Guidance how to do OS with illiterate people and local communities

John Engle john at theexperiment.info
Sat Jun 7 09:20:23 PDT 2003


hi mikk.

perhaps you already found this text but in case you
did not:

http://www.beyondborders.net/OSIlliterate.htm

(my colleague was kind enough to post it on the
website for me but i'm not too wild about the url he
used.)

here's another story:

Open Space in Oral Cultures



last month i did another open space meeting with a
group of people, most of whom do not read and write.
we decided to have no signs, nothing written to make
sure that noone felt alienated.



this time, i had noone else with me who was familiar
enough with open space and who could help me to
communicate the principles and law by doing a skit. i
just simply explained them as clearly as i could in
their native language-haitian creole. they did just
fine. subjects were presented-lots!-and people
sub-divided in groups throughout the day.



the group was 35 woman and 5 children. the woman are
victims of the haitian military during the coup years
in '93. they were raped, beaten in most cases
imprisoned and some watched as family members were
killed. some have aids as a result and some are
raising children that were born from rape.



there is an international law firm that is working to
bring the perpetrators to justice and they invited me
to help the women to become more organized together
and skilled in communicating in public.



as you can imagine, i feel so inadequate with group
such as this. its like when i work with kids who have
lived on the streets of port au prince. i can't begin
to imagine the pain and suffering that they have
experienced. i can only be present with them. open
space, listen, and support them.



i had been meeting with 12 of these women regularly
for 6 months before we did the open space meeting.
there objective was to reach out to other woman who
had been raped and to attempt to integrate them into
their efforts. they were pleased with this one day
event. one result of the day is another day of open
space scheduled in november.



keep in mind, everyone involved with this group of
woman knows that things are going to take time. for me
to push to converge or to be too interventionnary in
any way would be ridiculous. they seem to find
tremendous strength and encouragement when they simply
come together. i simply try to take care of the
logistics to make it possible for them to come
together, open space, am mostly silent in the large
circle, and always am trying to affirm their process,
which is often chaotic, slow, and the furthest thing
from smooth.



...when it comes to being with people who have
histories so very different than my own, which
includes not knowing how to read and write, the laws
of spirit seem to be particularly important:



1. show up and be present

2. tell the truth without blame or judgement

3. follow what has heart and meaning

4. let go of attachment to outcome

 john engle

June 14, 2002




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