The REWIRE incubator aims to help rising civil society leaders from Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria embrace a mindset shift to improve their effectiveness and become better at selling MORE democracy.
APPLICATION CLOSED
APPLICATION CLOSED
OUR MISSION
We believe in a world of hope, where civil society changemakers help people dream big and be brave together. With democracy at a crossroads, we have a narrow window of opportunity to turn hope into action and sell a positive vision of democracy.
Our hope-based incubator will help participants develop the tools needed to build powerful new narratives and create mindset shifts within themselves, their organizations and wider societies. They will form a new cross-border community dedicated to building and supporting hope-based leadership.
OUR ASK
We are looking for 15 rising civil society leaders in the pro-democracy space from Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria, who work on a wide range of issues from elections and human rights to sustainability and civic education. We want a diversity of leadership skills and roles. You could be an effective community organizer of an informal group or communications director at an established civil society organization. You do not need to have a legal entity behind you, but you must demonstrate an ability and desire to impact and influence your community.
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Have a good level of English.
Are open to innovation and adopting new approaches to social change.
Are interested in the role emotions and psychology can play in your work.
Are a driver of change within your organizations or community, and willing to learn new tools to implement a mindset shift through peer-to-peer learning.
Are comfortable using social media to tell your story.
Are committed to being an active member of the hope-based community and co-operate across borders.
Align with core democratic principles: defending the rule of law, safeguarding the democratic process and promoting fundamental rights.
OUR OFFER
We will help members of the community embed a mindset shift to become more resilient leaders by offering continuous support over a five month period to help them drive change.
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Incubator timeline (Phase 1): start February 2024 and finish end of June 2024
In person hope-based training workshops in Budapest (March 2024)
Ongoing office-hour support from hope-based experts.
Online conversations with inspiring and innovative thought-leaders who challenge the status quo.
Inspirational examples, ideas and practical insights to help you get energized.
The chance to co-create and deliver tools that help cement a hope-based mindset shift within your organization or community.
Peer-to-peer resources to train others.
A new cross-border community dedicated to building and supporting hope-based leadership.
To be confirmed in January we plan to continue and develop the incubator with the same participants into the second half of 2024 and first half of 2025. A second in-person training focusing turning HOPE INTO ACTION will be followed by a trip to Western Ukraine near the Polish border.
APPLICATION CLOSED
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In the course you will learn about:
Insights from fields like neuroscience and psychology about how human beings function that is vital for social change.
The latest social change strategies from other parts of the world
Simple tools you can use to change your own mindset and help others to also think differently
The course is built around the FIVE hope-based SHIFTS, with each one presenting a different aspect of relevant neuroscience and new strategy tools.
Shift 1 - Fear to Hope
Understanding and working with political emotions
Shift 2 - Problem to Solution
Connecting vision and strategy. Becoming an aspirational organization. Using hope as a smart strategic planning tool. Solutions-based research.
Shift 3 - Against to For
Strategic use of values. Developing narrative strategies based on deep mindset shifts. Embedding values in organizational behavior.
Shift 4 - Threat to Opportunity
Organizing movements for deep cultural change. Re-thinking audience strategy. Brand strategies for creating membership belonging that drives social change.
Shift 5 - Victim to Human
New strategies for storytelling and narrative change. Designing empathy-based activism. Using the “be the narrative” to design new engagement and activism activities. Designing marketing strategies for social change.
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Developed over four years working with activists across Europe and the Global South, a hope-based mindset aims to bring about positive behavioral change. Originally developed at Amnesty International to help human rights activists adopt new narrative strategies, it enables activists to focus their work on their values and their vision of the world they want to live in. In practice, this means developing tools and strategies based on the change they hope to see.
Many of the fields that civil society actors come from are based on an outdated understanding of how human beings work. Together with changes in technology, new findings from fields like neuroscience and psychology demand an updated toolbox for 21st century activism, one focused less on raising awareness and more on changing awareness. Instead of name and shame, we need to rename and reframe.
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REWIRE is led by Unhack Democracy in partnership with the Bulgarian Center for Non-Profit Law (BNL), the President of the Polish Political Accountability Foundation, and Thomas Coombes, formerly deputy head of Communications and Amnesty International and pioneer of hope-based communications.
The programme is co-funded by the European Union (PROTEUS).
REWIRE LEADS
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Thomas is the founder of Hope-based Communications and the former Head of Brand and Deputy Communications Director at Amnesty International. He has spent fifteen years working in political communications for the Berlin-based anti-corruption NGO Transparency International, the European Commission in Brussels and global PR firm Hill & Knowlton. He is a mix of Irish, British and French and lives in Berlin.
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MBA, Zsofia Banuta is a co-founder and CEO of Unhack Democracy. She is a former broadcast journalist and entrepreneur, who started her career as an international business news producer at CNBC in London with a focus on the new EU countries. Zsofia is the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership (IVLP) alumna of 2023 and member of the Recharging for Advocacy for Rights in Europe (RARE) programme’s 2nd cohort.
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Elliott is a co-founder and Executive Director of Unhack Democracy. He is a British-based journalist focusing on human rights, politics and digital democracy. He is a winner of the Wyn Harness Journalist Award, contributor to the International State Crime Initiative and current Winston Churchill Memorial Fellow. He is an advisory board member of We Make Change, a social action social network.
PARTNERS
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Desislava Simeonova is the Programme Director at BCNL. She spent nearly 30 years working at the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the largest human rights organisation in the country, where she was in charge of fundraising, programme and project management. She also took part in the organisation’s research programmes and activities involving vulnerable groups. In September 2023, Desislava joined the team of the Bulgarian Centre for Non-Profit Law as a programme director. Desislava graduated from Sofia University with an MA in English Philology.
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Zahari Iankov is a legal consultant at the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law (BCNL). His work focuses on legal research on different topics such as the rights of children in criminal proceedings, the right of freedom of assembly and freedom of association. Zahari also supports citizens and civic organisations through consultations on the legal framework and procedures for the initial registration of non-profit legal entities, prepares legal opinions for public consultations and creates content for the website of BCNL. He holds an LLM from the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski” and a master's in democracy and human rights in Southeast Europe (ERMA) with a double degree from the Universities of Sarajevo and Bologna.
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Zofia Lutkiewicz is the President of the Political Accountability Foundation (PAF) where she leads projects on democracy promotion, election integrity, and countering disinformation. PAF is a leading Polish NGO organising non-partisan domestic election monitoring in Poland, as well as election observation missions across Europe and the former post-Soviet space. Zofia was recently appointed as board member of the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE).
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Emese Stork is a freelance design researcher with a focus on civic and public life. She has been awarded by GSA Innovation School: Creative Bravery Prize for her Ministry of Social Trust concept addressing the political polarization. Her speculative design work, in which she investigated the notion of caring citizenship, was published in the London Design Biennale 2023 Care Manifesto. Currently, she supports the development of the indie infotainment role-playing videogame, Supermajority, which tries to increase awareness of the conflicting interests in political decision-making.
