Cross Cultural Facilitation

[Brendan McKeague]

G'day folks in the OS global community
A new client has asked me about facilitating a 
one-day OS for a group of stakeholders and others 
about the creation of a refuge/hostel for 
indigenous women - she has only minor concerns 
about using Open Space having recently 
experienced her first event with me - her major 
concern is about using a non-Aboriginal white 
male as the facilitator - see honest and 
forthright comments below - and this event would 
be in a different part of the country from where 
I live and where I'm not known locally in the 
indigenous community - any thoughts on this 
query? Any stories of this sort of cross-cultural/gender scenario?
Cheers
Brendan
We have an opportunity with the new site being 
built in ----- to devote some of our resources to 
responding to the plight of indigenous 
families.  Having a different focus away from the 
mainstream site gives our service an opportunity 
to explore, with the assistance of indigenous 
stakeholders, a different way of responding to 
women and children from indigenous families 
escaping violence.  I don’t know what this will 
look like and it will be difficult and we won’t 
always get it right.  It will be a process of 
learning and experimenting with new ways of responding to families.

This is like a leap into the unknown for us 
because it will change our service.  It has not 
been undertaken by any other service to my 
knowledge, so there is no blue print to how we 
should proceed.  Having said this, I do think it 
is possible and I believe it will have a positive 
impact on our service as a whole.
There would be about 35-40 people invited to this 
gathering which would represent all of the key 
groups that would have an interest in a 
mainstream organisation taking on and providing a 
service to Aboriginal women and children.
There has been a positive reaction so far to the 
proposal from Aboriginal organisations but I am 
sure we will face some resistance/perhaps 
hostility? (I will probably know this before we 
enter an open space) – and in a sense that is one 
of the reasons why I think an Open Space forum 
will be good so that we can hear and respond to people’s concerns.
One of my concerns Brendan is how they will 
receive you as a facilitator of this process.  I 
am confident about you holding the space for us 
to discuss these issues but I also don’t want to 
set you up in the process either.  I am worried 
that there might be some hostility to a man 
facilitating the process and not a woman (you may 
be the only man there).  I would love your 
thoughts around this and whether you have done 
anything similar before.  Part of me says be 
courageous and go with what you think will work 
and another part of me is scared stiff!

*
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