Story of a recent Open Space with Aboriginal youth (long as usual)

[Chris Corrigan]

Colleagues:

I'm just back from a very cold and windy Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
where the temperature was -30C with a wind chill on top of that.  The
roads were covered in ice and the snow as blowing so that it was
impossible to see sometimes.  I don't wish bush fires on anyone, but
just a LITTLE bit of that heat would have been welcomed on the North
American prairies this week.

At any rate, I was there to open space for about 80 Aboriginal youth who
were gathering to talk about "Securing Our Future."  The gathering was
sponsored by a committee of Aboriginal youth who are running a
government program called the Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth
Centres (UMAYC) program, which targets money (and lots of it) towards
projects focused on Aboriginal youth in Canada's largest cities.  I've
worked with these youth councils in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and
Ottawa, and now Winnipeg.

Back in October these youth got trained in the two day practice workshop
Michael Herman and Judi Richardson and I piloted in Alaska.  They were
primed for Open Space, and asked me to come and facilitate this first
conference so that they could participate.

On a cold and windy Saturday morning we had 80 youth, a few government
"observers" and four Elders gather in a hotel on the outskirts of
Winnipeg.  Before I got started the Elders went through a long process
of welcoming and blessing the space.  We began with a smudge, a ritual
burning of sage, sweetgrass, tobacco and cedar to "clean" the room and
invite kindness, sharing, caring and respect into the circle (more on
smudging here: http://www.ammsa.com/guide/WINDGIC98SMUDGE.html). One
Elder, Myrna Larramee, sat in the centre of the circle and sang a song
that comes out of a series of teachings she does based on the structure
of a teepee.  There are fifteen poles that hold open a teepee, and when
the structure is erect it looks like a woman in a skirt with her arms
raised towards the sky.  Myrna's teachings are about the 15 values that
women need to keep themselves standing strong, and especially the power
that rests at the centre of the circle, where the fire is kept burning
to nurture and sustain.  The song she sang was a song that honoured the
power at the centre.

This was followed by a prayer from another Elder, Neil Grey, who offered
prayers to the four directions and also blessed the centre of the
circle, acknowledging its power.  These prayers and songs were offered
before I explained the process, which was very cool, and just really
goes to show how deeply engrained the circle is in Ojibway/Dakota
culture.  It also speaks volumes to me about how natural the process of
Open Space Technology is with respect to these traditional dynamics.

Following the prayers and songs (including a beautiful pow wow honour
song from Manitoba's first all-female pow wow drum group, the Sweet
Grass Road Singers), I opened space.

We had 36 topics in short order and the day went well, as youth got lots
of work done on a whole slew of issues.  There were not so many
bumblebees or butterflies; everyone was deeply engaged in the work.

Lots of little things happened.  Myrna, who is a teacher at an
Aboriginal school and who works with inner city young kids a lot, sat in
on a group on prostitution prevention which had been convened by a
teenage woman. About 10 other young women were in that group and Myrna
immediately invited them to join with her to plan a curriculum for
grades 5 and 6 students (11-12 years old) on prostitution prevention.
So they are off and running already.

In another session on street gangs that evolved into issues between
Aboriginal youth and police, Rick, a 27 year veteran of the Winnipeg
police service and a recent attendee at a training Michael Herman and I
did in December, made some valuable connections for the youth in those
groups who wanted to change the status quo.

Those were the instant hits.  The next day was spent setting the ground
work for future solutions.  We prepared the proceedings document
overnight and the next day, youth themselves led a series of structured
workshops on proposal writing and project development.  The idea was
that interested youth could take the solutions that had been discussed
in the Open Space, take their new found skills in proposal writing and
get a project together to submit to the UMAYC council for funding.  The
funding deadline is in March, so there is lots of time for youth to get
partnerships together or find organizations to help incubate these
projects.  I'll let you know how it all turns out.

The UMAYC Council itself will use the proceedings to craft its call for
proposals, due out in a couple of weeks.  They intend to solicit
proposals for projects to address the needs the youth identified and
they also want to use the session conveners to vet and improve some of
the proposals when they come in, to ensure that they are up the right
alley.

As for the Elders, they were most impressed with the process, and Myrna
spent a great deal of the second day talking to me about how Open Space
Technology sits with her teachings.  She was impressed by the true
empowerment ("You have to walk your talk with youth...if you tell them
they are leaders, you have to get out of their way when they choose to
lead") and by the gentleness of the process.  She also smiled long and
hard at the butterfly image, because that is a central archetype for her
teepee teachings, indicating the beauty and power of silence.

On the second day, while the youth were meeting in their workshops, the
Elders set to work planning a training workshop in May in Winnipeg which
they have invited me back to do.  Over the course of a few hours, the
four Elders, a couple of government people and some youth organized the
training, found dates, got a location and even got all the money they
needed to put the thing together.  Amazing.  The Elders especially are
keen to learn this process, telling me that it is a tool for which they
can see a myriad of uses in their own work with the community.

So I'm a little elated, as you can tell, and charged up about some of
the things that are likely to come out of this one.  If anyone wants a
copy of the proceedings, email me off list and I'll send you one.

Meegwetch for reading this far ;-)

Chris




---
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

Bowen Island, BC, Canada
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
chris at chriscorrigan.com

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