Central Asia

[Jo Toepfer]

Dear friends,

I'm working at the moment on a short-term contract for the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Central Asia
(Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan), helping
the Central Asian Red Crescent Societies to overcome the difficulties they
face in the changing environment since independence from the Soviet Union.
Open space provides excellent opportunities for that! So, in each country I
facilitate a one-day open space meeting in Russian with 30-35 people: staff
members, external partners, beneficiaries and other stakeholders. The
design is simple:
09:30 opening
11:00 1. Group
12:00 2. Group
13:00 3. Group
15:00 planning next steps
17:00 closing circle
17:30 end

I have done it already in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and it worked! In
Tajikistan 16 issues were posted and I got 11 reports in, in Uzbekistan 23
issues were posted and 17 reports were produced. Due to the lack of a copy
machine, computers and sometimes electricity I arrived at a very low-tech
design. Thanks god that Post-its are available! I do not produce the book
of proceedings in the meeting it will be done after and the planning next
step sequence is as simple as this (I picked up some ideas from Michael M
Pannwitz - thanx Michael!):
I put all reports on the wall and reading the proceedings is held as a
visit to this gallery. Than I put a blank A3 paper near to each report,
which carries the headline: "open questions and further recommendations".
People visit the paper and put in their additional ideas. Than I put up a
next A3 paper with two headlines: "Who is doing What, When and with Whom
and which resources are needed". Participants visit the wall again and
discussing these questions the agreements on the paper. The participants In
Tajikistan agreed something about next steps nearly on all 11 issues - only
on one issue the next steps paper remained blank. In Uzbekistan I got three
blank papers by the end of the planning sequence. On Wednesday this week I
have to facilitate the open space meeting here in Turkmenistan. Does
anybody heard about an open space technology meeting in Turkmenistan or is
this the first?

Greeting from Ashgabad
Jo Toepfer


--
Jo Toepfer
Tel: +49-30-42018000
Fax: +49-30-69088159
http://www.joconsult.de/

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