiès, Senegal, hosted by Tostan from November 29th to December 1st, 2023.

The Summit will be an opportunity to engage in workshops, panels, and social moments to explore wellbeing, especially for those working in service for community-led development, from diverse African perspectives. Discover themes including mental health and its impacts on wellbeing, the role of religion, youth, and digital health.

A “Pénc” for African Wellbeing: Convening social change actors at a critical moment A “Pénc” for African Wellbeing: Convening social change actors at a critical moment

Guest post by

Elena Bonometti, CEO of Tostan

African, community-centered, collaborative models are showing a way forward that is organized around locally driven and globally supported efforts. Locally-led initiatives, capacity development for communities and agency-first programs are mapping ways to both address unequal and antiquated power dynamics, and ensure that communities are centered and leading as they face shared global challenges.  

Yet even with promising directions like these, the realities of rapid, multiple global crises and growing challenges have also created a largely unaddressed and growing risk: those at the center of social change and wellbeing efforts are being stretched increasingly thin. In particular, there is a growing risk that the wellbeing of the social sector and community leaders is declining when the world needs it the most. 

Wellbeing can be defined in numerous ways. In Tostan’s work in partnership with communities, it is communities that define what wellbeing means for them and their goals. Commonly we see themes around health, finance, education, women’s leadership, equality, and governance emerging. These are lessons we must take into professional, personal and community-wide projects to consider wellbeing not as a “nice to have” but as absolutely essential to social cohesion. 

The potential challenge  of a decline in wellbeing is especially relevant  in West Africa, where a  social sector already confronted in recent decades by major issues — in health, education, economic hardship and many others — now faces many new challenges simultaneously – as climate change joins pandemics, challenges to peace and security and the erosion of democracy, and increasing inequality. 

Yet West Africa also has many positive aspects and major contributions to make to our world – ways of seeing and being that promote inclusion and respect and increasingly feel relevant to a fragmented world. As my colleague Carina Ndiaye, Chief Partnerships Officer for Tostan puts it:

In Senegal we call it Teraanga. For openness, sharing. It means: we invite you to come in.  But this cultural norm is present throughout the region and throughout the continent…Through Teraanga, the concept behind the Hindi word Namaste (meaning: the light in me sees the light in you), is extended and reinforced to say, what is mine is yours. Not only materialistically, but the earth, the sun, the sea, and the unseen as well. From visitor to member. From transitory to influenced. In our culture, the ‘you’ never stands alone. What affects you, what ails you, what reinforces you also affects me and my community. And community means any, and everyone, who walks our way and crosses our path.

In Senegal and across West Africa, when challenges arise, a community gathering – referred to as a pénc in Wolof – is called to bring together the community for discussion. 

For all these reasons Tostan and our partners will host an African-based, African-led, globally connected pénc – a convening at the intersection of wellbeing as a global goal–and growth of wellbeing as a daily practice in our organizations, communities, and personal lives. To support the emergence of sustained impacts in wellbeing through practices of wellbeing. wellbeing within ourselves, our organizations, our communities, our nations, and around our world. 

Together with partners like you we hope to convene a discussion among African actors about critical local, regional and global issues at the heart of wellbeing across the continent. 

In collaboration with Vuslat Foundation, Generous Listening will be put forward at The Wellbeing Summit as one of the essential elements of wellbeing and a way to deepen our connection with ourselves, each other, and nature.

Generous listening is the practice of listening, to oneself, to one another, and to nature – with an open mind, with compassion, and without prejudice or agenda. It is the ability and willingness to expand our horizons, reach insight and enlightenment, and form empathy and understanding across deep divides.

Generous listening arrives from the practice of taking oneself out of one’s comfort zone, knowingly exiting the echo chambers or ideological bunkers in which we exist, and making an active effort to listen to opinions, ideas, and experiences that may challenge us. 

Generous listening leads to authentic connections and revelation. Through listening generously and working together to cultivate a culture of generous listening, we can transform the way we experience the world – Vuslat Foundation.

HOW IS GENEROUS LISTENING INTEGRAL TO WELLBEING?

We believe that listening plays a key role in the creation of a culture of wellbeing. A healthy relationship with self is essential for sustaining relationships with others and this in turn also affects the way we connect with our work and the world around us. 

Wellbeing is the experience of wholeness and interconnectedness and derives from a lifelong journey of inner work and conscious and intentional choices. 

Kindness, vulnerability, connection, and community can only be cultivated through the three pillars of generous listening: listening deeply to oneself, listening genuinely to one another, and listening sincerely to nature.

Through learning to listen deeply to ourselves, we can cultivate better mental health. Be it through self-compassionate approaches like spiritual practices, meditation, and journaling, or through seeking external guidance through therapy and more, we can embark on both self-development and self-acceptance. Only through some degree of self-awareness and inner peace, can we achieve compassion and empathy towards others. By opening the space and holding the intention to listen generously to one another, we overcome the modern epidemic of loneliness, forge authentic connections, and find paths to bridging cultural or political differences. Finally, we must listen generously to nature in order to value, preserve and seek refuge in the world’s natural environment which nourishes us and gives us life. Our common need and desire for security, safety, and belonging can be attained through cultivating a culture of generous listening. 

HOW IS GENEROUS LISTENING INTEGRAL TO THE WORK OF SOCIAL CHANGE, GOVERNMENT, ARTS AND BUSINESS LEADERS TO CREATE LASTING SOLUTIONS AND SYSTEMATIC CHANGE?

Social change and inner wellbeing are deeply interconnected. Changemakers who dedicate their lives to working on some of the world’s most pressing issues must similarly demonstrate leadership in listening generously, both to themselves, to others, and to nature. To drive meaningful social change, changemakers must have an acute ability to listen to the needs and experiences of the communities around them. To consistently display the adequate courage and compassion to respond to the challenges of others, they must first and foremost possess a state of inner wellbeing. Through being able to listen compassionately and intuitively to oneself, changemakers will then be able to step outside of themselves to understand the viewpoints of others, gain a more holistic perspective, and tackle social and environmental challenges. 

VUSLAT FOUNDATION AT THE WELLBEING SUMMIT

Vuslat Foundation is a global initiative that fosters a deeper appreciation of listening as the essential element of all our connections. The Foundation creates awareness about and spreads the skill of generous listening. Established in Switzerland in 2020, with offices in Istanbul and London, Vuslat Foundation works with artists, storytellers, changemakers and thought leaders. Through partnerships with academia, civil society, artists, and businesses; the Foundation develops knowledge, research, methodologies, and tools on generous listening, cultivates generous listening in the ecosystems of youth and children, and builds awareness and inspiration on generous listening–deeply aligned with the Wellbeing Summit.