Rooted: Local Change for Impact
Stories and Practices Weaving Care - from the Ground, Up!
Rooted is a live series of high-voltage gatherings exploring care as a radical act, a way of reclaiming agency, resisting apathy, and reorganizing communities from the ground up. In an age of burnout, loneliness, and failing institutions, we ask: what happens when people stop waiting for permission and start building what they need together?
This year, the Amsterdam Organisational Transitions and Transformations IDG Hub is flipping the script. Across three events at Equals, we’ll spotlight local pioneers - activists, artists, social hackers, community rebels, and people who care - who are shifting paradigms not from above, but from below.
What to Expect at Each Event:
Connection
- Meet grassroots organisers, rogue entrepreneurs, civic designers, and cultural workers who are rewriting the rules of care and connect the dots between their worlds and yours.
Practice
- Drop into hands-on sessions to sharpen your inner development tools, practice community-rooted leadership, and learn how to build systems that feel like belonging.
Reinvention
- Join live dialogues that challenge dominant narratives of success, scale, and value. Expect brave questions, unusual voices, and unapologetic honesty about what care really demands.
Together, we’ll challenge how we measure value, and dream louder, act caringly, connect concretely, about what truly matters
Why you should attend the event
Discover and contribute your agency to the Amsterdam we love, made of tightly knit communities of local action, cultural melting pots, and vibrant counter/thinking.
Change the narrative of what economical, ecological and societal sustainability look like, from top down to ground up.
Stop complaining about what a guy is doing on the other side of the ocean, and see what we can do to stop the crap going on here instead.
Speaker Bio
💥 Event 1 – May 6 Equals Amsterdam we’re honored to welcome four visionary guests whose work bridges art, activism, healing, and systems change:
🎤 Shailoh Phillips – Artist, hacker, researcher & co-founder of Salwa Foundation and Reschooling With, she is currently working on arts in palliative care. Her work lives at the intersection of protest, performance & community organising.
🔗 reschooling.org | artbasedlearningincare.com
🎤 Teresa Borasino – Artist and educator working at the edge of poetics and politics. Founder of Quelccaya, co-founder of Fossil Free Culture and Reschooling With, currently also tutor at the Sandberg Institute.
🔗 teresaborasino.com | quelccaya.org
🎤 Tania Theodorou – Greek artist and co-founder of Dead Darlings, a project reviving "unsuccessful" art into new life while challenging traditional art market hierarchies.
🎤 Monika Stepak – Underground activist, yoga instructor, therapist, circus artist and teacher, youth mentor, researcher and DJ. Founder of Movement Academy, Youth Circus, and Life for Life based at OT301.
🔗 monikastepak.org | ot301.nl
Moderated by Sofia Mourato and Maria Grazia Testa, with the coordination of Marietta Benkhoff.
About Equals:
We strive for equality and diversity in the workforce by actively supporting women* in the growth and development of their careers. By uniting our efforts and celebrating and championing our members and partners, we unlock the full potential of everyone involved.
Joining Equals means more than being part of a community; it means integrating into a dynamic ecosystem designed for connection, growth, and empowerment.
We believe diversity enriches us all and together, we can forge significant change. Whether through engaging workshops or a supportive networking space, Equals fosters a community for collaboration and professional growth.
Sign up at www.equals.nl and join our mission towards a more inclusive and equitable world.
Because only by joining forces can we truly make a difference.