Do this only if whole group feels comfortable touching and holding hands. Maybe ask people to close their eyes and put their thumbs up or down if they are comfortable. If even one person is not, do not do this activity.

Choose an issue such as poverty, education, immigration, or anything you/the group/society are currently facing. Ask the group to stand in a circle and join right hands with a person across the circle from them. As the pair join hands, invite each of the people (or both as a pair) to name a cause that contributes to the issue you’ve selected. Go around the circle until all participants have had a turn to speak.

Then, ask everyone to (while not letting go of that first person’s right hand) join left hands with a different person and again, name a different cause that contributes to the issue.

After that, give the entire group two minutes to unravel their hands and debrief the exercise.

• In what ways did this experience of the human knot speak to the complexity of addressing a systemic issue?
• In what ways can a group work together toward solutions?