Supporting faith leaders and organisations to influence attitude, behaviour, and social change that protects and empowers children, families and communities.

This guide is for ‘Champions’ of Mind-Heart dialogue: religious leaders and their institutions, and staff of organizations and agencies aiming to influence positive change for children, families and communities.

In this guide, you will find a mixture of activities that reflect on scriptures, draw in facts and engage people’s life experiences and emotions. Mind-Heart dialogue often involves a physical activity to deepen discussion, include diverse voices and strengthen experiential learning. Our usual discussions can lock us into patterns of thinking and reinforce existing unbalanced power relations and structures; but adding a visual and physical element helps people become less self-conscious and defensive, engage more actively and notice new things. Mind-Heart dialogue creates a spacefor more equal partnerships as everyone contributes, thus catalyzing innovative and collaborative thinking.

Mind-Heart dialogue is a reflective and experiential learning process, exploring faith convictions, lived experiences and knowledge to influence positive social and behavior change. It supports faith groups and development partners to work together to protect and empower children, families and communities. It is an evidence-based approach that penetrates deeper than usual participatory approaches, messaging and awareness-raising to surface the emotions and beliefs that can help or hinder lasting transformation.

This guide is designed as a complementary part of a wider FPCC package of supporting resources, which should ideally be used together to support the implementation of the guide’s recommendations. These resources are available on the JLI FPCC page.

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