Overview
When we share power, we learn about one another’s needs and we combine our resources, skills, memories, beliefs, and identities to be more powerful in the face of injustice than we ever could be alone.
Elandria said: “Collective power is our communities’ ability to thrive. Power to me is a spiritual force that one has. It is what we are guided by.” Power sharing is an active process that requires trust. We must build the structures and relationships that enable trust and then we must work, every day, to maintain them. As the world around us changes—as regimes come and go; as we organize to claim positions of formal power; as floods, famines, or earthquakes shift the ground beneath our feet—we must already be figuring out how to work together. In a system based on hoarding power, choosing to build a world where power is shared will require us to work alongside unlikely allies, with whom we never imagined uniting to build a common future.
Guiding Questions
Where is power hoarded in your community? What other sources of power could you tap into to meet your needs?
How is power being shared in your community? How can we build our capacity to share power?