Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.....If you wish to SEND a report...send to your ICA contact person OR...go to the members section on the ICAI website

Weekending: Saturday 2009 03 28

BANGLADESH:

Location: Dhaka

On 23 February Aziz had a meeting with Fazle Yahya Siddique, Tapan and Dr. Mir Shamsur Rahman and talked about April training programs. Dr. Rahman and Mr. Siddique got excited about ICA work. Mr. Siddique heard about ICA from one of our members, Tapan and he has long been waiting to meet me and know more about our work in human development.

On 27 March a taskforce meeting was held at ICA office to discuss April training programs, the division of responsibilities among members and marketing of the courses. Farhad, Ripon, Fuad, Aziz, Shamim and Arshad worked on a plan for the smooth implementation of the programs.

Having our newspaper advertisement on 22 March in the Daily Prothom Alo and on 24 March in the Daily Star, some people expressed interest to join our courses, we are now waiting for their confirmation of registration. But most of them asked for scholarships.

Aziz
          admin@ica-bangladesh.org

ICA ASSOCIATES INC. (Canada)

Location: Canada

John Miller facilitated 2 days of workshops with the City of Mississauga to develop priorities. John also taugh a one day group facilitation course for Ontario Lotteries and Gaming.

Jo Nelson led focus groups in 2 schools of the Kitchner-Waterloo Catholic School Board toward a renewed strategic plan.

Duncan Holmes is teaching Facilitatied Planning for  Management Advisory Services. These retired executives volunteer their time to work with not-for-profit organizations in Canada and around the world.

John Miller, Bill Staples and Wayne Nelson continued work on developing a new web site.

Christine Pinto, one of our Advanced Facilitator Program graduates has successfully completed her assesment as a Certified ToP Facilitator. She plans to continue working on multi-cultural diversity programs in Canada, and also has plans over the next several years to expand work in her original home of Goa, India.

Wayne Nelson           wnelson@ica-associates.ca

UNITED STATES:

Location: Chicago

On March 19, 2009, ICA-USA held its first Critical Inquiry Forum on the Persistence of Poverty with a brown bag luncheon titled “Why Are Women More Likely to Experience Poverty?” Approximately thirty people, from organizations ranging from City department to homeless shelters and churches, gathered at this brown bag forum to hear a presentation by Amy Rynell, who is the Director of the Heartland Alliance Mid-America Institute on Poverty (MAIP); MAIP was established in 1989 to provide dynamic research and analysis on today’s most pressing social issues and solutions to inform and equip those working toward a just global society.

Following Ms. Rynell’s presentation, guests split into four groups and participated in an ORID exercise; the exercise was facilitated by ICA-USA Executive Director Nino Tillman,ICA-USA Board member Karen Snyder, Keystone Ecological Urban Community member Ed Feldmanis, and longtime ICA colleague Terry Bergdall. The results were reported back to the entire group; notes will be posted on ICA-USA’s website. The event was also taped for Chicago Access Network television (CAN-TV), and that air date will be announced in the coming weeks.


ICA-USA Board member Karen Snyder reports back to the group following the
Persistence of Poverty Forum’s ORID session.


Cheryl Zaleski           czaleski@ica-usa.org

ICAI:

Location: Montréal

This past week saw a great deal of activity; Lambert returned from a very successful trip to Ghana, where he helped ICA Ghana host a Global Forest Coalition workshop on underlying causes of deforestation. The workshop drew an impressive range of participants from within practitioner, academic and government circles, and tackled critical questions in the forest debate. Colleagues from ICA Togo and ICA Benin made the trip to Ghana to participate and share their lessons and experience. ICA Ghana is expected to have the full workshop report available in the very near future. Lambert’s return to Montreal was short-lived, however, as he immediately left for Costa Rica, to participate in the steering committee meeting of the World Rainforest Movement, of which he is a member. He returns from his work in Costa Rica this week.

Michael gave a talk to graduate students at McGill university to explain the work of ICAI and to share insights of the work of development NGOs more generally. As has been the case in the past, participants were fascinated and inspired by the history, approach, and diverse work of ICAs.

Michael was invited to attend a one-day conference on The Challenges of Development Today hosted as the inaugural event of the new Institute for the Study of International Development (ISID) at McGill university. The institute is interdisciplinary and draws together expertise from diverse sectors to study key issues in development. The conference drew influential figures from within the Canadian development community and Michael met the new heads of Canada’s Development Agency (CIDA) and development research centre (IDRC) as well as representatives from funding agencies (Irish Aid; SIDA) and major NGOs (Save the Children; Engineers without Borders). Conference speakers raised critical questions regarding current development practice and Canada’s ‘new’ priorities, and highlighted the need to be working harder than ever to support the development initiatives of our partners in the South during these times of economic turmoil.

This past week Michael also joined colleagues from Montreal International in celebrating the inauguration of the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST), a new international organization that has selected Montreal as it home. FAST works to enhance and expand sustainable trade by working to improve information, transparency, and financing for sustainable trade initiatives. Of particular interest is helping small and medium enterprises access information and financing for sustainable trade. One of their early initiatives involves developing a tool box for teaching basic skills for financial management for small producers. They are currently looking for the best means to actualise these training programs. Further information is available at www.fastinternational.org We look forward to building a relationship with FAST and exploring possible areas of collaboration.

The team continued to work on staff recruitment, and has been impressed by the extraordinary level of interest from people captivated by the work of ICAI.

Staff           info@ica-international .org