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      • Barefoot Guide 10 - Je mange Africain
    • Barefoot Guide 11 - The Climate Emergency
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  • Home
  • Writing School
    • Online Stories of Change Writing Class
  • Download the Guides
    • Barefoot Guide 1 - Organisation Development >
      • BFG1 العربية
      • BFG1 Bahasa
      • 漢語
      • BFG1 English
      • BFG1 Español
      • BFG1 Português
      • BFG1 Français
      • BFG1 KiSwahili
    • Barefoot Guide 2 - Learning Organisation >
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        • BFG 2 Manuel complémentaire Guide Barefoot 2
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    • Barefoot Guide 3 - Transforming Health Systems
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        • BFG4 Writeshop
      • Barefoot Guide 4 Français
    • Barefoot Guide 5 - Mission Inclusion >
      • Barefoot Guide 5 - English
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      • Barefoot Guide 5 - Kiswahili
    • Barefoot Guide 6 - Generative Leadership
    • Barefoot Guide - Surviving COVID-19 >
      • Barefoot Guide - Surviving COVID-19: The Neglected Remedy
      • Le mini-guide Terre a Terre - Survivre COVID-19: le Remede Neglige
      • Sobreviviendo COVID-19 en MexicoO
    • Barefoot Guide Whole Landscapes
    • Barefoot Guide - Practices of Collaboration >
      • Guide Pieds Nus - pratiques de collaboration
      • Guía Descalza - Prácticas de Colaboración
      • Barefoot Guide - Practices of Collaboration
    • Barefoot Guide 10 - My Food is African >
      • Barefoot Guide 10 - My Food is African
      • Barefoot Guide 10 - Je mange Africain
    • Barefoot Guide 11 - The Climate Emergency
    • Barefoot Guide 12 - Healing Congregations
    • Barefoot Guide 13 - Restoring our Home in Nature - the ABN Story
    • Embracing Practices of Inclusion
    • Buy a hard copy
  • By Languages
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  • Library
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“Going barefoot is the gentlest way of walking and can symbolise a way of living - being authentic, vulnerable, sensitive to our surroundings. It’s the feeling of enjoying warm sand beneath our toes, or carefully making our way over sharp rocks in the darkness. It’s a way of living that has the lightest impact, removing the barrier between us and nature."  
​
​Adele Coombs, Barefoot Dreaming
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​Learn to Write Stories of Social Change 

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Join us for our next online
Stories of Change Writing Course

​Learn to write compelling case stories of social change


​Our unique methodologies help to surface the deeper inside stories, enabling you to draw out rich reflections, learning and implications for future practice.

Our next course begins on
Tuesday 6th May 2025.

​Click here for details and registration

A new publication
from Barefoot Guide, PBA and RVO

Stories from the Frontline of Public Private Partnerships

What can we learn from the approach and experience of people engaging in partnerships in their daily practice?
This is an anthology of eleven compelling stories, each of them a testament to the trials, triumphs, and untapped potential inherent in PPPs. Accompanying the stories are an analysis and insights, all of which capture the essence of our collective pursuit: to find ways to work together that make a difference.

In June 2023, partners of the Sustainable Development Goals Partnership (SDGP) facility of RVO gathered to share their experiences and write their stories about engaging in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). The writing workshop (‘writeshop’) was part of a four year PBA accompaniment trajectory to RVOs SDG Partnerships. A number of PBA Associates worked on this accompaniment trajectory. The writeshop is a method of the Barefoot Guide to help practitioners reflect on their practice, and was facilitated by the Barefoot Guide Connection together with PBA.

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Click here to Download
the book


A new Barefoot Guide
Restoring our Home in Nature

The story and practice of the African Biodiversity Network

In this Barefoot Guide you will find the story of the African Biodiversity Network’s transformative journey, including stories from our members of the unique practices that have been supporting communities across Africa to reconnect to their roots and to nature.
 
This story of origin shows how culture and tradition are inspired by natural phenomena, giving birth to life-sustaining knowledge. This is indigenous knowledge held by elders and custodians of the Earth community and passed down through observation, participation, and practices rather than books. Indeed, storytelling around the fire, dialogue, and nature observation foster inter-generational learning beyond the classroom or book learning.
 
This Guide highlights the rich, inter-generational knowledge within African communities, emphasising ABN’s learning journey and respect for the ancestral wisdom of elders often overlooked in governmental “development planning”. It portrays stories from ABN partners across Africa, illustrating the transformative power of collaboration in reviving indigenous roots and reimagining sustainable futures. The ABN effectively addresses challenges by employing proven methods, forging alliances, countering unsuitable development approaches, and proposing resilient and sustainable alternatives.
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Click here to Download
the Guide



Outside Story  Inside Story

 The Power of Stories in  Practices of Social Change
​by Doug Reeler

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A new writing which explores the role of stories and story telling in social change and how writing and working with stories of change can transform social change practice

​​Download
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A new publication from the Barefoot Guide Agroecology Series

The Climate Emergency

How Africa can survive and thrive

By The AFSA Barefoot Guide Writer’s Collective
of the Agroecology and Climate Crisis Working Group
The climate emergency affects us all deeply, in so many ways. But for farmers, it has more drastic implications. It undermines all aspects of the food systems that they depend on. Extreme weather devastates their crops and livestock, and destabilises the very water cycle that they are intimately a part of.

Today, the majority of the solutions put forth and funded by governments and donors to address these problems are, in the long term, making things worse. Industrial agricultural methods, posing as “Climate Smart Agriculture”, encourage excessive use of chemical inputs on plants and in the soil, another example of the false solutions brought by the rich and powerful.

​But there is a different narrative at work in Africa. The stories in this AFSA Barefoot Guide show that African farmers, long seen as victims, are beginning to implement lasting, sustainable solutions to the climate crisis in Africa. Indeed, they are examples that could well be followed by all farmers.

Through agroecology practices, not only are farmers naturally adapting to the inevitable and growing harm of the climate crisis, but they can also make significant contributions to its mitigation. Read this Barefoot Guide to find out how.
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This mini-Barefoot Guide has been produced by ​The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), a broad-based alliance of different civil society actors that are part of the struggle for food sovereignty and agroecology in Africa.​

​Download this Guide

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​How are Barefoot Guides produced?

Barefoot Guides are produced by various communities of practice. The Barefoot Guide Connection team facilitates a series of "writeshops" of practitioners and leaders to design the Guide they wish to produce and then to surface and develop stories of change practice, with reflections and perspectives from these.

​These can be done online or face-to-face.


​We accompany editorial teams to further refine and develop the drafts into the final writings, to work with illustrators and then to bring the Guide to publication.

Email us if you would like to discuss producing a Barefoot Guide or getting support for producing a publication.

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Taking Agroecology to Scale
Learning from the experiences of
Natural Farming in India


A ground-breaking publi-cation on Community-managed Natural Farming (CNF) as practised by almost 1 million farmers in Andhra Pradesh state in India. The government there has committed to the transition of ALL six million farmers by 2030, mobilising all their resources and civil society behind it. It is one of the big, hopeful stories of our time and may show the way for so many more to follow.

This booklet comes from a learning exchange with the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) who are learning from CNF in their promotion of Agroecology across Africa.

The Barefoot Guide Connection facilitated the booklet's production and provided language editing.

         Go to the AFSA website to Download


About the Barefoot Guide Connection
​
​The Barefoot Guide Connection is a global community of practice from dozens of countries, on every continent, dedicated to promoting the writing and sharing of real stories, approaches, ideas and resources about effective social development and change practice.

​Through online or face-to-face storytelling and action learning-based case study writing, we support on-the-ground practitioners to write their stories of practice, helping them to better see and value their experience and appreciate the insights and wisdom they can offer to others. 

Through writeshops (writing workshops) and support, we can help your team, organisation or community of practice to write your own stories and publications about social change initiatives, including new Barefoot Guides.

Click here or Write to us here 

for more details​

​Subscribe ​​to Updates

​Contact us
Access all the Guides
​العربية    Kiswahili      Español
Bahasa      English     Français
​
漢語      Português       Việt

Do you
have a story
​of change to write?
Through writeshops (writing workshops) and support, we can help your team, organisation or community of practice to write your own stories and  publications about social change initiatives, including new Barefoot Guides.

For more details​

Click here or
​write to us here 

Download
all ​the Guides

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​Barefoot Guide 1
Working with ​Organisations ​​and Social ​Change
​
Download English PDF​


Download all languages

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Barefoot Guide 2
Learning Practices in
Organisations &
​Social Change


Download English PDF​
​
​
​Download all languages


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Companion to Barefoot Guide 2
Designing and  Facilitating Creative Conversations & Learning Activities

Download English pdf
​​Download French pdf

Resources for Social Change
We also have a range of useful exercises, tools, games, stories and poems for you to download and adapt for workshops and meetings
​Go to the Resource Library
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​Barefoot Guide 3
Mobilizing Health ​Assets for ​Transformation 
​
Download the PDF in English

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Barefoot Guide 4
Exploring the ​Real Work
​of Social ​Change


Download English pdf

Download all languages


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​Barefoot Guide 5
​Mission Inclusion:
​Building a World Where ​All Belong
​

Download English pdf

Download all languages


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​Barefoot Guide 6
Generative Leadership:
Releasing Life in a Turbulent World


Download English PDF

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Barefoot Guide​ 7
Surviving COVID-19: 
​
The Neglected Remedy


Download the PDF in English
​
​
Téléchargez le PDF en français​
​
​
Descarga el PDF en español

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Barefoot Guide 8​
Whole Landscapes,
Whole Communities


Download the PDF in English
​

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Barefoot Guide 9​
​Future Convergence:
Cultivating Practices of Collaboration
for Social Change

Descarga el PDF en español
​

​Download the PDF in English
​

​Téléchargez le PDF en français​

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Barefoot Guide 10​
My Food is African​
Healthy soil, safe foods and diverse diets


​Download the PDF in English
​

​Téléchargez le PDF en français​

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Barefoot Guide 11
The Climate Emergency:
How Africa can survive and thrive


​Download the PDF in English



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Barefoot Guide 12
Healing Congregations:
Nurturing Love, Life and Hope in a Hurting World


​Download the PDF in English



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Barefoot Guide 13
Restoring our Home in Nature: The story and practice of the African Biodiversity Network

​To be launched on 22 September 2023




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All Barefoot Guide Images are in the Creative Commons

​Free for you ​to Use

​All the images used in the Barefoot Guides are freely useable for non-profit work. 
Click here for access to the images

WHAT HAVE OTHERS SAID ABOUT THE bAREFOOT gUIDES...

The Barefoot Guides have been the key influences in my life and work… my constant companions in my community and organisational development work. 
Marie Corcoran-tindill, Trainer, Facilitator of community and group processes, Dublin 

The Barefoot initiative is itself an exciting expression of social change. 
Inez Hackenberg, Utrecht University 

As a trained action learning facilitator their guides have helped me work with grassroots communities in Myanmar and Thailand. 
Kevina Maddick, Program Manager at Right To Play, Bangkok 

The Barefoot Guide's transformative process… shows us the way to transcend borders, sectors, limits, to break the silos! 
Vincent Stevaux, ITECO, Bruxelles

Barefoot Guide has been creating phenomenal content for the critical process of experiential reflection at both individual and organizational levels. 
Jesse Chen, Changemakers, Washington 

…a wonderful contribution to open access knowledge, grounded on a great depth of experience and horizontal learning from across the world. 
Samantha Button, East Africa Program Head, Maliasili 

…the Barefoot Guide collection is having a great influence, especially the lives of field workers and communities. 
Muta Wakilu Tamasco, Ghana 

The Barefoot Guide Connection has a unique and truly transformational approach to collaboration, learning and facilitating social, transformational change across borders. 
Tobias Troll Director, EDGE Europe at EDGE Funders Alliance, Bruxelles 


This unusual and exceptional volume (and series) is hugely accessible yet deeply rooted in solid theory and extensive practice across a wide range of contexts and fields. Expect from it something truly unique in its combination of insight, reflection, experience and highly usable mixed text/visual presentation. It is not "dumbed down." I have seen it bite as deeply at high academic and professional level as at grassroots community leadership level, an astonishing achievement worth honouring. 
Professor Jim Cochrane Cape Town 

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