This international Masters Programme, accredited by London Metropolitan University, began in August 2012, at Towerland Wilderness, South Africa, with 21 participants from New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa, Mozambique and the United Kingdom. It offers the possibility to understand and work with more attuned, open and organic approaches to social understanding and practice, respectful of the complexity and true nature of the challenges we face in the social field. Recognising that the world we inhabit is socially and ecologically impoverished, we have chosen to design a programme that will open people’s horizons – both to themselves and to their responsibilities in terms of intervening creatively into such a world...

The programme is radical in that it demands not so much an acquisition of new knowledge but rather the development of new faculties. A very strong focus in the programme is to provide opportunities for students to understand what “reading and making meaning” of social situations enables in their practice, and at the same time to build their capacity to become good “readers”.

The programme will help students develop a deep discipline of learning how to make meaning – of situation and self – beneath the surface, in the midst of ongoing change. This provides a basis for practice – for developing an understanding, and a response appropriate to the situation and the moment. The programme works particularly with, and to help develop, the qualities of attention, awareness and openness. Working patiently and respectfully with attention, awareness and openness allows the full complexity and richness of a social situation to emerge, to present itself completely. It allows the situation to speak for itself.

During the two and a half year programme, six residentials will be held in South Africa, Brazil and New Zealand. For more information on the MA programme, please visit the blog at www.proteusmasters.wordpress.com