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INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT · ARLO BODO

Rethink the norm.
Build otherwise.

NORMAVERSA works with organisations, networks and communities to question established ways of working and build alternatives - through programme design, facilitation and critical research.

This can include programme and organisational reviews, action plans, trainings, facilitated processes and qualitative research.

GET IN TOUCH EXPLORE THE SERVICES
01 / Practice

Doing, undoing, redoing.

Practices are never neutral. They reproduce norms through the problems we define, the categories we use, the knowledge we legitimise and the people we include or exclude. 
NORMAVERSA works with people and organisations to make those choices visible, undo what limits participation and develop alternative ways of designing programmes, producing knowledge and working together.

NORMAVERSA is a coined name drawing on the Latin norma - the norm or rule - and versa - turned. It names the practice of turning norms around and refusing to treat them as inevitable, opening space for other ways of knowing, deciding and working.

NORMAVERSA draws on queerness as a methodology: not only as identity, but as a practice of unsettling what appears fixed, undoing categories and assumptions, and experimenting with other ways of knowing, relating and organising.

02 / Services

Services

Programme Design

Designing programmes that do not treat problems, identities or solutions as self-evident. Examining how needs are framed, which categories are reproduced and who holds power over priorities, decisions and definitions of what counts as success.

This can include:

programme and project design · access and participation action plans · gender and intersectionality reviews · participatory planning processes · theory of change development · reviewing existing programmes for barriers, assumptions and blind spots · integrating meaningful participation into programme design

Training & Facilitation

Holding spaces where dominant norms can be made visible, fixed categories unsettled and tensions explored - while participants shape both the processes and what emerges from them.

This can include:

tailored trainings · staff workshops · strategic retreats · facilitated reflection processes · capacity-building programmes · participatory consultations · learning events · sessions on power, access and participation, gender, sexuality/ies, intersectionality and decolonial approaches

Critical Research

Using research to examine how systems of power (re)produce exclusions - and what situated knowledge and lived experience reveal that dominant frameworks leave out.

This can include:

qualitative research · programme reviews · gender and intersectional analyses · stakeholder consultations · interviews and focus groups · evaluations · evidence reviews · research-informed recommendations

Organisational & Programme Review

Reviewing how participation, gender, sexuality, access and power are embedded across programmes, policies and organisational practices - and translating the findings into concrete recommendations and action plans.

This can include:

access and participation action plans · gender dimension reviews · LGBTQIA+ / gender and sexuality reviews · accessibility and participation audits · review of outreach and selection processes · review of participation barriers · consultation and engagement reviews · recommendations for organisational or programme change

Ways of working

One-off

Workshop · training · facilitated session · programme review

Short process

Action plan · consultation · research assignment · programme redesign

Longer collaboration

Programme development · organisational review · learning process · multi-stage research

03 / Approach

There must be other ways.

Five principles guiding how NORMAVERSA works.

  1. 01Power-conscious
  2. 02Deconstructive
  3. 03Intersectional
  4. 04Situated
  5. 05Self-reflective
04 / Selected experience

Selected experience

Selected examples from ten years of designing programmes, facilitating learning and conducting research across civil society, grassroots movements and international institutions.

International LGBTQIA+ youth programmes

Programme design and facilitation across study sessions, thematic webinars, capacity-building programmes, academies and international conferences for LGBTQIA+ young people and youth organisations internationally.

Safer support services

Training, service review and improvement with professionals supporting LGBTQIA+ people, examining systemic barriers within existing services and developing safer approaches.

Rethinking methods and methodologies

Facilitation and critical reflection through participatory workshops examining how race, class, (dis)ability, mobility and visa regimes shape what we do and how we do it - and exploring more transformative alternatives.

Gender in international programmes

Research, gender analysis and programme review examining how gender is constructed, understood, integrated and assessed across international programmes.

05 / About Arlo

About Arlo

I'm Arlo (they/them), a Brussels-based programme designer, facilitator and independent researcher working across LGBTQIA+ rights, youth work, international cooperation, gender and sexuality. For ten years, I have worked with civil society organisations, grassroots movements, youth networks and institutions internationally. My practice brings queer feminist, intersectional and decolonial thinking into practical work. Also informed by my lived experience as a queer trans person from a working-class background, NORMAVERSA asks how power operates - and how things might be done otherwise.

06 / Contact

Let’s undo it
together.

Based in Brussels · working internationally · available online and in person

Get in touch if you want to design something new, rethink an existing programme or process, facilitate a collective conversation, or investigate a question more critically.

arlo@normaversa.com