Why People Working for Change Need to Think Beyond the Present
- Shiela R. Castillo
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
There is something strange about asking people working for social and environmental justice to think about the future.
For many of us, the present is already demanding everything we have. There are crises to respond to, communities to support, programmes to deliver, funding to secure, rights being eroded and systems that seem increasingly unwilling — or unable — to change.
Right now we're having to defend our entire humanitarian system. Who has time to think about 2035, let alone 2050?
But perhaps that is exactly the problem.
When all of our energy goes into responding to what is happening now, we can become trapped by the present. We make the existing system work a little better. We prepare for the next crisis. We adapt. We mitigate. We keep going.
Strategic foresight asks something different: What if the future does not have to be an extension of the present?
It isn't about predicting what will happen. It is about expanding what we believe could happen — noticing change before it overwhelms us, questioning the assumptions beneath our strategies, exploring radically different possibilities, and making different choices today because of what we discover.
And for people working for justice, that ability to imagine differently isn't a luxury. It is part of how change happens.
Still, we know that “Strategic Foresight Workshop” can raise a few questions. Will it be theoretical? Corporate? Overwhelmingly technical? Can something genuinely participatory happen online with more than 100 people? And, most importantly, will any of it actually be useful when you return to your work on Monday morning?
Rather than answering those questions ourselves, we thought we'd ask the people who have already taken part.
Reclaiming Our Agency in Uncertain Times
— Soledad Muniz, Director of Programmes, InsightShare, UK
Being part of the Strategic Foresight in Social Justice workshop by United Edge last February was an unexpected gift from the universe. "The future is an act of resistance and collective emancipation." We unpacked the importance of futures literacy for a just world. To restore, transform, and create a world based on fairness and equitable relationships, "we need to use the future to change the present." To shift from the short term (e.g. recycling) to the long term (e.g. rewilding), we need the perspective of intergenerational justice. We need to become the good ancestor. "We must reflect and listen, and leave them the future world that they deserve... and by doing so, we are allowing them to save us from ourselves." Daniel Bevan, Shiela R. Castillo Ⓥ, Matthew Kletzing, and Tamar Gabay (who led my group) did an incredible job at creating a meaningful space for learning, rethinking, and rediscovering.
Understanding the deeper forces underneath the waves, spotting the weak signals, unpacking the myths behind the litany, and building scenarios from the street are concepts that will stay with me for a long time. I am still mulling over those thoughts. Because, as Rid Miller reflected, when they ask us, "What's the point?" we can answer "... the explicit awareness of the diversity of reasons and methods for imagining the future opens a bridge or door to recasting the positioning of human agency...". And that's one thing I'm going to hold on to in these turbulent times of tyranny: my human agency.
It's hard sometimes to climb the mountain by ourselves. The most wonderful part of human beings to me is that we are social beings. Having the chance to learn, reflect, question, and unpack the complexity in social justice with hundreds of leaders in the sector while also understanding the importance of strategic foresight and future literacy in the middle of the polycrisis the world faces was eye-opening. “Transformative rather than incremental change”. I’ll tattoo this quote from Shiela to my forehead for those moments when words aren’t enough to keep pushing forward!
Practical, Human and Anything but Isolating
— Patrick Culver, Emergency Response and Preparedness Consultant; and Decolonization Researcher, USA
I took the Strategic Foresight for Social Justice Leaders course early this year, and it was a wonderful experience that changed the trajectory of my research.
Participants from all over the world spoke from rich experiences and perspectives. Honestly, the community is at least as important as the material itself; it’s not your average group, and something magical happens in this space.
We learned a lot of futures theory, and it’s not the kind that is over your head – it’s practical and immediately applicable. Guest speakers are frequent, and they show their direct application through their day-to-day work.
This course entirely connects to your life. There is a practical session every Friday as well that really helped me concretize the concepts. Shiela, Daniel, Rhonwyn, and Matt will not lead you astray, and even in a virtual room with well over 100 people, you will never feel left out or isolated.
From Reactive Firefighting to Future-Ready Leadership
— Jacqueline C. Samuels, Founder & Executive Secretary, COFGIRLS; Co-Founder and Co-Host, End FGM/C Network Africa, Liberia
Participating in United Edge's Strategic Foresight Workshop in February 2026 changed how I lead. As Founder of the Covenant Foundation for Girls and Co-Founder of the End FGM/C Network Africa, I was already managing complex, cross-border advocacy across Africa, but the Justice Based Approach lens and the strategic foresight tools helped me move from reacting to crises toward anticipating them and creating justice-based futures.
Since the workshop, I've built scenario thinking directly into our planning: it shaped how I approached the Network's 2026-2031 Strategic Plan, helping our team spot governance risks, funding shifts, and coordination gaps before they became obstacles.
I'd recommend this workshop to any social justice or humanitarian leader ready to trade reactive firefighting for intentional, future-ready leadership.
Making Foresight Inclusive, Practical and Community-Centred
— Florencio Venté, Strategic consultant & Intercultural advisor, Colombia
The Strategic Foresight course was a great blend of practical methodology and social impact. It provided clear, actionable tools to make foresight accessible and meaningful for communities, ensuring practitioners think on futures that are both sustainable and equitable.
As someone working in intercultural settings, meeting peers from so many different backgrounds was a great value. Most importantly, the training taught us how to adapt technical methodologies into truly inclusive processes, putting the people and organizations closest to the challenges right at the center of the solutions.
Bringing Justice to the Heart of Foresight
— Olga Tarasov, Vice President, Inquiry & Insights, Foresight & Futures Lead, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Germany
I practice futures and foresight at the nexus of philanthropy and social change, centering communities in imagining and building what comes next. This approach can feel like an outlier in the overall world of foresight. And so, for someone like me, United Edge's Strategic Foresight workshop proved to be a rare gift of clarity and validation, and a galvanizing call to action.
The course masterfully bridges rigorous foresight tools with justice, weaving practical methodologies together with the perspectives of those living change on the frontlines. It not only strengthened my foresight know-how but also reaffirmed that if we cannot imagine radically different, thriving futures, no strategy will help us build them.
This is essential learning for anyone looking to move from reactive to anticipatory, and committed to enacting bold, decisive strategies to enable futures of dignity and hope.
Thank you, United Edge, for curating a truly transformative curriculum.
Looking Beyond Survival to Design What Comes Next
— Pumsuanhang (Michael) Suantak, Founder of eimiAI and the Kangpokpi Coffee Initiative, Myanmar/India
Working at the intersection of rural agricultural tech and indigenous rights, it is easy to get trapped in the day-to-day survival of our projects. The Strategic Foresight workshop with United Edge completely shattered that short-term mindset. It gave me the rare space to look at the 30-year horizon and actively design a transformed future, rather than merely reacting to present-day crises.
The methodologies we learned, like Backcasting and Causal Layered Analysis, were far from just theoretical exercises. I immediately used them to build a concrete, justice-driven roadmap for our coffee farmers in Manipur and Chinland—bridging advanced technology like AI with our tribal Customary Laws to ensure true community ownership.
Learning alongside such a diverse, global cohort of changemakers reminded me that we are not alone in this fight. This course is an absolute must for any leader serious about systemic change.
Another World Is Possible — If We Can Imagine It
— Costanza Pasquali Lasagni, Human Rights and Social Justice Practitioner, UNICEF Project Manager, Italy
Along with the JBA Foundation Course I took last October, the Strategic Foresight for Justice workshop has been a real game-changer in terms of shifting and widening my perspective and seeing the world, ourselves, through a new lens I will never take off. I feel more aware, better equipped, and definitely motivated in pursuing social justice.
Some parts of the world are going through one of the darkest and most tragic phases of modern times, and broken though never-changing models continue to affect millions of lives irreparably. Power continues to be kept by the few and used for personal agendas, no matter what the cost is borne by humankind — and our planet.
Yet.
Yet this is only “a” world — and its distorted order — that is collapsing, while many others are ready to fly, hopefully more just, radical, resilient ones.
Only by re-looking at the very basic moral and ethical foundations upon which our societies are built can we make sure that future worlds are those everybody wants and everyone finds space, safety and freedom in.
I could never thank enough Shiela, Daniel and Matt for crossing my path and enlightening me to continue to follow the path for universal justice, whatever it will take.
Every participant takes something different from the Strategic Foresight Workshop: new tools, new questions, new perspectives, new possibilities. But again and again, they describe the same shift -- from reacting to the world as it is, to imagining and shaping what it could become.
The future isn’t fixed. And if we want more just, sustainable and hopeful futures, we have to be able to imagine them first.
Join the next Strategic Foresight Workshop and help shape what comes next.
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