BANGLADESH:
Location: Dhaka
ICA Bangladesh held a general meeting on February 26th at our office in Dhaka. Shipon, Zaki, Habib, Fuad, and Jahangir brought together our different task forces to develop relationships between members and to enhance sharing of skills in facilitation, project funding, community empowerment, and administration. Fuad committed to playing a strong role in training and facilitation work, while also emphasizing the importance of in-house training of members. Habib discussed how we could set up a system to communicate effectively with our members. We also approved the 2009 audit reports.
Zaki and Jahangir went into the field to complete the remaining activities in our high school orphan project, which we expect to finish this week. Zaki is reviewing the action plan of OHSCP. Jahangir facilitated the Life Skills Training to the SCP where Zaki has previously provided physical training. The children were very encouraged during the training session.
Tasfia and Nasrin of ICA Bangladesh left Dhaka on February 27. Nasrin arrived in Toronto to reunite with Aziz. Nasrin hopes to use her time in Canada to learn and to contribute to ICA Canada.
Zaki admin@ica-bangladesh.org
CHILE:
We continue to deal with the aftermath of the major earthquake that hit Chile on February 27th. Laura Matamala is going to Talca this weekend to bring food for a group of disabled peopleLaura worked closely with the group last year and has finally made contact. They are in a critical situation and ICA Chile will send emergency food supplies with Laura and her family.
In Concepción I have made contact with 10 of the 32 disabled youths I worked with last year. I remain hopeful everybody has survived. Those at the Rehabilitation Institution we work with in Concepción are okay, but are without water, electricity, gas and experiencing some building problems.
Shizuyo and Wayne from ICA Japan will arrive this Saturday, and we will go with them to help a community called Peralillo that is located 65 kilometers south from Santiago.
We have a lot of work to do to rebuild Chile as many small cities have been devastated by this 8,8 earthquake.
Best regards,
Isabel
COTE D'IVOIRE:
Location: Brobo
J'ai le regret de vous annoncer le décès du père de notre collègue, Konan Kouadio, responsable adjoint d’ICA-CI, ce samedi à 20H à l'hôpital de Bouake.
It is will deep regret and sadness we announce the death of the father of our colleague Kouadio Konan, ICA-CI Finances Manager. He passed away Saturday, March 3 at the Bouake hospital.
Eugene
JAPAN:
Location: Japan Chile and Haiti
Chile Emergency Aid
In the days following the earthquake in Chile, JPF prepared a proposal and asked Shizuyo to visit Chile to research what services are needed, as well as to deliver aid to remote communities. JPF was very impressed with how quickly we obtained information and passed it on to them. While many NGO's felt they could not aid Chile because they lacked meaningful connections, we are deeply grateful to Eduard and Isabel for their wonderful assistance during this time. This initial aid will go to handicapped people. Once they have returned to Japan with recommendations, Wayne will go again to Chile to provide leadership development and to deliver additional aid.
Haiti
Our team returned from Haiti overwhelmed with the complexity of delivering aid in such a challenging environment, especially with such a significant military presence. We expect we will return soon, however this may be complicated by the impending rainy season.
Japan
Naomi Sato has done incredible work to support Emergency Aid projects, write new proposals, and to finish other project documentation. She is a great asset to our team and has grown to be an Iron Woman!
Wayne and a team of three others finally named the training, facilitation, and consulting company we are re-establishing in Japan. After considering over a hundred names, Dentsu, a major advertising company in Japan, recommended keeping LENS as the name. We chose LENSThink as the Website name, keeping LENSMind and LENSLearning in reserve. We have written up over 20 programs that we will market and teach, both to Japanese and English-speaking markets. We could use lots of help rewriting and fine tuning our offerings. Mr. Kitagaki has been inspired to sell four programs even before the website is up!
Wayne and Shizuyo
ICA International:
Location: Montreal
This past week Lambert and Michael traveled to Ottawa to take part in a series of meetings dealing with corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the extractive industries. As of 2008, an astonishing three-quarters of the world’s exploration and mining companies were based Canada. This fact, coupled with the knowledge that there are very real and significant problems in the overseas operations of many of these companies makes these discussions particularly important. The meetings formed part of an ongoing multi-stakeholder process involving representatives of the Canadian government, NGOs and the private sector, designed to move towards greater transparency, responsiveness and responsibility in Canada’s extractive industry operations overseas. At present, virtually all CSR initiatives in Canada are voluntary (as they are throughout most of the world). Some progress has been made through this approach. However, serious gaps remain. We are thus advocating for a multi-layered approach that would recognize and value the significant voluntary commitments and progress that many companies have made, while adding strong legislation to deal with the clear gaps, to help ensure Canadian companies are behaving responsibly overseas. We are also advocating strongly for the inclusion of local communities in the decision-making processes surrounding resource exploitation overseas.
The meetings were organized by the Canadian Environmental Network (CEN) and supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and partners in the Canadian government and extractive industry sector.
While in Ottawa, Michael and Lambert met with representatives at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Ministry of Natural Resources (NRCan) in order to discuss existing project proposals and possible areas of future collaboration. Lambert also attended a full day of meetings of the steering committee of the International Program of the CEN, of which he is a member.
On Monday, we were excited to host an information and orientation session for four of our new interns. This was a great opportunity for the interns to meet each other, get acquainted with the office and other staff, and learn more about the history, mission and approach of ICA.
We are excited that ICA International has been chosen by Grassroots.org to be their feature organization of the month. Grassroots provides nonprofit organizations with free valuable technologies and resources to increase their efficiency and productivity.
Finally, we'd like to acknowledge and celebrate International Women's Day, Monday March 8th. We celebrate progress toward equality for women and their full participation, reflect on the challenges and barriers that remain, and consider future steps to achieving equality for all women, in all aspects of their lives. We are now soliciting articles for the next issue of Network Exchange and would particularly welcome submissions highlighting the ways that ICA is enhancing women’s participation, promoting equality, and empowering women and girls around the world.
Staff info@ica-international.org
