BANGLADESH:
Location: Dhaka
ICA Bangladesh held a monthly meeting on November 20 at the ICA office, to discuss the 2010 Budget, office, staff, administration, projects, ToP facility development, newsletter, web site, and fundraising. Sarwat, Habib, Farhad, Shipon, Pintu, and Jahangir were present at the meeting. As our office and staff support, from ICA Australia and the Maguires of Unfurling Futures, will end in December, we have to start thinking of a new office and staff arrangement. We are looking for options and funding opportunities. We also discussed the updating of the ICAB newsletter and web site. By December we are expecting to have the annual report, newsletter, audits, and web site updated.
We are pleased with the street children project, Ghoramara project and the orphan high school children project. We are expecting soon to be receiving Working Gifts to purchase items like a sewing machine, tubewell, and school items for our Gabua and Ghoramara village.
We have already done some work with Ghoramara. Mizan and Shamim visited Ghoramara on 21 November. Manik, Nasrin, Pintu, Nurul and Habib had a skype telephone meeting for school permission, audits, and the 2010 action plan. Jahangir and Pintu visited the Street Children project for 3 days during the week and taught some life skills modules.
Staff admin@ica-bangladesh.org
ICA ASSOCIATES INC. (Canada)
Location: Canada
Jo Nelson taught Group Facilitation and Facilitated Planning in public courses in Edmonton.
Bill Staples and associate Jerry Mings led a workshop in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Bill also taught Group Facilitation to a group from the Ontario Civil Service in Pembrook, Ontario.
John Miller taught Advanced Facilitation Tools in Vancouver.
Duncan Holmes is facilitating a Literacy group at Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Wayne Nelson is working on our new web site and on preparing for a re-launch of ToPOnline.
Wayne Nelson wnelson@ica-associates.ca
COTE D'IVOIRE:
Location: Brobo
Dear Colleagues,
I regret to inform you of the passing of my colleague, SOMBO Daniel, whom some of you had the pleasure of knowing. He was responsible for the market garden program and was the longest serving ICA-CI staff member. His death is a tragic loss that will be felt deeply by all who knew and worked with him. He was working with Keneth Gilbert, Jeanne Barr and many others. He passed away on November 14th 2009 in Adzope. I kindly ask that you keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
Chers collègues,
J'ai le regret de vous annoncer le décès de mon collègue SOMBO Daniel que certains d'entre vous connaissiez. Il était le responsable du programme de culture maraichère et le plus ancien de tous les membres du personnel de ICA-CI. C’est une perte énorme pour nous tous. Il travaillait avec Keneth Gilbert, Jeanne Barr et plusieurs autres responsables. Il est décédé le 14 Novembre 2009 à Adzopé. Je vous prie de prier pour le repos de son âme.
Eugene Kouame cotedivoireica@yahoo.fr
NEPAL:
Location: Kathmandu
For the last three weeks, ICA Nepal's facilitators have been carrying out intensive leadership development training for the community people in the far western part of Nepal. Atma is leading the team. The main theme of the leadership training is Social Artistry. ICA Nepal has an ambitious plan of providing training on Social Artistry for 5000 people. So far more than 500 have received training on SA in Nepal. We have achieved 10 percent of our goal. From February, 2010, we have plan to implement massive work on SA leadership development along with the support of Janet Sanders. She has been working as the International Advisor and Facilitator for SA Initiative in Nepal since early 2005. For details, you may refer to the web site of Jean Houston Foundation. http://www.jeanhouston.org/
ICA Nepal prepared a brief concept on the 2012 Conference to include in the Board Meeting next year. ICA Nepal has a plan to start some basic work for the conference from Jan. 2010. This week, Dave Robertson, Senior consultant and Facilitator from Canada to ICA in Nepal, facilitated a 2 day workshop on Design Thinking. We are conducting a series of such workshops for different groups of people in Nepal. Dave and Tatwa attended in a 4 day long International Conference on Appreciative Inquiry from Nov. 16 - 19 which was attended by more than 400 participants from 40 different countries. There were 95 participants from USA alone. Tatwa is the part of the Imagine Nepal group, which has 19 members with the vision of transforming the country by applying positive approaches. Imagine Nepal organized this conference jointly with the Case Western University, USA.
Tatwa P. Timsina ica@icanep.wlink.com.np
PERU:
Location: Azpitia and Lima
We closed out another 3-week AVANZA PERU leadership training program this week for a wonderful team of 30 from the high Sierra of Moquegua Department in the far south of Peru. Our ICA team of two will begin in January with the follow-up Implementation Program for them, spending 2 days in each of the three valleys and working with 14 communities in total over a four month period. Also, two of the communities represented in this program are working to have their own AVANZA PERU programs, and we have been told to expect approvals very soon.
Meanwhile, the German NGO funding was cancelled for our Women's Small Industry project in Chincha leaving that work un funded for the final two years of the Project. We will begin to search for replacement funds after the first of the year.
This is our final AVANZA PERU for 2009, completing 7 for this year, with 10 scheduled for 2010. The team will also have delivered 48 days of Implementation Events in the field this year, with 200 days projected for 2010.
For these reasons we continue to search for two additional staff members to assist us in meeting the demand, and to build another generation of ICA leadership.
Staff admin@ica-peru.org
UNITED STATES:
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Week of November 7
ICA-USA was the host for the Uptown Block Clubs and Neighborhood Associations meeting, held October 22. Since this group represents 14 different block clubs in the Uptown Community, its members share similar goals and objectives. The ICA staff was pleased to be able to share an overview of our programs and the nonprofit services housed at ICA-USA’s national headquarters. They also appreciated learning directly from the neighborhood committees about local issues and concerns. These ranged from neighborhood violence to the homeless. The group decided to hold most of its meetings at ICA, which John Perkins, facility manager, says is “great for the ICA.”
Week of November 14.
The Board of Directors of ICA-USA had a very fine meeting in Chicago
this past weekend. A plan for 2010 was presented by the staff and built
on proposals from the Strategic Planning Retreat last May.
They elected new Board members and reached a decision about filling our
senior staff position now renamed as "Chief Executive Officer" (CEO).
Terry Bergdall has been appointed to serve as CEO. Five new members were added
to the Board. These are Elsa Batica, Alan Gammel, Larry Loeppke, Danny
Mittleman, and Randy Williams. They join six current members: Ken
Gilbert, Cheryl Kartes (Secretary), David Scott, Karen Snyder Treasurer), Sandra True (Vice Chair), Doug Druckenmiller (Chair).
The ICA-USA web site will soon be updated with bio information about all of the new Board members.
Karen Sims ksims@ica-usa.org
ICA International:
Location: Montreal
This past week Michael traveled to Guilin, China, to attend a country-led initiative in support of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF). Michael attended the event as an NGO Major Groups representative to UNFF and delivered a short presentation on NGO perspectives on the implementation of National Forest Programs and the Non-Legally Binding Instrument on all Types of Forests. He stressed the importance of a participatory approach and highlighted the key role that NGOs can play in ensuring sustainable resource management. A summary report of the event, including background on the UNFF process, is available for download here: http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/sd/ymbvol169num1e.pdf
Thanks to the tireless work of Peter Ellins, who completely re-vamped and added impressive new features and functionality to the Working Gifts site over the past 2 months, we were able to re-launch the program this past week with an email mailout to 50,000 individuals. If you haven't yet already visited the redesigned site, please do so at www.workinggifts.org.
The office move is basically complete. Our communications technologies are all up and working, most of the boxes are unpacked, and the team is now feeling very much at home in the new office. A reminder that our new coordinates are:
ICA International
417 Rue St-Pierre, suite 804
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2Y 2M4
Tel: (514) 875-7111
Fax: (514) 875-0702
Please note that while our telephone number is unchanged, we do have a new fax number.
As we settle into the office, we also say goodbye to Audra, as she transitions into new work outside of the organization. We thank her for all her contributions during the past months and wish her well as she moves on to other projects.
Renée Hérbert rhebert@ica-international.org
