Reflex #1 – A Song For You
Now that I got your attention.
We got a song for you to vibe with.
Our gratitude runs deeper.
My mighty soul, I give it my everything.
It echoes soul, (echoes soul).
It goes on and on.
Welcome to Our Bureau
Press play and enjoy reading
This is a reintroduction to us, and a revitalisation of us.
We (Constance and Bhavik) have been building Partnership Bureau for the past few years, navigating full-time employment and side hustles across continents. But we are here now, full-time and giving it our all on our shared dream.
Before talking about Partnership Bureau – this journey predates us, it starts with our families. From Ghana and India, they came to the UK in the 60s and 80s, working at Ford factories to the NHS. They came for us – their future descendants – in search of what they believed was a better life, where there were opportunities, and dreams that could come true. We became part of the fabric of British society, but we are the products of the empire’s legacy (blunt but true) as kids born in the 70s and 90s in East London and Essex.
Our own paths have criss-crossed across media and film and investment banking, and yet we found ourselves at an intersection on the journey of life at Nesta in the innovation space. (Constance initially hired Bhavik for an internship). We became colleagues and then friends, bonded over shared experiences of being black and brown, diaspora, working class from the East End (and further), as well as games, art, music, and film.
Working at the cross-section of innovation, philanthropy and development largely in the Global Majority, and living in the global minority made it clear to us the very real issues of power, equity and access across both contexts, and we asked ourselves, is that the world we want to live in, or do we want to do something about it…something that doesn’t already exist.
So here we are, almost four years later, of which the last 2 years have been fully operational.
For a while, we have been on the edge – looking in, wondering, and overthinking about the what, why, when, where, and how.
But finally, we realised that we need to bring our whole selves
So this is us bringing our whole selves.
Here is your formal reintroduction
Partnership Bureau is a Ghana-based non-profit and consultancy with a global consciousness. We believe in better agency for people, organisations and networks. For us, more curiosity, confidence, collaboration, creativity and community can create meaningful social change.
In the social change space, we deal with a lot of intangible concepts that are difficult to recognise, understand and address. We felt the issues of power, equity and access (PEA) affect the ability to build (better) agency, and these concepts are difficult to see – we want to make the invisible visible.
Our philosophy is to bring a PEA lens to any work – whether it’s research or facilitation – these are considerations that inform our praxis – our ability to design and deliver training, tools, insights that create better agency. Learn more here.
We act as advisors, guides and practitioners to navigate how funders, dreamers and communities can build better agency in themselves and their own circles.
The multi-hyphenated identity doesn’t sit well with some people and organisations who like to box us in, but we can’t be – we contain multitudes that allow us to deeply care about the breadth and depth of change, while continually building our craft.
You might be asking for all of this talk about agency and making the invisible visible…we haven’t really given a practical example of what this really looks and feels like – here is one of our favourites.
Imagine, if young people had access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) materials and resources, what types of ideas and things would they conjure up?
We asked young people aged 11-16 to come up with solutions for issues in their communities. For the past four years through the Ghana Science and Tech Explorer Prize, we have seen (year after year) the ingenuity of young people from biodigesters that produce electricity and a sanitation solution in rural villages to using artificial intelligence in smart devices to monitor mood and well-being.
The innovations themselves don’t have to be patented technology, but the application and creativity of different forms of technology and resources to solve real-life problems (or even to dare to try!) is the true innovation.
While the innovations are the visible things that come as a result of this work, something is happening under-the-radar – invisible, subtle yet powerful – it’s building agency. A generation of young people are asking themselves why, questioning the status quo, making demands over what is needed or creating something despite the system.
This is one version of what better agency looks like for us.
For us, this is more than work; this is a passion and commitment to navigating social change in a big or small way – this requires soul.
We try to bring that soul into our practice and praxis
Well, that’s who we are and who we want to be.
End of the spiel
We found our voice was lost, while we were caught in the acting and doing, we forgot to share our journey and dreams.
This post was a snippet into our story.
Our Bureau is a calling to find our voice, not just as Partnership Bureau, but to our many friends, allies, co-conspirators, constantly navigating in the acting and doing – this is a shared and collective platform to represent the curiosity, imagination, critique, strategy, reflection and fun of being in the social change space.
In the age of too much information, a blog or article can seem overwhelming. Our Bureau grounds us in sounds as you read. Sounds are incredibly important to our lives (not just because we love Afrobeats!), it gives us a space to find the spark for us to imagine and dream.
Join us on a journey.
Partnership Bureau is your bureau.
Our Bureau is your bureau.
A Song For You is a Berlin-based vocal ensemble that brings together international artists who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour). Founded by Noah Slee and Dhanesh Jayaselan, the collective centers underrepresented voices and narratives and released its debut album Home in 2024.
You can buy the Home album here.
https://www.hkw.de/en/programme/sound-base-berlin/a-song-for-you
[This content was not created or written by AI. We will not be using AI to write in the Reflex blog series]