The Passion and Politics Lab

Shaping society and policy without losing passion and ideals

Despite many differences among the countries of the Arab world, many of their institutions and their leaders face similar challenges: The conditions and opportunities for shaping policy and society have been changing since the Arab Spring.

The Passion and Politics Lab provided a space to explore how change agents in different positions and sectors can deal with dynamic systems and address the topics for which they have been demonstrating in the street.

Dates and Locations


"It is important to understand opinions that are different from ours. And it is important to change one's point of view by sometimes representing the people and sometimes the elected council. The Lab and especially the role plays helped me to understand that and trained my skills."

Rola Jadallah, Vice Mayor of Jenin, Lab participant

25

Participants

Among the 25 change agents (44 % female, 56 % male) were, for example, a professor from the Arab American University of Jenin, representatives of the Finance Ministry of Morroco, and the founding team of the transparency NGO IWatch in Tunisia.

6

Countries

Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, the West Bank, Yemen.

LAB IMPRESSIONS

The Process

Between November 2012 and October 2013, the program brought together 25 change agents (44 % female, 56 % male) from 6 different countries in the Arab world: Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, the West Bank and Yemen. Among the participants were a professor from the Arab American University of Jenin, representatives of the Finance Ministry of Morocco, and the founding team of the transparency NGO Iwatch in Tunisia.

The aim of the one-year Lab process was to build participants’ individual leadership skills, using a value-centred approach that particularly focuses on their methodological skills and on building their capacity to facilitate systemic change. The process also aimed at developing participants’ broader understanding of change processes in social groups, organizations and systems, thus enabling them to apply their newly acquired knowledge to their own change projects. The participants met four times (in Rabat, Tunis, Otranto and again in Rabat). Convened by the Global Leadership Academy and the Deep Democracy Institute, and drawing on the method of the latter, the Lab introduced concepts and practical interventions based on modern physics, the science of complexity, and cutting-edge psychology. It included a new approach to awareness training on rank and privileges, and trained leaders and change agents not only to manage diversity and power processes, but also to harness and develop their potential. Participants learned to facilitate large, diverse groups and to uncover their enormous potential. One of the main aspects was dealing with different opinions and roles. Together with the facilitators from the Deep Democracy Institute, the participants addressed questions such as: ‘How can leaders from politics and society come to terms with the fact that the processes of change may be very slow or lead to contradictions? And how can this have an impact on their own commitment, passion and ideals?’

During the first two Lab meetings in Rabat, Morocco (7 – 9 November 2012) and Tunis, Tunisia (27 February – 1 March 2013), the focus was on leadership issues such as how to create alliances and partnerships, and how to tackle conflict situations of the kind that frequently arise in countries undergoing transformation as well as volatility in one’s stakeholder landscape. Personal learning about leadership was linked to the development of participants’ individual change projects. The third Lab meeting in Otranto, Italy (11 – 13 June 2013) focused on the participants’ change projects and their ongoing implementation in the home country context. Leadership themes covered in the first two modules were revisited, with participants reflecting on their personal learning processes and applying them to their projects. The fourth and final Lab meeting, once again in Rabat, Morocco (22 – 24 October 2013), brought to full circle the year long dialogue process. It focused on addressing the individual challenges of the participants especially in the context of sometimes unstable situations in their home countries, and setting further ground for coaching participants with their change projects. 


Impact

The Global Leadership Academy's objective is to enable change on a personal, organisational, and systemic level. The Passion and Politics Lab takes an emergent approach to change – it doesn't formulate the objectives for change initiatives, instead, the Lab provides an enabling space where new ideas can be sparked, networks created and paths to change tried and tested.

Stories of change

Achref Aouadi is the founder of IWatch, a youth-led organisation and one of the prominent Tunisian NGOs established after the revolution.

Read Achref's story

Rola Jadallah is Professor of Biology and Vice President of Planning and Development at the Arab American University in Jenin. In October 2012, she was elected vice mayor of Jenin.

Read Rola's Story

Amr El-Fass is a professional in training, coaching, and business development who founded Mohazzaboon, an initiative to revive ethical thinking in society.

Read Amr's Story

Sali Mohsen M. Hafez co-founded the Arab States' Youth Coalition on Population and Development. She made it her aim to empower women and girls to be able to autonomously access health services and information about reproductive health.

Read Sali's story

“It takes a lot of practice to really change your attitude toward opinions that make you angry at first, and to make yourself ready to really listen to the others and understand their viewpoint. It was the first time we really learned how this can work and had space to practise it and reflect upon how to implement it in our work.” 

Sali Mohsen M. Hafez, The Arab States’ Youth Coalition for Population and Development

Our Partners

We implement all our programmes in cooperation with our internationally renowned partners with whom we share our passion for dialogue and change and our commitment to high quality standards.

Our Convening Partner