Keeping the spirit in turbulent times

[Sebastian Umlauft]

Here is a little story about our upcoming work in Palestine.
It won’t be easy, but Susanne is really working for her project
every day with so much energy, no matter what the news are.
Sebastian
-------

Keeping the spirit in turbulent times –
The impact of the political situation on our project in Jericho/Palestine
“What On Earth Can We Do Together In 7 Days?”


For the past few months we have been establishing a growing
network of support and participation in a project we call
“What On Earth Can We Do Together In 7 Days”? It had and has
the goal to co-create future community life in Jericho together
with locals, experts and laypeople from all over the world.
Jericho is the blueprint and model city for our work; other
cities may follow. 

Due to the political situation of the past months and weeks
we have been challenged, almost daily with emotions of hope
and fear. Up until the incident in Jericho when Israeli soldiers
invaded the local jail, Jericho had been a quiet small town at
the edge of the Jordan Valley. Then all of a sudden, due to the
worldwide press coverage, our participants became aware that the
project was planned to take place in occupied territories.
Within one week 15 out of 23 participants cancelled due to
security reasons. 

We planned an Open Space workshop on community development and
transformation. The goal was and still is to create a blueprint
for sustainable community life. This year though we are facing
extraordinary difficulties that will have a strong impact on
what we can do together in the days we stay in Jericho. Our
financial budget is facing a loss due to the cancellations of
the participants, as one Western participant would have funded
two locals. In addition two important sponsors withdrew their
support due to the present political situation. One was
unwilling to risk it’s business connections with Israel;
the other had to reallocate their sponsorship to more immediate
emergency aid arising from the present situation in Palestine. 

A small group of courageous people still want to travel and
transform the challenges of the moment. We plan to introduce
the idea of Open Space to as many people as possible. We will
promote the project for the year 2007 which will again include
an Open Space conference called “What On Earth Can We Do Together
in 7 Days?” It takes place form May 3 – 7 2007.
We hope you mark these dates in your calendar and join us. 

Our planned activities also included a one-day workshop with
about 60 Arab Israelis and Jews coming for a visit to Jericho.
Unfortunately Palestine cannot guarantee their security. We had
to cancel the event. We may spontaneously come together with
locals and others who are able to make it through the checkpoints
but as it now stands it would be irresponsible of us to force
a meeting. We had counted on 150 participants coming to the
second Together21 Gathering of non-verbal communication. 

We have gone through many ups and downs together since we first
announced the events in Jericho. We know that everything will
fall in place once we are in Jericho and we hope to get enough
financial support to hold a few great meetings. We can’t plan more
– may life take us into the flow. 

What else can we do?    
Trust the process of self-organization and believe in the people:
Whoever comes is the right people
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.

We thank you all for your kind thoughts, spirit and support.
Warmly,

Susanne Triner and Sebastian Umlauft.
--------------------------------------------------
Susanne Triner
Together21 (Together to One)
>From Humanity to Human Unity
Switzerland
Phone: +41 31 9525553
st at together21.org
www.together21.org


Sebastian Umlauft
Germany
Phone: +49 351 3140227
Mobile: +49 170 7520115
sebastian.umlauft at gmx.de

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist