What is this Writeshop?
All over the world, there are thousands of stories of distinctive work carried out anonymously by family farmers, including women and youth, on successful transitions to more inclusive, sustainable and fair food systems. Those stories are based on co-creation and the sharing of traditional knowledge and innovations that are helping to make food systems sustainable, leaving no one behind.
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This writeshop, held in the United Nations Decade of Family Farming, is a creative process through which to identify, recognize, write and share stories and experiences from young people, women, farmers, small-scale producers who work to promote, improve and strengthen family farming and achieve prosperous and inclusive rural societies.
How will the Writeshop work?

The Writeshop will be held in English. The same Writeshop will be held in Spanish in late November 2021. 

​SESSION ONE – 25 October 2021 - A series of creative exercises to help you write a first draft of your story.

SESSION TWO – 26 October 2021 - In peer groups you will get valuable feedback on your 1st draft, using a powerful listening approach (head, heart and feet), adding new angles and depth to incorporate into your second draft.

SESSION THREE – 27 October 2021 - Peer feedback on your second draft will be focused on the Action Learning Cycle to draw out interesting reflections and learning to incorporate into the third draft. Elements from the Writing Guide are emphasized to support your next draft.

​SESSION FOUR – 1 November 2021 - You will bring your third draft for a last round of feedback and get tips for polishing it up for the final draft.

A Writer's Guide
Once the course has started we will provide you with a comprehensive and helpful Writer's Guide, full of practical advice for writing and to finetune your pieces. ​
Your Facilitators
​Doug Reeler has facilitated Barefoot Guide Writeshops and provided coaching and editing support for writers for the past ten years.

Cristina Temmink has facilitated various writeshops and will provide technical support.
Our Experience
​The method developed by the Barefoot Guide Connection during the past ten years has culminated in a wide array of nine Barefoot Guides, articles, reports, blogs written by communities of practice in social change fields like health, environment, organisational change, agroecology and inclusion. Most of the hundreds of people we have supported to write stories from their own rich experience had never imagined they could write something worth publishing. But they have and so can you.
Visit the FAO Family Farming Knowledge Platform here

​Dates and Times

​4 x 3.5 hour sessions

25, 26, 27 October and 1 November 2021

7.00 am to 10.30 am - GMT

​This course is free but there are a limited number of places. Please only register if you are committed to participating so that you do not deny others the opportunity.
Our approach
We facilitate enjoyable processes to help participants to overcome their writers’ block and to use the writing process itself to reflect and learn. This also helps those involved in monitoring and evaluation to develop a deeper learning dimension in their practice.​​
​This course is free but there are a limited number of places. Please only register if you are committed to participating so that you do not deny others the opportunity.
​What previous participants have said about this course
 “During the writeshop I experienced my story coming alive and communicating directly to my audience. The direct and honest feedback from my peers helped the story to get even more on purpose.”
 
“Such a simple process, yet so profound. Absolutely loved it. Can't wait for the next session. I feel like the next Jane Austen.”
 
“This course has stretched and deepened how I write.”
 
“If you're a left-brainer, just do this course. Even if you don't particularly need to write anything, although it would be best if you did. It shakes you up and resettles you in a better way!”

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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