Pilot Program Commences 12 May 2026
Community Capacity Builders' Active Citizenship for Systems Change Program is underpinned by findings from a three year research project that investigated how changemakers could increase their social impact. The research project found that while traditional programs assisted participants to create initiatives, they did not provide participants with the knowledge, skills and tools to contribute towards systems change. Community Capacity Builders' Active Citizenship for Systems Change Program addresses this weakness: it has been designed for community leaders who want to act upon their values, challenge systemic and institutional inequities, and create systems change to address society's most pressing problems.
The Active Citizenship for Systems Change Program takes a project based learning approach with participants taking a wicked problem of their choice through the program's four units. These units are:
Unit 1: Strengthening Democracy through Active Citizenship
Unit 2: Types of Community Problems
Unit 3: Understanding Systems
Unit 4: Addressing Wicked Problems
Strengthening Democracy through Active Citizenship
In Unit 1 participants explore why citizens are turning away from democracy and how different approaches to active citizenship can address this democratic decline. During this unit participants will have the opportunity to identify the values underpinning their motivation to address community issues and explore contemporary concepts including ‘woke’ and ‘performative activism’.
Types of Community Problems
In Unit 2 participants compare and contrast simple, complicated, complex and wicked problems. They differentiate socio-ecological wicked problems from human services wicked problems and explore the importance of centring lived experience when addressing wicked human services problems.
Understanding Systems
In Unit 3 participants explore the dynamics of community systems. They identify the problem ecosystem for an issue that they are interested in, including systemic and institutional inequalities. Then they identify the solution ecosystem for that issue and undertake a system gap analysis for the issue.
Addressing Wicked Problems
In Unit 4 participants differentiate the concepts of social enterprise from social entrepreneurship, and systems thinking from complex adaptive systems thinking. They compare and contrast two systems social entrepreneurship approaches for addressing wicked problems and two approaches for system stewardship.