5
Plan and act: Questions for a grassroots discussion
The questions below can support your community in sketching out a simple situation analysis and identifying the priority actions to move towards the vision of the desired future for the territory of life and the custodian community.
- Reflecting on the strengths, challenges, threats, and opportunities facing our territory of life (see #Understand) and our role as custodians (see #Vision & Celebrate), what needs to happen, or change, to achieve the positive vision of our community and our territory of life?
- Is there something impeding that change? What can we do to surmount or counteract it?
…What are our priority actions?
- Possibilities include:
- Defending the territory of life against specific threats
- Enhancing the recognition (e.g. legal recognition) of our community tenure or other rights
- Enhancing respect for our community governance – external and/or internal
- Restoring or better protecting the ecosystems or species in our territory of life
- Enhancing the capacity of our territory to support our community livelihoods (e.g. by providing us with water, productive resources, protection from disasters)
- Enhancing the connection between our territory and community
- Receiving concrete backing of local rules from the police, technical agencies, the justice system…
- Gaining better external or internal socio-economic support to do what we need to as custodians
After your community has identified one or more priorities on which to act, concrete planning can start. Discussion questions include:
…the What?, Who?, and When? of the action plan
- For each one of our chosen priorities, what exactly do we wish to achieve?
- Who could be engaged?
- What can we do, as a community on our own? Is there any major change needed in the way in which we live, work and organise ourselves?
- Who, within our community, can (or could) provide leadership and inspiration?
- Do we see any specific role for the elders in our community? The youth? The women? The men? The children?
- Who else is (or could be) engaged and committed?
- What can we do together with other custodian communities and local allies?
- What partnerships or alliances can we count on or seek anew? (See also #Act with Others)
- What specific ‘priority actions’ should we take?
- Are elements of #communication to be involved in our priority actions?
- When shall we act? If applicable, shall we communicate before (‘announce what we will do’) or after our action (‘report what we have done’)?
- What human, financial and other resources do we need?
- Do we have resources to implement our priority actions– including knowledge, skills, information, time, and any relevant technology (e.g., cameras, GPS, vehicles, communication equipment…)?
- What supplementary technical, human and/or financial resources do we need?
- How can we obtain those supplemental resources – e.g. from other communities, partners, donors, etc.?
- How shall we monitor and report on our progress? (See also #Review & Renew).