My name is Piotr Cykowski. I live in Warsaw and I founded and run Laboratorium Narracji (Narratives Laboratory), a small non-profit organisation exploring how stories help people act together for social change and the wider web of life.
I have been an activist since the late 1990s. I started with human rights: in Amnesty International's second Warsaw group I was among the people who initiated the Write for Rights letter-writing marathon, today the world's largest human rights event. For years I worked for Tibet with the Polish Friends of Tibet Association, the International Tibet Network and the Tibetan Programme of the Other Space Foundation, which I co-founded in 2006. Later I focused on human rights and equality in Poland, with the Association for Anti-Discrimination Education, the Klamra Foundation and the Warsaw Multicultural Centre. In 2015 I co-founded the Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD). Since 2016 I have worked as a campaigner at Akcja Demokracja (Democracy Action), currently on nature and climate.
Since 2024, when the Polish edition of "Active Hope" by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone was published, I have been running Active Hope workshops, circles and walks, as well as the nine-month Active Hope Journey.
What I offer
- Active Hope workshops inspired by the Work That Reconnects: working with emotions about the social and planetary crisis, from a single session to a cycle of several months.
- Climate Fresk and Biodiversity Collage: three-hour, science-based workshops. I am a certified facilitator of both.
- Public Narrative: workshops based on Marshall Ganz's method (the story of self, us and now), for people who want to tell the story of their cause so that others join in.
- Campaigning and mobilisation: consultations and workshops on building campaigns, messaging and engagement.
- Facilitation: meetings, circles and group processes where emotions and relationships matter.
I have extensive experience in running online meetings and long online programmes, and I know how civil society organisations (NGOs) work from the inside, having worked in them for over 20 years.
Training
I completed the TROP Trainers' School, the School for Leaders of the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, the School of Applied Drama, the School of Integral Ecopsychology and the Ecopsychology Trainers' School, the Active Hope facilitation course with Chris Johnstone and Madeleine Young, and the "Framing and Narrative" and "Security and Resilience in Activism" trainings at the Ulex Project (Spain). I learned Public Narrative through the Leading Change Network. I took part in the US State Department's International Visitor Leadership Program. I receive regular supervision for my work with groups.
I work mainly in Warsaw and online, and I am happy to work with organisations from other places too. I can issue invoices for workshops.
Contact: fundacja@narracja.org