Part three OST with children and families

Chris Corrigan corcom at interchange.ubc.ca
Sat Jan 27 00:03:03 PST 2001


Colleagues:

Memories of buying a goat farm and retiring have flown from my mind.

I opened space today for our third of three public legal education
workshops with the Aboriginal community in Vancouver today.  The
workshop was targetted at Aboriginal parents, advocates and service
delivery organizations involved in the children and familiy services
sector.  Many of the people who were there today attended one or both of
the previous workshops.

We used the same format as the previous workshops, including the
transfer in exercise, presentation of various pieces of legal
information and then an afternoon of opened sapce where people were free
to discuss issues related to the overall theme of the day.  Today's
theme was "What is the role of the community in the guardianship of our
children?"  This theme touched some deep emotions in people, as many
Aboriginal children who are in foster care are in non-Aboriginal homes
wher ethey often have no access to their culture, traditions and
communities.  This is what people were asked to relfect on today.

There were 32 people there today who proposed 13 topics.  I noticed two
types of topics: those that are related to the theme in a more
implementation sense ("How can we arrange for out of town visits with
grandparents?") and those that were bigger questions, transcendant, even
("Why does our community accept the apprehension of our children?")

I have noticed this second type of topic in many of the OST events i
have done.  In some ways these topics get at the root of the problem,
but in other ways they are the engine that drives the evolution of the
group.  Maybe I have been reading too much Ken Wilbur lately, but it
seems to me that these topics "include and transcend" the theme of the
event, and therefore transcend and include where the group is at,
resulting in accelerated evolution.  And these topics always get big
crowds, and they always seem to contain the highest degree of group
breakthrough learning.  To me these topics seem to drive the group to
the next stage of their life.

i sensed this in the closing circle.  For the first time, several of the
folks in attendance commented on the meaning of the process.  Comments
people made about the process resulted in conclusions like:

   * I know now that we are all experts
   * I know now that we don't need government to solve our problems, and
     we don't need to look elsewhere for solutions.
   * I am empowered
   * The help I have been looking for came to me today

What I am saying is that, after three OST events with this basic group,
there has been a shift in awarenessbecasue of the process.  The
community has discovered it's resources, has realized that it has itself
to look to for the future.  It has become something.  It has developed.

For me, this is hugely profound in its implications, because what it
says is that community development is most effective when one simply
opens space for the community to develop.  It doesn't require elaborate
planning strategies and particpatory initiatives aimed at, in my
opinion, establishing who has power and how much of it gets parcled
around.  Instead it simply requires the task of opening and holding
space be performed so that people can access their passions, and find
ways to take responsibility for them.  Forgive me if I seem to be
pointing out the glaringly obvious, but I am going to continue to write
about and think about this approach to community development.  I think
in many ways it grows out of a lot of the work that has been done on the
Open Space Organization.

Over three meetings, I can see that this little community has begun to
lay down a foundation for itself.  There is talk of some of the larger
Aboriginal family services organziations sponsoring a one day OST
meeting for the whole community to continue the learning and the
growing.

As is standard practice for all of our meetings, we had an Elder in
attendance for the whole day.  She is a wonderful woman who brings a
lifetime of experieince to sitting still and attending to the spiritual
space.  Today she brought an eagle feather for us to use in the closing
circle.  Passing an eagle feather around is a profound talking stick in
a lot of Aboriginal cultures.  It is said that you can only speak from
your heart when you are holding a feather.  The eagle is the bird that
flys the highest, has the longest seeing vision and is a messenger
between humans and the creator.  At the conclusion of the meeting the
Elder gave me the feather which to me represented a profound
acknowledgement of what OST has meant for our community.  She asked that
I use it in other circles that I facilitate, and indeed I will.  It will
certainly be on hand at OSonOS IX.  It was a very very moving gift.

It has been just over a year since I ran the Urban Aboriginal OST event
for 250 people in our community here in Vancouver.  And it has been a
year of tremendous growth for me, with the realization that with OST we
have a profound tool for decolonizing our communities, organizations and
lives.

And so I spread around the thanks again as I did a year ago, on behalf
of those who continue to thank me for the process.  To Harrison and
Birgitt, my mentors and teachers, to Michael Herman and Chris Weaver, my
inspiration and to all who contribute on this list for your amazing
support, teachings and sharing.

Meegwetch.

Chris



--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

http://www.chriscorrigan.com

108-1035 Pacific Street
Vancouver BC
V6E 4G7

Phone: 604.683.3080
Fax: 604.683.3036
corcom at interchange.ubc.ca

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