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Are you shaping the tools or techniques that help other people shape
their world?

There is no job description for what you do. You mix dedication to
social change, confidence with people and organisations, and technical
knowledge or skills. You are part of a growing number of committed
people using innovation and ICT to help others work on social and
political issues. 

PRADSA (Practical Design for Social Action) is running a series of
workshops around the UK to share best practice amongst people with your
hybrid interests and skills. These workshops will offer the opportunity:
.	To meet and work with other people engaged in the same pursuit
as you;
.	To reflect on what you do, share your insights and package them
for wider circulation; 
.	To consider future directions and explore the social and
technical challenges these might raise;
.	To contribute to the store of knowledge and tools that exist
about how to support people trying to improve their corner of the world;
.	To choose the topics that the series of workshops will address,
in consultation with other initial workshop attendees.

The first workshop takes as its theme "Designing the Techniques and
Tools that Shape the Future - Social and Technical Challenges", and will
focus upon the main issues with working to support communities or
organisations concerned to effect change, either in the voluntary,
political or not-for-profit arena. As mentioned, subsequent workshops
will take their cue from the outcome of this initial meeting and we will
also be building an online project space and multi-media resource
repository together, so that we develop an online community of practice,
and make available the best of our knowledge, skills and tools.

We have money to pay expenses and a limited budget to cover your absence
from work if you wish to attend this series and contribute.

The first event is scheduled for May 15/16th 2007, with further
workshops following every two-three months till the end of 2008. There
will be six in all, and each will be held over two days (starting late
and finishing early to permit travel). It is hoped that most people will
be able to attend several of the series - further dates will be provided
in May, for September onwards.

If you are working, however informally, in this area (what we have
called 'technology and social action'), if you can bring some experience
to share and if you find the sound of these events interesting, we would
like to hear from you. Please contact Catherine, by email at:
[log in to unmask]

About PRADSA
The "Practical Design for Social Action" project's goal is to develop
and extend the capability of social action organisations to creatively
design new practices by appropriating and adapting ICTs. There are three
strands to the project, of which the workshop series is one. The other
two are: 
.	To develop a new understanding of designing in social action
settings, grounded in detailed contextual studies of design in practice.
.	To create a collection of practical resources to support the
work of practitioners (and others) including workshop materials and
easy-to-use (open-source) on-line community communications systems.

PRADSA is a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
(AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC) as part of its Designing for the 21st Century programme. 

If you would like to know more about the PRADSA project, please see:
http://www.technologyandsocialaction.org.

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