When disaster strikes, communities come together. Government, businesses, nonprofits, community groups and citizens set aside suspicions and grievances and just do what needs to be done. The overwhelming purpose of saving lives, caring for those displaced, fixing what needs to be fixed draws everyone together. When we come together across old divisions, a lot gets done. Quickly
And, it doesn’t last long. Soon old patterns and suspicions reassert themselves and we’re back to business as usual. Blaming, assuming, posturing. What might shift that?
Project30 is an initiative started in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Taka Nomura, the person most responsible for bringing Future Center work into Japan, wanted to take a bold additional step. Taka’s company, FutureSessions, and NewStories had spent years after Japan’s Triple Disasters of March 11, 2011, helping people learn how to use collaborative, dialogue based approaches to grieve and dream and act and learn. What was the next step? How might this co-creative energy become even more focused on taking action to create the futures we want? Shibuya30 was a first step and now FutureSessions and NewStories are working together to move this approach out into more places!
