Values in Action

Reflecting on the values, mindsets and attitudes that we bring to our work is critical for fostering co-creativity. Our guests Dimitrios Papalexis and Aruna Venkatachalam, who work within the community development arts and corporate sectors, share insights about what guides their work and how they have put these values into practice. Topics explored include:

• How Dimitrios and Aruna’s unique life experiences, cultural influences and exposure to different worldviews have shaped their values and how they work
• Useful frameworks and tools for fostering co-creativity and identifying the strengths of a community or organisation, such as asset-based community development (ABCD) and ‘jugaad’, a strengths-based approach
• The value of creating safe spaces which facilitate collaboration and trusting relationships and how the cultures of the organisations and systems we work in can greatly influence how we work and interact with others, and
• The importance of looking within and possibly reconsidering our mindsets and values to better enable us to listen actively to others, build on strengths and be comfortable in the unknown

Transcript

To ensure accessibility we are committed to providing transcripts of all our podcast episodes - you can read the full transcript here.

Resources

Young Change Agents ‘Lighting the Spark’ report: https://youngchangeagents.com/research (to request access) 

ABC news article about Lighting the Spark program in Bundaberg:  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/first-nations-entrepreneur-program-lighting-the-spark/101301144 

Design Thinking: Introduction from IDEO  https://designthinking.ideo.com/ 

The Circle Way: Pocket Guide https://www.thecircleway.net/booklets 

Podcast (teaser) about the Refugee Podcasting Initiative: https://anchor.fm/dimitrios-papalexis/episodes/Refugee-Settlement-Journeys---Teaser-evba78   

Eight Aboriginal Ways of Learning – Framework and resources: https://www.8ways.online/  

The Circle Way website and resources:  https://www.thecircleway.net/  

Art of Hosting website and resources: https://artofhosting.org/ 

Ethical storytelling: 7 Steps to Ethical Storytelling (G.R.E.A.T) https://gettingattention.org/ethical-storytelling/ 

Guests

Dimitrios Papalexis is the founder of Soulgen, a social enterprise consultancy specializing in asset-based community development, storytelling and arts for social impact. He has a background in linguistics, communication, psychology and community development. 

You can find Dimitrios online on SoulGen website | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram 

Aruna Venkatachalam is the General Manager, Partnerships and International at Young Change Agents. She has worked in international community development, commercial leadership development and social enterprise for 15 years. Aruna spent four years in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka where she capacity-built local community organisations, social entrepreneurs, STEM professionals and students by providing training, frameworks, mentorship and connections in design thinking and best-practice community development. 

You can find Aruna online at Young Change Agents website | LinkedIn 

Get in touch

Email - [email protected]

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Collaboratory is written, edited and produced by Maya Haviland with production and editorial assistance from Nicole Deen. Audio engineering by Nick McCorriston. Music made especially for us by Seprock. Additional research and production support by Yichen Li.

Collaboratory is produced on the lands of the Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri  people. We pay our respects, an ongoing gratitude to the custodian's past present and future of the lands on which we work and of the knowledges from which we learn.

Collaboratory is a production of the Scaffolding Cultural Co-creativity Project hosted by the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University funding is generously provided by the Australian National University Translational Fellowship Scheme.