Social Innovation Bursary

NGV is offering six bursary places on our forthcoming ‘Gestalt and Social Justice Learning Programme’. The programme focusses on the intersection between gestalt practice and social justice.

The Learning Programme will support your capacity to use gestalt as a reflective citizen, and as a ‘citizen practitioner’ (Parlett) in response to needs and challenges in your locality, country and in the wider world.

Bursary places are either ‘all’ or ‘part’ funded, depending on your ability to pay.

To apply, we are asking you to submit a project proposal for an initiative that brings gestalt (or similarly informed approaches) to a social or environmental issue. We are particularly interested in applications of gestalt in less usual arenas  – maybe in education, business, government, conflict resolution, social work, ecology etc., and/or practical approaches to addressing issues at a collective or community level. For example:

• work that explores relationships across traditional divides e.g. race, geography, politics, class.

• initiatives that support the human rights, opportunities and voices of those least heard from – migrants, those economically and otherwise disenfranchised.

• initiatives that engage with global inequalities, and related sources of  geo-political conflict – such as terrorism/war/economic exploitation/ modern slavery and migration.

• initiatives that support local involvement and participative democracy, building foundations for collective action.

• Initiatives that attempt transformations of systems/processes that support privilege. An example could be work to provide ‘therapy’ to those who cannot afford to pay.

• Initiatives that build relationships across private, public and voluntary (NGO) sectors.

• Initiatives that engage with environmental concerns and economic sustainability.

Projects should be realistic – that is, with the right support you should be able to do them.

In addition to gaining you a place on the Learning Programme (worth £1,100) NGV will do our best to support the project(s) that we consider to be the strongest and support you to find funding, and/or other supports in order to realise your ideas.

How to Apply.

Put into writing what you want to do, and how you will do it. There is an example proposal available to download from this page.

There is no form for this, but please set out your proposal on no more than four sides of A4, typed in font no smaller than 12 point. Please describe your proposal in whatever way you think is most helpful. The questions below may act as a useful prompt, but they do not need to be followed rigidly.

Who are you?

In no more than a few sentences, set out who you are. You might mention your geographic location, current employment position and relevant interests or voluntary positions, as well as your background in gestalt.

What do you want to do?

The main part of the application will detail the project that you imagine doing.

i. What and how? What is your project idea? How does it fit within NGV’s aims and values and with the Learning Programme? It is important to give a clear sense of the goals and the process. What are you hoping to achieve? What would you actually be doing? What is the timescale? Is the work new, or a development, expansion or continuation of existing work?

ii. Why? What led you to want to do this project? Why is this project particularly needed at this time?  How does it relate to other work that is being done in the field? Why are you passionate about it?

iii. Who? If funding were available who would do the work? This might be you, existing colleagues or people you have yet to find. What skills, experience, knowledge and networks will they need? Are these already in place and, if not, what support will be required?

iv. Impact? How would the project be documented and evaluated? How would you share the lessons learnt from your work with others? What difference would the project make?

v. Risk Are there any significant risks associated with the proposed work? If there are, please explain these briefly and indicate how you plan to manage them. Please use an appendix to provide more detail if necessary.

vi. A budget How much will the project cost? Please show us that you have thought about the various costs in delivering your project

Please send proposals to John@newgestaltvoices.org by 5pm UK time on 16th October 2020