more on homelessness

Michael M Pannwitz mmpanne at boscop.de
Fri Oct 21 05:13:41 PDT 2005


Dear Raffi,
just having a string on "translate open space into German",
there are words such as Ideaworkshop, Planningworkshop and just 
yesterday ActionWorkshop (Handlungswerkstatt)...which, I think is 
pointing the way that you and later ho spelled out.
Nevertheless, there is a widespread insistance on calling it open space,
because none of those "translations" are inclusive enough.
Would people be more likely to come to an ActionMeeting rather than a 
PlanningMeeting...in Berlin, yes, many quite weary with Planning 
meetings that lead nowhere (or at least not very visibly anywhere) with 
those in charge doing the planning after all.
Greetings from Berlin
mmp


Raffi Aftandelian wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> I just wanted to share a few thoughts from a second 4 hour OST meeting
> on homelessness simply titled: "Government services, nonprofit
> organizations, and homeless people."
> 
> We had worked carefully with the City of Moscow Social Welfare
> Department's Homeless people services division to come up with a good
> title. But they changed it at the last moment.
> 
> Fine enough. We had some 50 people: from nonprofits, heads of
> municipal shelters, from local press, a TV station shooting a
> homelessness documentary, and, uh 3-4 homeless people.
> 
> That's just where we are in the dialog right now that homeless people
> choose not to come to planning meetings, seeing little point. It's a
> slow process.
> 
> All the usual miracles happened: wonderful contacts, great
> conversation, new ideas.
> 
> Homeless shelter heads publicly said that they now would take in *any*
> homeless person, not just one who is originally from Moscow. This rule
> essentially meant the city had/has been not dealing with the problem
> head-on because Moscow as the most resource-rich city in Russia has a
> huge number of non-Muscovite homeless people.
> 
> Time will tell if this public announcement will come to fruition.
> 
> Marina Perminova, of the Catholic charity Caritas, co-led it with me.
> She highlighted how we are first of all humans, not civil servants,
> homeless people, etc. It was a simple, fundamental way of setting the
> tone.
> 
> Watch this space for more about Marina! I am really excited about
> working with her.
> 
> At the closing, several people spoke about how they'd had enough talk,
> they wanted action. And I remembered how I think it was you, Harrison,
> you talked about how OS is action planning all the time. Funny how we
> don't always see that.
> 
> Participants saw value in the conversation and they saw that something
> happened there-- again-- that is different from what they usually do.
> 
> It is good that the head of homeless services for Moscow is someone
> who seems really open and receptive. This is in large part thanks to
> Marina's efforts in bringing Moscow social welfare department people
> to Paris through Caritas. To see and experience firsthand how
> homelessness is worked with elsewhere opened their eyes.
> 
> The bureaucrats shifted into the realm of the possible?
> 
> Some people were moved just to see that there are people who actually
> *care* about the issue of homelessness. They had no idea that the
> compassion radius was that big!
> 
> And much work lies ahead: most of the homeless people in the closing
> circle chose to stand outside the circle nor say anything. I struggled
> with asking them to join the circle. Would that be too much of an
> intervention as a faciliator?
> 
> What's important, though, that in contrast to the previous meeting they
> stayed until the end.
> 
> warmly,
> raffi
> 
> 
> 
>                           mailto:raffi at bk.ru
> 
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