IN THE MEDIA
This is the section where links to articles about the work of ICA are posted
Learning what I knew years ago
By
TELCameroon(TELCameroon)
Many years ago (over 20 as a matter of fact,) I
worked with an organization called the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA). One
of the primary things I did was facilitate community "town meetings" and
community youth forums. ...
Rev. Tracy's Cameroon blog - http://telcameroon.vox.com/library/posts/page/1/
AUSTRALIA:
Location: Adelaide
Kevin Balm and Jeanette Stanfield facilitated a Courage to Lead two day workshop
in Bangkok with 17 staff of a training company there. For most of the staff
English is a 2nd language. Stories, diagrams, individual and group exercises
were central to a fruitful two days.
Brian Robins facilitated two workshops
toward Australia's 2020 summit. 26 local people from Adelaide gathered to work
through proposals relative to health, climate change, political systems, rural
industries and communities, economic infrastructure and skills training. The
results go to Round Tables gathering in Canberra at the end of the month.
Jeanette Stanfield jstanfield@icacan.ca
ICA ASSOCIATES INC. (Canada)
Location: Canada
John Miller facilitated a workshop for the organization of our recent Art
and Science of Participation graduates.
Bill Staples taught the Conversation
Method to a group of Public Health nurses.
Tamara Eberle, an associate, is
bringing her Project Managment skills to one of our long term contracts with the
Ministry of Natural Resources. She is playing the major role in this contract.
ICA Associates had a long overdue staff meeting this week to resolve some plans
and monitor progress on business expansion activities.
Wayne Nelson wnelson@ica-associates.ca
NEPAL:
Location: Nepal
For the last two weeks, ICA Nepal staff and board members are busy on making the
constituent assembly a great success. As two years back, ICA played an active
role in civil society movement to gain democracy, we have also seen as the April
10's Constituent Assembly as a great event, which comes once in life time.
Hemant and Raju are in Far Western Nepal and others in Kathmandu and nearby
districts. We are making the people awared of the events and encouraging them to
cast their votes for democracy. ICA Nepal is also the founding member of Human
Rights Home, which is observing the election nationwide.
Tatwa P. Timsina ica@icanep.wlink.com.np
NIGERIA (NIRADO):
Location: Lagos
NIRADO gets new Executive Director.
Her name is am Ms. Comfort Hassan. She is 41
years of age and graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1992 with a degree
in Forestry and in 2000, Agricultural Extension and Rural Development. She has
over 12 years NGO work experience, having worked with the Country Women
Association of Nigeria, a non-governmental rural women organisation between
1995-1998, and then joined the Nigerian Environmental Study Action Team NEST in
2000, first as Programme Officer - Gender and later Deputy Programme Director
till 2007 when she left the organisation.
She has competences in conducting
research, specifically qualitative analysis - FGDs and IDIs, gender analysis and
mainstreaming in programmes and projects. Through the years she has been
involved in working on microcredit programmes for rural women, group
mobilization for community development projects, environmental issues such as
climate change, forestry, and environmental education.
She resumed duties with
NIRADO on April 1, 2008
Hannah Anighoro nirado2004@yahoo.com
TAIWAN:
Location: Taipei Taiwan Republic of China
The Sam Kaner's workshop the second weekend in March, Participatory Decision-
Making for Facilitators, an Advanced Course had around 60 people with
participants from Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong join the Taiwanese contingent
with the US participants who live in Taipei.This event was held in a huge
auditorium and had spaces for groups of 8 and actually broke down into pairs,
threes, fours and eights in different configurations.
The few of us who did not
speak Chinese had headsets to listen to the translations so we all knew what was
going on. When I talked about transformational tools to assist people in their
change process he pointed to his theory of divergent ideas and convergent ideas
models that has a groan zone in the middle of it, much like our contradictional
analysis model that fuels the stuff from which we build the future.
He also has
some good graphs to talk about authoratative decision making, consultative
decision making, and participatory decision making which are very helpful. He
looks more carefully at the dynamics and details of how that shows up and also
how to keep people in the chaos of deciding longer, my interpretation from work
with chaos as in Community Building, pseudochaosauthentic community so that
details of the groan zone become more real.
He also has a gradient chart for
decision making on a topic that reveals how you really think and feel about a
decision. Just as when we look for consensus, there are degrees of support,
this exercise was very helpful to see who really agrees, or still needs more
information to decide, or if pushed would just say no rather than yes.
Often I
think we decide with our mind, our emotions, our body, and our spirit, but we
don't take the time to sort out what is what, and therefore fall back into old
patterns before the new ones are able to make a real change.
Overall this was a
very helpful weekend and Open Quest did a good job of hosting the whole
event.
Facilitator Forum danced with Crisis intervention being guided by Jackie
this Thursday, followed by Group Mentoring on Friday with two activities with
art, paper cutting and photography. Both were led well through this practice
session on using the conversation method with feedback.
Larry, Frieda, Shawn and
Evelyn hold the Imaginal Learning course this weekend including Boulding,
Mindstyles and Howard Gardners' Seven Intelligences from his book, Frames of
Mind, the theory of multiple intelligences.
Evelyn has been contacting ICAI board
members about looking for ways to improve our participation and performance
through feedback, proposals, and skype conversations. As a whole network of
ICAI, our participation in making the 2008 Conference in Novermber come alive
and serve our membership is crucial. What are your concerns, what are you
passionate about, what sustains you these days and how can we network to bring
about a meaningful gathering?
The Sidr affected Orphans proposal for ICA
Bangladesh to the local Orphanage Club is still being worked through here
and needs some current data from Dhaka.
Gail has been networking with the Open
Space community and preparing for visits in Asia in 2009.
IAF asked Larry to
come in April to become an Assessor, but he has client committments in Taiwan,
Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Japan.
Dick has been continuing his Dreamwork
group meetings in Tai Chung and Taipei and sharing his insights to Transcending
Levels of Consciousness and Unattended Sorrow which deepens our journey in
spirit and transformational tools. He is also working with Guang Hwa Centers for
long term disability care to work on organziational development and
healing.
Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook joyful52@gmail.co
UNITED KINGDOM:
Location: UK
Our highlight of last week was a strategic planning weekend in Manchester which
brought together 16 staff, Board members and Associates to begin the process of
developing our direction for the next three years. Based on the framework
developed, we will continue to work up a more detailed plan to be ready for
approval by our Board in July. We will be making the first draft available for
wider input after the staff meeting next week.
Jonathan Dudding jdudding@ica-uk.org
UNITED STATES:
Location: Chicago
We are pleased to share the news that at long last, the John Wesley Mathews
Collection has found a permanent home at the Wesley Theological Seminary in
Washington, DC - please follow the attached link for photos and further
information.
On Saturday, March 29th, Joseph Mathews, Jr. and James Mathews, sons
of Joseph Wesley Mathews, arrived in Chicago to pack up dozens of file drawers'
worth of letters, business papers and mementos. On hand to assist were two staff
members of the Wesley Theological Seminary, as well as Betty Pesek and Carol
Pierce, long-time supporters of ICA USA, and ICA USA staff members Nino Tillman,
Executive Director, Charles DeFuria, Director of Finance, and Cheryl Zaleski,
National Program Manager.
When asked how it felt to see the archives find such an
appropriate home, James Mathews said "It's been a long journey. I'm glad they
found a permanent home".
See story / photos: http://ica-usa.org/wesley.htm
Cheryl Zaleski czaleski@ica-usa.org
