[OSList] Bi-lingual open space

[Katia Van Belle]

Here is one more story I would like to share.

Last month I opened space for 450 people. They gathered around the topic of "more holidays for more people", and were invited by a special department of our government that provides holiday opportunities to poor people. Usually, on their forum (which is held once a year and lasts for half a day), half of the participants are poor people who went on holiday thanks to the initiative. The other half are social organizations that work with these people, and a small group are hotel owners, managers of entertainment parks / zoo /... So it is a very unique and interesting mix of stakeholders who meet.

This year the department has won a prestigious international prize, and the 'officials' were present to give the prize to our minister of tourism, who then gave it to the head of the department, etc... However, we decided we didn't want the officials just to sit and observe the event, and leave without understanding (without having felt) the power of this group of people. So we decided to include them in the open space. At least in the second round of sessions, once the journalists had left.

To our surprise, they convened a session on the topic of 'how can social media help us give more holidays to more people?'. Quite a stretch we thought... given that many of the participants didn't speak English, and maybe many of them don't have computers at home... But that proved us wrong! It was the largest session, with over 25 people attending, and our international guests where pleasantly surprised by the intensity of the conversation, the richness of the ideas shared and how many of the participants did their best to speak English.

"Be prepared to be surprised", how true that was once more!


Katia

Op 03 Mar 2012, om 17:40 heeft Harrison Owen het volgende geschreven:

> Chuni—Several languages. Wonderful! Having been “there” multiple times – once with 15 different languages – I have always found it the richest of experiences. If you follow all the wonderful, detailed suggestions of Lisa I know it will turn out just grand. But personally I find myself much closer to Katia. I guess that is not surprising considering my affection for thinking of one less thing to do.
>  
> My approach comes from some considerable experience in good international bars (go ahead and say something nasty about martinis J) – and one of the things I have always noticed and enjoyed was that as the evening went along, anybody who really wanted to talk to anybody else always managed to accomplish their desire. The conversation might take a little time and pass through multiple languages and persons, but the essential messages were always delivered. Self organization at work, I think.  And something else happened along the way.  As people were helping people they bonded in the process. By evening’s end, total strangers had become pretty good friends. Doubtless the alcohol helped, but there was more than that – related to the fact that helping each other is a good thing in itself. And all of a sudden the disparate languages became a positive support for emerging community.
>  
> So I advocate using the Principles of a Good International Bar (Is that the 6th Principle?). When people want to communicate, they will do that and the effect of their effort goes way beyond the simple passage of words. To help out, I have used little lapel flags representing languages spoken (like the airlines) – so if you were looking for somebody who spoke Serbo-Croatian you might find them. This can help when you only have two languages – however, it is almost easier just to ask people (that is a nice civil thing to do).  Bottom line in my experience is that language is a problem only if you make it one. If the people care, they will find a way, and be stronger for the effort.
>  
> Harrison  
>  
> Harrison Owen
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> From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Ofchunili2000 at yahoo.com
> Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 9:29 PM
> To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
> Subject: [OSList] Bi-lingual open space
>  
> Hello All,
>  
> I am working on a state-wide initiative to bring people together to address "How Can Creativity and Innovation Revitalize New Jersey."
> One of the communities we are planning an open space for has a large Spanish speaking population. To host an inclusive event, we very much want to include these people who don't speak English.
> Does anyone have experience organizing a bi-lingual open space?
> Did you use a translator? Did you repeat everything in both languages? How did you handle the break-out discussions?
>  
> Thank you so much for sharing!
>  
> Chuni Li
> New Jersey
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