Community Health Village: Solid Advice for Proposal Submission
We are so excited to announce that Team CommUNITY will be hosting the first ever Community Health Village this Fall to help digital rights defenders come together around equity, healing and learning! The Village’s theme is “Sustaining Networks & Movements” and we are currently looking for session proposals focusing on health and healing through a community lens. The deadline for session submission is September 9.
The Village comes at the heels of our recent Community Health Report, which was released in June of this year, and looked at the mental health and wellbeing of digital rights networks throughout the world.
We’re looking for talks on topics such as mental health, addressing ruptures in a community, building better community infrastructure, community leadership development for; and addressing toxic barriers, like sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination in the workplace and in our community networks.
Who Should Submit?
While this Village is focused on addressing issues in the digital rights and Internet freedom community, we encourage anyone that has ideas or expertise in the topics listed above to submit, particularly folks that have experience working with movements, marginalized groups, and/or global communities. You do not have to be a mental health professional to submit an idea. In fact, we are excited to receive ideas from folks that have experiences working in diverse communities.
A Note on Language
While English is the language franca, given the global nature of our community, we are not looking for perfect English. In fact, if English is not your first language, and you feel you need help with copyediting your material, or language support during your talk, we can help. We will do everything in our power to accommodate your needs.
Guidance on Submitting
You can submit your session proposal here. The best submissions help accomplish one (or all) of the following goals:
Provide individuals with useful tips, knowledge or skills that help strengthen their resilience and/or understanding of both community and mental health.
Support organizational leaders and decision makers better strategize and design solutions that help the people they serve become more resilient.
Help shift the culture of the digital rights and Internet freedom space by providing information that could push the community, funders, and decision makers to invest more resources into providing an evidence base to donors so they can fund more psychosocial care and health initiatives.
Good sessions provide useful information, discover knowledge, and create conversations that advance a deeper understanding of an area. In addition to this, they provide space for participants to provide feedback and/or ask questions, and are as interactive as possible.
As a rule of thumb, we encourage folks to design their session to be interactive, so that participants are encouraged to ask questions and share feedback. Participatory elements in sessions allow participants to create knowledge by sharing their expertise with others. We encourage you to check out this wonderful resource for inclusive facilitation within marginalized communities, which was developed by and accessible through The School of Unity and Liberation.
Think About Other Diverse Learners
Think about how you can bring in visual learners, neurodivergent people or those who love creative methods of learning. While conducting sessions virtually can be challenging, try to utilizing tools outside of power points. This can include pen and paper drawing exercises, quizzes, or small group exercises in breakout rooms– all of which can nurture a great conversation about the content of your talk. For further reading on this, see this post in Nonprofit Quarterly about why our collective mind is greater than our individual solutions.
Who is Picking the Sessions?
Ultimately, our new Director of Community Mental Health, Selma Zaki, will be overseeing the selection process. Selma is a mental health professional who comes to us from our Lebanese community, and until recently was working with diverse communities in New York City. You can learn more about Selma here.
Formats
This year, we are offering diverse format options for presenters, ranging from storytelling to trainings. Make sure to review the formats before you submit, which can be found on the Community Health Village landing page.
Submit your proposals here by September 9th.