Open Space - Cambodia - Street Children - Version 2 suitably inserted - long(ish)

Mon Aug 14 03:10:39 PDT 2006

It's now upside down but hopefully still makes sense??

See lower down if required!

"A Better Future for Us - The Issues and Opportunities"

Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

As part of the World Bank's Asian initiative to communicate and connect with
marginalized and minority groups, and in conjunction with the 2006 Annual
Meeting being held in Singapore this September, a programme of Open Space
meetings has been instigated from the Singapore regional office.

Using Open Space, and inspired by Peggy Holman's piece from Columbia where
she worked so successfully with 2000 street children, we have explored the
opportunity of working with street children across Asia to really understand
what is important for their future.

The programme kicked off in Papua New Guinea where the indomitable Father
Brian Bainbridge led a group of some 100 children and young adults

My contribution to date - an amazing (to me!!) meeting in Phnom Penh, the
capital of Cambodia, with some 150 street children.but with a difference.

The children had all come from the horrendous circumstances of working for a
living on the Phnom Penh city garbage dump - a literal mountain of fetid
rubbish where garbage trucks arrive every few minutes to dump their waste
directly onto this pile. The children made a living scrabbling for anything
sellable the moment the back was opened, running in front of the bulldozer
set to plough it down. Plastic, material, glass, food - anything sellable
that might make them up to US$1 per day if they were truly lucky

Taken in by an astounding NGO "Pour Un Sourire D'Enfant" they now work at
school six days a week. They are fed three simple nutritious meals a day,
given uniforms and books, and educated towards a career and a productive
life. The vocational side of the school has a restaurant (teaches cooking
but cooks all the meals) a laundry (teaching skills for housekeeping jobs) a
child care centre, a sewing school (who also make the uniforms) a gardening
section (who beautify the grounds) a hairdressing school, a bakery (where
everybody gets delicious fresh French bread during the day) and a new
mechanical school (which will ultimately maintain their vehicles). The
school has about 750 children on the vocational side and almost 2000 on the
general education side - and almost every single child graduating with
vocational qualifications goes into a job and has the opportunity to break
the grinding cycle of permanent poverty.

Their parents are "paid" in rice for every day they are in school - without
this they could not afford to let the children go to school because one less
pair of working hands means one less income opportunity, which is not
something they can even think about sparing.

Open Space proved (to me for the very first time as facilitator, which is
about as far away from a personal comfort zone that you could possibly get,
I think, but then I was "created" in Open Space by Father Brian and Viv
Walters - to whom I will be eternally grateful) its power yet again.

My opening of the space was translated into Khmer, and with the exception of
scheduled interventions by me over the two days all the other work was done
in Khmer - a quite beautiful language to see when they finally wrote it
down. But when everybody around you is speaking a totally foreign language
(and where you haven't even learnt the essential, but probably deeply
inappropriate, "Three beers please") meaning that you have absolutely no
idea of the subject, the discussion or the questions being asked there is
only one solution - just be there and keep smiling! 

 We tackled the theme -  

"A better future for us - the Issues and Opportunities"

And within the two days allowed we -

a) Posted about 110 topics on the wall

b) Reviewed, discussed and wrote notes for our Proceedings Book on 92 of
those topics (which they proudly took home with them, alongside their
Certificate of Attendance)

c) Prioritized down to 10 and discussed and created action points

What came up - and remember these are street children from approximately
12-18 years old?

Well, some of it is still being translated but major topics prioritized
included -

1)      Corruption and how to reduce it in Cambodia

2)      How to develop the economy in Cambodia to give us greater work
opportunities

3)      How to export more products made in Cambodia

4)      How to limit illegal immigration so Cambodians aren't disadvantaged

5)      How to use the results of the Khmer Rouge trials to benefit the
people of Cambodia

These, and the way the children came at them, are a great tribute to the
power of Open Space and its ability to genuinely achieve openness and safety
for those who would otherwise not have a voice.

In our Closing Circle, where some very good English was inserted as their
"thank you", the heart-warming physical gestures, the hugs and the beaming
smiles that had replaced a degree of curiosity, the laughter and the
absolute desire by so many to talk meant that, actually, no translation had
been needed all along. We all understood what we had achieved, even if they
had no real idea of the world I came from just 48 hours earlier and would
soon go back to - and I can still not begin to understand the pain and
hardship they have endured to get as far today as they have done, and the
determination they have shown that will finally give them a life they could
previously never have imagined.

The "road show" continues and, amongst us, Open Space meetings will be held
in Mongolia, Laos, Timor, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines and
Thailand, and we hope to be able to train others to take the programme
deeper into the countries than we can ever possibly penetrate ourselves.

As for the World Bank - they are learning the true issues and opportunities
first hand from those who will be the future of their countries, and they
will be able to positively impact on politicians and leaders alike,
addressing the issues that matter 

Nigel Seys-Phillips

Fulcrum Business Management Solutions

30 Mount Elizabeth

#04-34 Highpoint

Singapore 228519

Tel: +65 9639 2510

E-mail: nigel at fulcrum.com.sg

  _____  

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of
NigelSeys-Phillips
Sent: Monday, 14 August 2006 6:04 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Open Space - Cambodia - Street Children

Dear All - and in particular Peggy,

"A Better Future for Us - The Issues and Opportunities"

Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

I am afraid it is a bit long so I have, hopefully, attached it which means
you don't have to read it if you don't want to.but I wanted, inspired by
Peggy's amazing story, to recount how Open Space and the World Bank have
started a series of meetings around South East Asia working with street
children, and to share my personal experience with you. 

There is little to add - it works!

All the best

Nigel

Nigel Seys-Phillips

Fulcrum Business Management Solutions

30 Mount Elizabeth

#04-34 Highpoint

Singapore 228519

Tel: +65 9639 2510

E-mail: nigel at fulcrum.com.sg

  _____  

* * ==========================================================
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 *
* ==========================================================
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

*
*
==========================================================
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20060814/396444f4/attachment-0015.htm>