Understanding Resilience

What is Resilience

Resilience is about knowing when to bend, when to endure, when to stand firm, and when to choose a completely different path.

We understand resilience as the capacity for continuous transformation through both perseverance and purposeful withdrawal. This isn’t a fixed trait but a dynamic process that follows natural ebbs and flows, recognizing that forward movement sometimes requires stepping back, and that lasting change often emerges from allowing certain structures to gracefully dissolve rather than being rigidly maintained.

Levels of Resilience

Coping:

Immediate response that resists harm and maintains function during stress—like emergency protocols that keep essential services running during crisis.

Adapting:

Adjusting systems based on duration and experience—like organizations that modify their processes after learning what works and what doesn’t.

Transforming:

Fundamental restructuring when current approaches no longer serve—like communities that reimagine their entire approach to local governance or resource sharing.

Resilience in Time

Proactive Resilience

Building Before Crisis: Expanding network relationships, developing systems to spot early warning signals, and strengthening anticipatory and adaptive capacity in calm times—like communities that organize mutual aid networks before disasters strike.

Responsive resilience

Adapting During / Transforming After Crisis: Responsive Resilience mobilises networks quickly, adapting strategies in real-time, and learning from experience to build back better—like the rapid resource sharing we saw during early COVID response.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.

— Chinese Proverb