Our First Fold Project Aim
To gather a core group comprising of 30 sisters in Nairobi, Kenya, and begin a
conversation that will continue to unfold over the following year or so. The in-
person three day gathering will enable the group to cultivate a safe and sacred space while also listening to the spirit’s movements among us. This gathering will also have experts to train the 30 sisters in group facilitation skills, but who will also lead us in processes of team building to ensure that we are all on the same page going forward.
Post-gathering, we will engage more sisters – 175 – at varying times, by
inviting them to virtual and physical forums in the subsequent months.
These first 30 sisters will comprise of women religious drawn from various
countries in Africa taking in to account more diversity makers such as – length of time in religious life; international and indigenous congregations; nationality & lingua franca; educational background etc.
The project seeks to ensure as much representation as possible from the different demographics that make up African sisters.
Over the course of one calendar year the core group using the facilitation
skills will engage at least 175 more sisters of similarly diverse backgrounds
and continue discussions on the same themes stated previously.
The responses of all these discussions will be collected as data. Sampling the core group and the larger group is key to ensure a diverse as a possible
representation of religious life that is different from the silos that may exist of
homogenous networks that bring together leaders, formators, similar
ministerial or educational backgrounds etc.
A consultant with expertise inquantitative and qualitative research will be engaged to advise not only on how best to undertake sampling, but also how curate the data and information gathered during our discussions.
The results garnered from the discussions over the one-year period will be
coalesced into an open-sourced tri-lingual manual that will be shared widely
around the continent through various conferences of women religious but
subsequent forums will also be scheduled to allow further conversation on the published manual. We shall encourage all the participants to continue the conversations beyond our gathering spaces within their own communities to hear as many different opinions as possible.
