Our Values

Written by Larry Watson

Creativity

Creativity lies at the heart of everything we do. It is what brings us together. It forms the basis of our relationships and is how we connect with each other.

Collectively we strive for the right and the opportunity to be creative. As individuals, we recognise and celebrate the creativity of others and seek to find ways to ensure that everyone has access to creative experiences and expression.

Our creativity motivates us to make things happen, to nurture, enable and collaborate.

Our creativity provides us with passion and energy, it drives our commitment to being open to new ideas,  inspires our learning and informs where we position ourselves within our communities and cultures.

Participation

The Rising Sun has a long term interest in participation and in understanding how it works. For us participation is about people from different backgrounds working together creatively, supporting and inspiring each other.

The Centre is run by teams of people of all ages and abilities and from all cultural backgrounds. We recognise that our success is due in part to the different viewpoints and experience brought to the centre by those involved.

We work hard to be as inclusive as possible and while this is an ethical concern it is also for us an effective way of achieving our goals.

We believe that participation involves inspiring people to take meaningful control. In our work it means devolving decision making outwards to the teams who are responsible for the centres core work and giving them the support they need to manage projects and processes.

Knowledge

Participation is a largely an uninvestigated field of work.

The Rising Sun is committed to improving our understanding of participation.

Participatory projects which happen at the centre and the centre itself are modelled on what we have established through experience and tested in real world environments. The absence of a formal body of learning regarding participation at the level at which we work means this is a necessary process if we are to develop our knowledge further. We are pioneering ways of working, which demonstrate innovative participatory processes.

We are committed to constantly improving our knowledge and the centre’s work is an ongoing learning project dedicated to better understanding of participatory processes.