RTV# 49: Sketch it Out!

A Year of Raising the Village. Week # 49: Sketch it Out!

What kinds of relationships do you have? What kind do you want to have?

We recently presented at a conference in Alberta that was entitled “It Takes A Village” (see ARCQUE http://www.arcqe.ca/ ). Not only was this a chance to engage and share our village raising information it was a chance to learn from a spectacular group of community builders. We were blown clear across the beautiful Prairie landscape by their top notch welcoming conference coordination, Canadian groundbreaking Accreditation standards and their Village raising expertise.

Part of our workshop offering was to have participants create relationship maps around WHO was in their village (or network of stakeholders). We continuously delight in the creative ways people respond to this exercise and are firm believers that there is not one way to do this. The maps have varied from purely pictorial, to basic bones, to extremely intricate ones. The key thing here is that participants put the amount of detail that helps them clearly identify and map out the resources, strengths, and collective possibilities within their community.


Alberta held up the creativity bar and provided many detailed maps. In the photo above you can see one example from these bright engaged village sketchers. Here this duo decided not only to list out the many relationships, they decided to map out the range (or kinds) of relationships (before we prompted them to)!They connected partners with strong highways, bumpy roads, train tracks etc.


Feel like trying this out? Your turn! Grab a piece of blank paper and draw out your own relationship map. Using the above map as inspiration, consider relationships that are...

• over the rails or on the other side of the railroad tracks






• built with bridges (already constructed or in various stages of construction)






• direct close links






• two way streets (and those that are one way)






• more of an indirect distant connection (maybe even a bit loopy with communication pathways)






• brand new






• established, but could use some strengthening or attention

Here is another way we take people through these maps. Draw relationships you consider:

• in cooperation (working side by side but not on a common vision together)






• in coordination (maybe you work on a project or event that you co-plan)






• in collaboration ( a longer term commitment such as an early years table)

How is this helpful?
You can look at the maps, reflect, set intents and base your plans around engagement. You can open up the dialogue with others and sketch it out together. Do this as part of your evaluation and revisit your map to see how relationships change over time.

Village Raising Questions:
What kinds of relationship are on your map?
What kinds of relationship do you want? How will you build these?
Where do the other people on you map want to be in this relationship (have you asked them)?




Watch for our upcoming Action Guide series for fuller community mapping exercise (and how to build on this).