Un/Making CSC
Collaboration

Collaboration

Against a hegemonic discourse of ‘partnership, these metaphors offer expressions of genuine collaboration and fair relations in development.

A digital photo of differently coloured pipe cleaners twisted into a strand. This metaphor represents the idea that our approach has different strands, meaning different teams, different themes, which each look distinctive but all strands are working together. We are always flexible, changing and evolving, but maintaining connection, and maintaining the core.
Our approach has different strands, meaning different teams, different themes, which each look distinctive but all strands are working together.
Digital photograph of a mirror; a material metaphor that represents the idea that the approach is like a mirror. It involves a constant cycle of doing and reflecting, doing and reflecting. Our work is a reflection of where we are as an organization at any given time. A mirror helps you to see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. It can also be about helping others to be critically reflecting through the work. The gaps between the mirror shapes could also be showing that it is always a work in progress. Social change is also like a mirroring process. With social change we’re trying to enable positive attitudes shifts, and that gets mirrored back to enrich the approach of our organisation.
Our approach is like a mirror.
Digital photograph of a drawing of a bicycle; a metaphor for development projects.
Development projects are like bicycles.
Digital photograph of the river feeding into the lake.
The river feeds into the lake. The lake depends on the river and the river depends on the rain.
A digital photograph of a drawing of a football pitch. A material metaphor that represents the idea that development is like a football team. Development is like football, it requires coordination and support by different people. The community are the players on the field, but they also need to collaborate with the coach, the manager, the trainers, who are the government, NGOs, and other stakeholders. Without coordination, the team loses and for development there is no direction neither is there any tangible progress in terms of positive change.
Development is like a football team.
A digital photograph of a wrapped object. A metaphor to represent the idea that CSR is like one of those old coir mattress. The structure on the outside is the project and the CSR funding is the coir on the inside. Although it is not very soft, it gives us some cushioning - we’re not approaching multiple funders so it is comfortable - and it also provides some structure. It does have some give or flexibility where we can add our work - we’re able to communicate with the funders and tell them what we have in mind and because of that it is more cohesive. The white cover is because all these interactions are not usually visible on the surface, they happen behind the surface.
CSR is like one of those old coir mattress.
paper with pompoms and paperclips folded as a soundwave to represent a collective voice
Our media involves working with lots of different stakeholders.