We Live in the Space Between Worlds.
The world we have known - built on extraction and disconnection - is unravelling.
Many of the systems and structures that we considered cornerstone, including democracy, are under threat, with rising disinformation, dark money and polarisation threatening their limits.
Climate change and biodiversity loss are causing catastrophic events around the planet, their impacts likely to become only more pronounced in years to come.
The world’s conflict zones have increased by two-thirds in the past three years.
Our world is more brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible (BANI) than ever before (h/t Jamais Cascio).
And yet… as one world unravels, so too can another begin.
This is the space we inhabit at Scintilla Centre: the space between collapse and emergence, between the world as it is and the world as it could be.
Our work is to equip changemakers to navigate this liminal time - not by waiting for the old systems to fully crumble or the new ones to fully form, but by developing the capacities to lead the transition itself.
Meet Laura Hartley - the Founder of Scintilla Centre
I’m Laura; writer, activist and founder of the Scintilla Centre.
My journey into changemaking began at 17, when I organised my first fundraiser for the World Wildlife Fund. It was an absolute disaster involving a pallet of fresh juice with no fridge and $300 in donations that mysteriously disappeared from a table. But it taught me something important: we don’t have to be ‘ready’ to begin.
Since then, I’ve been involved in climate and environmental activism, trained others in nonviolent direct action, and studied Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation. I’ve worked with groups large and small - from corporate mindfulness workshops to grassroots trainings - always circling the same question:
How do we create a more beautiful world without reproducing the one we’re trying to change?
Because over time, I began to notice something. Even in movements for change, we were often running on the same energy as the system itself - urgency, martyrdom, unhealed conflict, moral perfectionism, burnout. We were mirroring the world as it is in our attempts to build the world as it could be.
That tension stayed with me.
Growing up around coaching - my mother ran a coaching school - I was immersed in personal development from an early age. But it was my own struggles with mental health that led me deeper into inner work. In time I began to explore the intersection of inner work and systems change, writing on internalised capitalism in in the book Inner Development Goals: Stories of Collective Leadership in Action, Volume 2.
A formative time in Bhutan in 2016, learning about Gross National Happiness alongside other young changemakers, solidified my passion for wellbeing economics and the power of robust public values.
Scintilla was born from these threads.
Scintilla equips changemakers with the skills, wisdom, and community to remake the world. We believe that the way we organise, relate, and show up matters as much as the goals we work for; the inner work and the collective work are never separate.
We build as we resist.
We heal as we end harm.
We allow the seeds of liberation to be sown in our own bodies.
Originally from Sydney and now based in London - with chapters in Toronto, Dublin, and Amsterdam along the way - I’m spiritual but not religious. For me, spirituality is about how we show up: Are we being loving? Are we listening? Are we honouring life — human and more-than-human — as sacred?
I believe firmly the work of this time is multi-dimensional, and we are all called to different threads.
Mine is Scintilla.
The Challenges of This Moment
If you're here, you're likely holding some version of these questions:
How do I stay in integrity when I'm living and working within systems I fundamentally disagree with?
What's actually mine to do when there are so many urgent problems calling for attention?
How do I sustain this work without it consuming my health, my relationships, my sense of aliveness?
Where are the others who can hold this complexity with me - who understand the both/and of it all?
These aren't problems to solve with better strategies alone. They live in our bodies, in our relationships, in how we move through the world. They require a different kind of attention - one that integrates the personal, relational, and systemic dimensions of change.
How We Work
What We Offer
We focus our workshop, courses and coaching on three interconnected levels:
The Personal: Develop your inner compass. Discern what's meaningfully yours to do in this time. Unlearn the dominant stories keeping you stuck or exhausted. Cultivate practices to navigate grief, uncertainty, and possibility with wisdom.
The Relational: Build the skills this moment demands: conflict reconciliation, nonviolence, working across deep difference, wielding power wisely, and cultivating moral imagination in the face of complexity.
The Systemic: Understand the narratives shaping our world - and how to shift them. Practice complexity thinking and emergence. Vision regenerative futures. Learn to seed more beautiful futures, while old systems are still standing.
This isn't about waiting for permission or the perfect moment. It's about developing the capacity to lead transformation from exactly where you are.
Through transformative courses, monthly community gatherings, and 1:1 coaching, we create space for changemakers to:
Develop the wisdom to navigate profound uncertainty
Build relational skills to work across difference and bridge divides
Cultivate the creativity and imagination to envision and seed new possibilities
Find community with others doing this work
Discern their unique role in this time of transition
Our work draws on experiences in climate activism, Kingian Nonviolence, Gross National Happiness frameworks, systems thinking, and contemplative practice.
Our Theory of Change
The work we need in this time is multi-dimensional; systemic, relational and personal.
To address the myriad interconnected crises we face, we must cultivate an approach that transforms both the external systems we live within and the internal landscapes that shape how we perceive and interact with the world.
We believe the skills necessary for this time include:
Vision & Moral Imagination: We must be bold and ambitious enough to envision a more beautiful world; to believe in the world we can feel in our hearts, even if we cannot see it with our eyes. It requires dreaming deeper, feeling into the realm of possibilities, and trusting our power. To claim a new world, we must have the audacity to name it, embody it, and call it into being. Imagination is not a luxury; it is one of the most useful tools we have.
At Scintilla, we work with changemakers to cultivate imagination and creativity, planting seeds of possibility and nurturing their growth.
Systems Thinking, Complexity and Narrative Work:
Ideologies like capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy are created by humans, perpetuated by humans, and play out their impact through humans. They live in our mindsets, beliefs, behaviours and values.
To change the system “out there,” we must also address the conditions within us that consciously or unconsciously perpetuate and internalise these systems. We call this work Getting Free, and it requires deep reflection, unlearning, and a willingness to sit with what is uncomfortable.
We help changemakers develop the capacity to navigate and influence complex systems. This includes identifying leverage points for transformation and working at the narrative roots of our world, where the stories we live by are created and sustained.
Relational Stitching: In our hyper-polarised world, we need community and connection more than ever. We need to learn to work across lines of difference, and build bridges across ideology. Relational stitching includes learning how to work with conflict and nonviolence, developing empathy, curiosity and compassion, and embracing the nuance and complexity that defines our world.
At Scintilla, we help changemakers cultivate the skills to bridge divides, steward nonviolence, and work with the beautiful complexities of a diverse and interconnected world.
Wisdom & Spirituality: The crises facing our world are spiritual and relational in origin, going to the heart of what it means to be human and how we relate to each other and the living world. We integrate the relational and spiritual dimensions of change, nourishing the soil and roots of our shared world.
Why Scintilla?
The word “scintilla” means a tiny spark or amount, often of a feeling, eg, a scintilla of hope.
In the space between worlds, even the smallest spark matters.
A moment of connection.
A spark of creativity.
An awakening of insight.
Here at Scintilla Centre, we believe:
The inner work of healing and liberation is inseparable from the outer work of systems change.
The space between is sacred: a place where old stories fall away and new possibilities are born.
Imagination and play are some of the most radical tools we have for seeding a more just and regenerative world.
