[OSList] Egypt

Diane Gibeault diane.gibeault at rogers.com
Sat Dec 31 09:33:16 PST 2011


It is amazing what you, Claudia, and others around you, have created in such challenging times. Thank you for that recap below. You are an inspiration to all of us.
Your opening of space is creating light that is so crucial in this path towards more democracy. That light also warms up our hopes for you and for everyone on this planet. 
Wishes of love and peace for the new year. 
My heart is with you,
Diane


----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Dr. Claudia Gross <info at claudiagross.com>
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org 
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2011 8:48:58 AM
Subject: [OSList] Open Space development in Egypt 2011


Dear All!

A great year is about to be over soon - and another wonder-ful year is ready to start.
In Germany, we call this period between Christmas and New Year "between the years" and this is exactly how I feel right now:
Having a look back on the TaDa's of 2011 (its high points, successes, joys) and dreaming about 2012  ;-)

It's the perfect time to have a look back on the development of Open Space in Egypt.
As you already have seen in Eslam Erman's post, the short movie about one of the OS events documents our work "live and in colour":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l7iZ955QH8&feature=share . It was so fantastic and encouraging to receive your great comments and feedback - highly appreciated! :-)

In total, 10 Open Spaces were facilitated (+ 1 happening on Dec 31st - insha'allah) on topics as diverse as "Egypt at the Crossroads", "Unity in Diversity"/ interfaith dialogues, refugees in Egypt, voluntarism, effective citizenship - just to name a few. Over 400 women and men from over 20 Egyptian governorates have participated in the events. They are still in contact by closed fb groups and are now working on the next steps initiatives they have identified.

Additionally, the website Open Space Egypt was created by Eslam (http://www.openspaceegypt.com/) and has its own fb group (http://www.facebook.com/groups/257887974253169/). Thanks to Ramy Mortada we have new great posters with the five OS principles, the law, butterflies & bumblebees and the final admonition in Arabic and English. We are currently in the process of translating more material as Arabic resources for the coming Open Space events. 

To respond to the need of having Arabic speaking Open Space facilitators, I have trained a group of 13 who are now able to facilitate their own events. Right after this training, I was asked by others to repeat the training, so the basis of Arabic speaking facilitators will increase in 2012 again. The weekend after this training, the new facilitators already run their first Open Space on Informal Areas: two of them facilitated it and five were assisting them as a core team. Can't tell you how proud I was when I saw all of them making this event happen - it was a big and inspiring success! :-)

The development of Open Space in Egypt has gained momentum: The new facilitators are planning to organize more Open Spaces, we all want to increase the PR to attract more sponsors and interested participants, we continue our OSLEX meetings to have an exchange on our learning, and we keep on translating and developing useful materials to support the facilitators regarding their important work. 
I personally believe it's just a matter of time until we start supporting other countries in the Arab world in facilitating their own Open Spaces  ;-)

Wish you all a great year 2012 filled with health, love, joy and peace!

Warm regards from Cairo,

Claudia
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20111231/eb910918/attachment-0008.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list