AUSTRALIA:
Location: Australia
Members from ICAA have just returned from their annual 4 day gathering, held this time in Brisbane, ably hosted by our wonderful Brisbane team. The focus for ICAA work in recent years has been: the Facilitative Leadership Program (FLP), Global-Local Partnerships, and Ecological Awareness. The first two days saw about 30 enthusiastic facilitators and supporters focus on the continuing implementation work of the FLP, which is now gathering great momentum. This was followed by two further days of thinking and workshopping.
These included work on what our membership is saying to us about the future of the ICA in Australia. It is very clear that the many and varied voluntary and paid arenas of individual engagement are as important to the life of ICAA voluntary network organisation, as the more corporate work of the ICAA. Our appropriate cultural practices are never far from our mind, and one of our New Zealand ICA colleagues, Helen Ritchie, highlighted this for us again with her work alongside the Maori community.
Included were reports and workshops on the ongoing work individual members are engaged in with the Indigenous community, and the continuing support of ICA Bangladesh and Timor Leste by ICAA. We were honoured to have Alex Gusmao, young CEO of Timor Aid, and now colleague of over 5 years, with us for the whole time. Alex brought alive the work and need in TL to the whole gathering. We now have in place, a plan for the training of some 40 facilitators in the FLP in TL, and a fundraising strategy to support.
The continuing work on the website, led by John Miesen and Ray Richmond, is ever-evolving and being enhanced. A special vote of thanks went to Peter Ellins, webmaster extraordinaire, Canada, for his support in its development.
Colleagues recently returned form the 7th Global Conference and General Assembly in Japan, shared stories and made input into future directions of ICAI dynamic.
Continued and renewed commitment to working partnerships in our own communities and in the Asia-Pacific region and a commitment to our participation in the Global ToP Meta-Network, were key aspects of the passion of the ICAA colleagues.
Guest Andrew led us in a workshop on the use of Spiral Wizardry and the memes in our life dynamics, and Sam led us in the Indigenous welcome to country, all enhancing our spirit culture.
ICAA events are never without profound and/or hilarious celebration. On this occasion we took advantage of Barrack Obama's (played by Brian Robins) visit to Australia, as he was in need of a bed. He met with 'delegates' from about 10 countries in this region who had no end of 'advice'...as did the audience with YES WE CAN placards!
Finally we thanked and farewelled our immediate past president, Jeanette Stanfield, who has played a significant role in the ICAA's life over the last few years, and who, by mid-year will be in one of her other homes, Canada.
This is a bit long...but we are making up for lack of participation and will try to be more regular in 2009!
Robyn Hutchinson rjhutchinson@optusnet.com.au
ICA ASSOCIATES INC. (Canada)
Location: Canada
We spent the week planning for the coming year. Jo Nelson attended to US ToP
Trainers Network meeting in Denver.
Wayne Nelson wnelson@ica-associates.ca
PERU:
Location: Lima
The last few weeks have been eventful as the whole staff did in- depth planning
for 2009 and celebrated the great year of 2008. We also celebrated the
completed life of Gudelia Arias de Aburto, mother of Jesusa and Pedro Aburto of
our staff. The Aburto family was a founding member of the Azpitia Human
Development project in 1979, and Gudelia was always a spirit colleague over
these many years. The celebration in the community was a remarkable event of
unity and connectedness which has not been seen for some years.
The Women's micro
business project in Chincha is beginning a new phase, one of five for 2009, with
a one week school in Azpitia beginning in one week. That will be followed
immediately with a 3-week Avanza Peru leadership formation school for
communities from Cajamarca in the high Sierra. Meanwhile, ICA-Peru has been
invited to provide training for 42 communities across Peru which are the
demonstration communities for the Ministry of Tourism. This is a very exciting
breakthrough which will be developing in the coming weeks -- more later.In order
to meet the demand for these programs, and others in process.
Alex Borja has
joined our staff on a full time basis and brings a great amount of technical
knowledge of sustainable practices for agriculture and communities, along with a
couple of decades experience with ICA methods. Welcome Alex!
Staff admin@ica-peru.org
ICAI:
Location: Montréal
Happy New Year to all!
This week was a busy one, as 2009 got underway with some exciting developments:
Lambert and Michael met with two enthusiastic young men from France who are interested in embarking on an around the world trip to raise awareness and support for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The two hope to raise funds and awareness for ICAI’s work toward achieving the MDGs. The project will continue to be developed over the coming weeks; we look forward to providing updates as things progress.
There is continued excitement around the schools program; we welcomed Stacey Kentish from ICA Canada to Montreal, and Lambert and Stacey gave a presentation on the Youth as Facilitative Leaders program to the English Montreal School Board. Lambert and Michael are scheduled to give a presentation later this month to a gathering of school principals to gather further support.
With 2008 now behind us, we will be looking to pull together materials for the 2008 annual report. There has been much exciting work accomplished throughout the network; we will be sending out requests for annual report material shortly and we greatly look forward to receiving and reading reports on the work of each national ICA.
Staff
