About
Welcome to the “A” Spot!
And just what, you must be wondering, does the “A” stand for?
Why, it stands for “advocacy,” of course. The Advocacy Spot.
Hmmm. Yeah… And I guess now you’re probably wondering what we mean by “advocacy”.
Good question! That, in fact, is exactly what the A Spot is all about! Now that’s out of the way, we can get started.
Pardon me? Oh. Right.
Well, then. Advocacy. Just what is it, anyway? All kidding aside, we have lots of ideas about what advocacy is, and how it’s practiced, and how important it is, but it can be hard to put into words. One of those things that’s easier to talk around than spit right out. But I guess if you forced me, I’d say that advocacy is trying to persuade people that your point of view is the right one — and more specifically, that taking a certain action is in the best interests of everyone involved. This spans everything from where to go for dinner to how to build a school to whether we should invade Mars. Which is nice, because it gives us a lot to talk about here at the A Spot. A lot of ground to cover.
This blog was set up by Teresa Crawford and Matthew DeGroot. In our day jobs we both work for the Institute for Sustainable Communities. In our spare time we work hard to raise our kids, enjoy our communities and time from time geek out over new technologies. We found ourselves consistently sending each other and our other colleagues tidbits of information, links to articles, websites of interest so we set up this blog to capture these resources and our musings about the state of the world of international development.
The organization we work for, the Institute for Sustainable Communities, has been fostering the practice of advocacy at all levels in countries across the world for more than 17 years. We have some strong opinions on the subject, and we want to share them with you. But we also want to hear about your experiences, your opinions, your advocacy successes. The A Spot is about the science, and art, of advocacy. It’s meant to be a hub for discussing advocacy in all its forms, and promoting its wider and more effective practice by individuals and communities across the globe.
We hope you’ll come back and help us out — we’ll do our best to keep things interesting and useful, and we look forward to hearing from you.
Contact us at tcrawford_@_iscvt.org or mdegroot_@_iscvt.org