Build Your Own Community Assembly

​Join this interactive workshop to explore how community assemblies can empower citizens to shape local decisions. Through storytelling, group planning, and hands-on design, participants will learn how to imagine, build, and launch their own assemblies.

​SPEAKER

​Lucas Veloso, Community Assemblies Manager

​Lucas leads community assembly pilots in Brazil and Mozambique and trains new facilitators bringing democracy to life on the ground. He’s a researcher on democratic innovation and global governance at the University of Padova and UFMG, and has helped shape both the first Global Citizens’ Assembly and Brazil’s Citizens’ Assembly on Genetic Editing.

​DESCRIPTION

​This session will answer the question: how can we bring citizens’ voices into local decision-making? It mirrors the structure of a community assembly, moving in real time from learning → deliberation → action, showcasing:

• ​What community assemblies are, how they empower citizens, and the transformative potential of participatory “glocal” governance

• ​Stories and visuals from ongoing pilot community assemblies, highlighting the challenges, successes, and creativity of citizen-led deliberation

• ​A hands-on, interactive experience where participants imagine and design their own community assemblies, using guided prompts to experience how the process can spark creativity and empowerment