If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.
Joanna R. Macy
‘PB has a pedagogic function, to bring citizens together, demand discernment and a critical spirit of them, reinforce their neighbourhood ties, commit them to social justice and expand their perception of the world, so that, starting with the neighbourhood, they can understand that we live in a global village, in which the survival of future generations depends, today, on our ability, to administer it well, following the practice of globalisation of solidarity.’
Frei Betto, philosopher of liberation theology and advisor to social movements in Brazil.
What’s the Big Deal with Participatory Budgeting (PB)?
I think of PB as a way of practising democracy. ‘Communal self-governance, decision making by public discussion’ was the practice in many communities of people throughout the world long before the word democracy started being used to describe representative governance (often not representing everyone!).
For me democracy is a group of people being deliberate and active in designing systems for decision making, communicating, encouraging and supporting involvement – with built-in systems for reviewing the whole process and learning from it.
The Zero Waste North West team have been practising democracy from our early days when we set up our system of autonomous subgroups. Our more recent Ways of Working Agreements outline a simple transparent system for looking after ourselves and each other – and they are open to everyone to review in January each year.
ZWNW also made the decision to be a legal entity with a constitution , charitable status, a bank account, insurance and required policies. And so we work within the regulations drawn up by other groups of people.
We could at some time decide to stop being a legal entity and still continue to practice democracy.
I personally am also happy seeing what we do as practising anarchy ‘a system in which all members are equal in terms of authority’. I am realistic enough to know that both democracy and anarchy can be chaotic and infuriating and require a big commitment of time and energy. I am also lucky enough to know how great it is to be part of this energetic group of people who are actively engaged in thinking about, trying out and choosing systems which work for us – and checking regularly to see if they are still working. We are building solidarity and support networks. And we need them.
Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a tool which is used by statutory and community groups. It was started by a local authority in Porto Alegre Brazil in 1989 as an anti-poverty measure. The New York Times calls PB ‘revolutionary civics in action – ‘it deepens democracy, builds stronger communities and creates a more equitable distribution of public resources.’
Community Places have been giving support to people running PBs in NI since 2017. The ZWNW PB process is following the guidelines of the PB Charter and using the toolkits and resources on the Community Places website.
Benefits from the PB process include working together to prepare bids; getting to know others and letting them get to know about you; letting others know what you would like to do while hearing the same from them; delivering a fun and transparent way to support good things happen. Done well, PB can strengthen a network of relationships on which future collaborations may be built while delivering immediate concrete actions.
Normalising Climate Action: exploring ways to connect with communities we are part of and communities we aren’t part of – so we can all learn from and understand each other.
For the Normalising Climate Action PB, Maria Herron and myself are the design team – which means we can’t submit a bid this time. We are supported by Anjuli Grantham, Maeve Leahy, Marcella Di Palo and Conall Morrison with feedback and tech support. And also supported by Noeleen Diver from PB Works who has wide experience of PBs. Thank you! Maria and I have agreed to use ‘consent’ as the basis for our decision making.*
As members of ZWNW we take it for granted that climate activism is part of our lives. For a lot of people we know it is just too overwhelming to even begin to begin to think about taking action for change. This PB pot of £6,000 is available for proposals which explore ways of involving our friends, family and community in the journey of learning, connecting and building ways of working together to create new possibilities which care for people and our planet.
Bids can be submitted on the form below until March 14th. If anyone has any questions please contact marian@zerowastenw.org and we can arrange a chat.
There will also be an online support meeting Wed 19th Feb 6pm.
I am looking forward to finding out what the ZWNW team comes up with J
Marian Farrell
16th Feb 2025
*Without having named it as ‘consent’ this is the practice ZWNW has always used – if someone has an idea and is willing to put time and energy into making it happen, then the rest of the team will give consent and support if possible. The only times that consent won’t be given is if the idea would be harmful to anyone or damaging to the work of ZWNW. I am very happy to talk about what I know of ‘consent’ as it is defined and used in sociocratic decision making. If you are interested, please get in touch.
