AUSTRALIA:

Location: Sydney

Last Sunday evening, quite a number of ICA colleagues joined the Indigenous Reconciliation mob on a bridge walk, as part of a large public event, celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

While the whole event was nowhere near as large or impactful as the Reconciliation Bridge walk 7 years ago, the colourful red, black and yellow mob made their mark. The elders and Governor of NSW carried out the smoking ceremony across the full length of the bridge, to the haunting music of Australia's famous Bangarra artists.  Indigenous rights and reconciliation still has a LONG way to go here in OZ! 

On Friday night Deborah Wall and Aunty Ali Golding both ICA colleagues, hosted a beautiful evening of shared story telling by Australian Indigenous and Filipino Elders.

Robyn Hutchinson           rjhutchinson@optusnet.com.au

larger picture of above
Picture of Aunty Ali Golding

BANGLADESH:

Location: Chandpur

Aziz and Khair visited Ghoramara Community on 25 March and had a meeting with community leaders. They supervised the school project and talked to the teacher about the students.

Following the community needs assessment made in 2004 and the recently-held planning with Richard and Maria on the Ghoramara Community, referral role is being played by ICA Bangladesh concerning some of the community problems like electricity. Already contact was made to accelerate the process of electrification in the community. They also inspected the erosion occuring in the community. The river bank erosion and water flowing is severe and needs to be addressed. We are also trying to collaborate with the government in providing services like health, etc.

Aziz           marahman1976@yahoo.com

CANADA:

Location: Toronto YFL

A change in policy from one of the funders of our Georgina project resulting in some scrambling this week to identify what our next steps should be and get renewed applications submitted. We are quite hopeful that our funding will be extended to the end of the project in September as we have great support from the Georgina community.

Simultaneously, more investigation is taking place into further YFL projects. Eowynne met with some youth in York region outside of Toronto to assess their interest in YFL.

Cara Naiman           cnaiman@icacan.ca

ICA ASSOCIATES INC. (Canada)

Location: Canada

Erwin Allerdings, one of the Canadian ToP Trainers, taught Facilitated Planning in Saskatoon and Group Facilitation in Regina, Saskatchewan.  ICA's courses are sponsored by the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology - SIAST. Recent changes at SIAST have left us without contacts to recruit courses there. Erwin moved heaven and earth to bring the new people who will be filling the positions for the next year into the courses. He also set up a meeting with them and Wayne Nelson joined the meeting  by telephone. The result - much greater clarity on roles and responsibilities, 2 new courses scheduled for this spring and several more scheduled over the next year. We are finding a surge of interest in ToP facilitation methods in the education, agriculture and health networks so this is very timely.

Bill Staples continues consulting with the Sun Reagion Health Authority to prepare plans for increased health promotion efforts in the region. He has engaged several colleagues in research efforts.

John Miller taught a one day course on the ToP focused conversation method. Jo Nelson facilitated workshops with Canadian Addiction and Mental Health in Sudbury. The workshop focused on helping  staff of Aboriginal Mental Health Centres create a training plan based on the needs of their communities and their own learning needs. They said it was the first time people actually asked them what they wanted to learn in order to be more effective.

Wayne Nelson           wnelson@ica-associates.ca

MALAYSIA LENS International

Location: Southeast Asia Malaysia

Bruce Williams, long-time ICA colleague from Chicago, came to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to lead workshops on Multiple Intelligences for facilitators and Differentiated Learning for teachers.  His 5 workshops in Singapore with the Ministry of Education adn 2 in Kuala Lumpur with facilitators and teachers were much appreciated and educational. 

The Epps also enjoyed hosting Bruce while in Kuala Lumpur.  Much attention now is focused on preparations for the 10th Annual IAF Asia Facilitator Conference scheduled for Kuala Lumpur, 25-27 July.  See the IAF website at www.iaf-world.org for details. 

Please know that a limited number of registration scholarships are available, so contact Asma Abdullah via my email address below for more information.

Ann Epps           annepps@pd.jaring.my

TAIWAN:

Location: Taipei

Proposals for new programs were written and sent this week.  Larry gets new pages in his passport, and meets with Open Quest for two new programs and two different teams. A full and fruitful one day training at Open Quest is conducted on mentoring clients and tools developed for that purpose. 

Richard and Gail West are in the USA visiting family and preparing to join colleagues in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Evelyn continues preparations for the ICAI Board election and reminds everyone that candiates may still turn in the forms due March 30 2007 by providing the following information below.

Please email to icaivote@gmail.com    Thank you for completing this by March 30, 2007 and returning it to the email address above. If you have any further questions about this process, please contact Evelyn Philbrook at joyful52@gmail.com, or skype joyfuleakp. 

ICAI BOARD NOMINATION WORKSHEET            
Deadline 30 March 2007
Recent Picture
Name
Contact information
Address
Email
Skype name
Telephone
Cell
History with ICA
Other
Bio or Skills background
Why would you be good on the board of ICAI
The nominee is willing to serve 1 year, 3 years or Both

Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook           joyful@icatw.com

UNITED KINGDOM:

Jonathan has been concentrating on a proposal to the EU for funding for the European Training of ToP Trainers scheduled for next year, Martin has come back from holiday, Amelia and Alan Heckman are busy working with groups under the Young People programme.

Jonathan Dudding           jdudding@ica-uk.org.uk

ICAI:

Location: Montréal

Lots happening at ICAI this week, mostly in relation to office setup. Selected office phone system and internet service, purchased computers, selected office furniture, selected liability insurance vendor, revised relocation budget, and met with bank to clarify procedures for accounts transfer. Also edited the Annual Report, supported Board election process, legal follow-up on charitable status application with Judy, and planned April travel and meetings schedule with Lambert.

Big breakthrough this week - work permit paperwork finally came through for both Lambert and Sarah!

We look forward to having Katie on board next week to take over office management.

Sarah Miller           sarah.miller@earthlink.net