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 2006 11 18

AUSTRALIA:

Location: Sydney

As part of our 'Network care' about 20 colleagues from a number of networks, including ICA, gathered for one of our quarterly gatherings at the home of the Telfords in the beautiful Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Colleagues shared stories about the recent Timor Leste trip, respect for indigenous elders, reconciliation, clean energy and other local grassroot initiatives, while  enjoying a potluck meal together.

Robyn           rjhutchinson@optusnet.com.au


CANADA:

Here's what happened at ICA Canada's YFL programme this week:

Eowynne participated in a Group Facilitation course held by ICA Associates
as part of her preparation in becoming a YFL trainer.

Cara had a meeting with someone interested in partnering with ICA Canada to
help a group of youth contribute to the town planning process of their
community.

Cara           www.icacan.ca


ICA ASSOCIATES INC. (Canada)

We held 2 public Group Facilitation courses  Toronto and Vancouver.

Jo Nelson met with representatives of the Cree School Board to plan a public consultation and strategy planning process that will involve several First Nations in the Hudson Bay area of northern Quebec.

We began using a wiki for staff discussions related to our buisness planning. You can try your own. Go to www.wetpaint.com

We are offering 3 of our facilitator training courses to ICA's who are interested in using them for curriculum development and staff training. We've been designing CD labels and burning the CDs in preparation for the requests.

John Miller and Bill Staples have created several in house courses for upcoming contracts. Each one is specially designed based on the group's needs.

Wayne Nelson             wnelson@ica-associates.ca


JAPAN:

Location: Japan and Worldwide

In India, Shizuyo.  Wayne helped with an International Exhibition, met JICA India who wants to do a three year agriculture and community development project, and met with the Rural Development Leadership, who wants us to bring advanced technology for waste treatment to the rural villages and planned a demonstration project.     

For the Indonesia project, Eiki Kubokawa wrote the report on Earthquake recovery, settled the finances, and planned the project web site.     

For Japan, three staff facilitated a GFM seminar, received from ICA Canada an offer to facilitation manuals in multiple languages, and from WINTOP China, a brochure offering about 20 different ToP related programs in Shanghai, to the general public and to clients coming to China.      

For 2008, Wayne talked with MaryAlice Arthur from New Zealand about partnering to help design the conference and to facilitate the working group on The Art of Healing and Advancing Your Higher Self.  Now that we have consensus on the conference title, we gained new energy to revise the flow of the conference experience, and to put the interim brochure on the web site.     

Andrew lead eight sessions on crosscultural communications for international companies and advanced English classes.

Wayne Ellsworth           wayne@icajapan.org


MALAYSIA LENS International

Location: Southeast Asia

The LENS International Malaysia report actually covers Oct through Nov to date.  We have been very involved in IAF, the International Association of Facilitator, events.  Ann and John Epps both attended the IAF Europe conference in Sweden and Ann served as the Process Manager for the assessment and certification of 11 of the European facilitators in early Oct prior to the conference. 

A Group Facilitation Methods course was conducted for a British volunteer organisation in Bangkok in late November and an open GFM was conducted for participants from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore as well in Kuala Lumpur. 

Three facilitators are currently undergoing training as ToP facilitators, with one going on to become a ToP trainer.  Two of them, one from Hong Kong and one from Singapore have now achieved certification status as ToP facilitators of the Focused Conversation Method. 

John and Ann are currently in the US to celebrate American Thanksgiving with Ann's large extended family in Kansas.

Ann Epps          annepps@pd.jaring.my


NEPAL:

This week we are active in the following activities: 

1.MISEREOR team is in Nepal and we are joining them in meeting and visiting the project sites in far western part of Nepal.

2.We completed Civil Society Index project and we are in the process of publishing the report in the English and Nepali language.

3.Recently we released 6 books from press and we are in the process of publishing 5 new books, manuals, by the end of this year.

4.Some ICA staff are working USAID supported MSH team on Leadership and Management Training. We are facilitating in three districts of Nepal as a local partner of MSH www.msh.org. Please note that MSH has projects in many countries and they are willing to work with ICA. We can make them a contact to you.

Raju Dahal           ica@icanep.wlink.com.np


ITERLENG ICA South Africa:

Foundation of Human Rights approved funding for sixteen days of Activism  activities. This is the period that  is dedicated to fight against gender violence and runs from the 25th of November to the 10th of December each year. We are now busy planning for the activities, which will run as from Monday till the end of the year.

John continued with the ongoing YFL impact Assessment interviews as well as attended a meeting with Art of living.

Fisser Mapuka also attended another network meeting with a potential partner organization known as Ipelegeng youth organization.

We also sent a statement of need to Jonathan and circulated it to other African ICAs. The concept paper is for sourcing fund for next year from  Lottery.

We conducted our Team meeting on the 16 November 2006, and we started our preparation for the PSP, which will takeplace on the 12th to 15th of December 2006. 

Finally, Muzi has returned from Africa Networking meeting in Tanzania and is busy spearheading the YFL activities.

Have a splendid week ahead.

Wacheke Maina           icaadmin@telkomsa.net


EHIO Tajikistan:

Dear friends,We would like to share some news about events happened for three weeks with you

November 6  we had great event in our republic  Presidents election. Also we celebrated big holiday Constitution Day. All staff went to vote. This was an official festive day, and we all reposed.

From November 7th we started our usual work its our project activity and orders for trainings, facilitation. We just have order from one mountainous region Garm for facilitation on Technology of Participation to make analysis of project activity of one of the Mercy Corps projects in this region. All these three weeks we are discussing details of this order and prepared for this trip. Next week we are going to Garm. It is quite far region of our republic.

Also in the framework CECI project we conducted four focus group discussions in two districts of Sogd oblast.   Last week our facilitator was in another far mountainous region to conduct facilitation on German Agro Action order. We prepared first informational bulletin on the project Technology of Participation as a tool of increasing of efficiency of the local government in the framework of Embassy of Canada in Kazakhstan local initiative program.  In our opinion it is very beautiful.

We are preparing the story of our organization for Network Exchange in accordance with request from Sara.

Marina Safarova           ica_ehio@yahoo.ca


TAIWAN:

Time is zipping by, here is a report for the month of November

Harrison Owen was here to facilitate Opening Space for High Performance and Innovation.  ICA was a cosponsor and participating organization.

Busy program time for Larry Philbrook with programs in Taipei, Beijing and Hong Kong  for leadership development, mentoring as well as initial interviews for two new projects. 

Gail West had an open space in central Taiwan.  Dick West and Evelyn Philbrook did preparation work on the Spirit of Facilitation.  Dick was also involved in several individual mentoring and healing projects.

We completed the redesigned Spirit of Facilitation Course  this is the 5th module of the Facilitation Certification program.  We are now working on redesigning the Applied Facilitation Practicum which is module 6.  We will hold it in December.

Gail West and several colleagues are facilitating an open space for 180 representing NGOs working with Taiwans Aboriginal communities.

In the next two weeks we are traveling, Larry and Evelyn Philbrook, to Bali for a vacation with their kids  Larry will do a 2 day program with 180 while he is there.  A client heard he would be there and set up the program.

Dick West is in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia supporting a colleague working on establishing an environmental NGO.

Gail is off to Turkey to support another colleague working on Open Space.

Lawrence Philbrook           larry@icatw.com


UNITED STATES:

ICA African HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative November 2006.             

November 14, 2006, Denver, Colorado         Louise Singleton and I just reviewed our African work in 2006 and what is possible for 2007.

Notes: Dick just met with the American Jewish World Service AJWS and it looks good for their funding for 2007. This is excellent news and will compliment our work with Rotary here in Denver.

We meet this week with the Rotary District Governor and other Rotarians to look at how we can best intensify our Rotary support. The Denver District is even suggesting making Africa projects a major emphasis of this district and plans to start an African committee..   Rotary matching grants to Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa have been helpful. There are more in the works, including Uganda. After this meeting, we feel confident about other Rotary Club support for other countries. As you know a Rotary matching grant requires active sponsorship and oversight from a local club there, so please develop that relationship with a club near you.

Uganda, S.A., Zimbabwe and Kenya have active ongoing ICA Club relationships. When you feel you have a club prospect, let us know. We will find a matching club in Denver. Rotary does not pay staff salaries but we can supplement with AJWS funds which does do salaries.          

We had a long Rotary conversation about youth exchanges and doing a major 3H grant 200,000. These are all long term partner possibilities and may branch into other areas, such as water and education. It is amazing the possibilities with Don Elliott, Carolyn Schrader and the new Rotary District Governor and his wife all long term friends of ICA. The Governor and his wife took courses with the Institute in 1968.        

As you know, ICA USA is restructuring. Dick is no longer on the staff but will work as an independent consultant. We both want to reassure you that working in Africa is the most important thing we are doing. We are looking to set up more opportunities to work/visit with you in 2007.

We are continuing to look at ways to make funding from USAID possible. Dick Alton and Liz Donnerly,  ICA Canada will be going in December to training with Stanford University, Living Well with HIVAIDS training.        

We are working closely with John and Thea Patterson in Kenya and Tanzania. We look forward to hearing about the training in Tanzania and plans for future training.

We are also widening and deepening our core team in the USA with Mary Laura Jones, Carolyn Schrader and other people in the USA.

Richard Alton          richard.alton@gmail.com


ZAMBIA:

Most of the week was spent on proposal writing trying to present good propopsals while at the same time meeting deadlines. On line proposals give the most headache when they can't go.

Working on notes for facilitating the Plan Zambia Contract. We have attached 6 staffs to this project and we are buying 1300 chickens and 1200 goats for 440 orphans.

2 staff attending TOT WORKSHOP on HIVAIDS training conducted by Harvest Help UK.

Margarete Kalawo           ngoopad@yahoo.com


ICAI:

Location: Montreal

Finalized October ICAI Activity Report. Developed and circulated template for member input into global institutional donor tracking system.

Drafted end of year report, fundraising appeal, and holiday card.

Planning for Lambert's time in North America in December.

Sarah Miller           sarah.miller@earthlink.net