[OSList] Village Care notes! Chats 3 &4

[Tricia Chirumbole]

hi all!

Following is a rather lengthy set of notes detailing the past 2 Village
Care conversations...whew!

As before, the notes were processed very little and are likely to include
mistakes and omissions :)

*Village Care chat 3*



Participants: Skye, David, Suzanne, Pernilla, Tricia, Marie Ann, Linda
Stevenson, Paul Levy

·         Skye has talked with David 1:1 and asked him, “What does he want
out of this?” [skype discussions, interactions]

o   David’s response: He likes metaphysical discussions, but he loves
action. *What’s next? How do we go global? *

·         David will connect Tricia with the Village Care leader in Nigeria
for connecting her Ghanaian friends – he covers Ghana, Togo, Benin,
Cameroon….

·         Suzanne: Introduces how she is passionate about *unleashing
leadership* at any level and that our North American model formed in
the *Industrial
Age, hierarchies, *etc., is *not working!*

·         She has been *working with Millennials* in the realm of
unleashing leadership. She feels we are at a *crossroads*, not just for
poor communities, but for the “wasteland” of the young generation. They
have *vast potential, but also vast college debt*. She wants to unleash
their leadership so that they can unleash that of others!**

o   She wants us all to *come to Florida* [for the WOSONOS in case you
weren’t sure!], so we can respond to the prompt: The world is
waiting!!There is much ready to emerge, are we ready? **

·         Paul: He is inspired by the discussion David gave of the respect
for elders in the decision making of African villages. **

o   What can we learn about the elder system in business and corporate
settings? **

o   He sees commonalities among healthy communities. **

·         Either Paul or David suggests, “that no company is healthy for
more than 1 or 2 years at a time” [then they need to reassess, refresh,
regroup]**

·         David shares that in his experience leaders tend to be buried in
companies and are not necessarily the nominal leaders – he can usually “*feel
the rhythm” in a business* and identify the true leaders, as well as feel
if there “spirit” is “right” or “wrong”.  **

·         David mentions how *Village Care* is supported by him and 3
friends with *no outside support.*

o   He was close to spreading the work further, but ran out of money, time,
and energy. **

·         Paul: *applying the Village care principles to the corporate
world: *In regards to the importance of using only African facilitators for
the village care work, why don’t we find people in organizations ,
homegrown people, to run the circle?**

o   David replies that he doesn’t even do the intro in his programs**

o   Skye asks if he can *identify characteristics of a good facilitator*?**

o   David says he is not sure how he does it, he just knows**

§  Trying to make all of the program “Dumb ass simple” J so anyone can use
it. **

o   Pernilla suggests that it may depend on the question. In a conflict
situation, it may help to have an external person, whereas for a “building”
focused initiative, internal may make sense.

o   Paul shares that one time on a project in Eastern Europe, he did not
feel right opening the circle, so he asked someone else to do it, [someone
internal or local I am guessing] and it worked!...Another time, they
requested the “Englishman”, so he did the opening.

·         Pernilla opens discussion about the difficult of applying things
at a *global level. *In relation to the complexity and varying *relationships
between governments and people*.

o   She adds that in Denmark, the citizens have a “graceful view of
government”

§  Some Americans on the call are confounded by this concept :o

§  The Denmark States’ relationship with the individual is to protect them
from the family/clan [demands I guess] – this is also intriguing to a few
of the Americans!

·         Skye proposes that the* key to a revolution is 1) Hope; 2) Seeing
Progress*

·         Discussion about whether or not to *use social media and the
web*for sharing ideas or how to.

o   Paul offers that there are comparable web services “behind the
firewall” that do not have the commercial distractions and ties of those
such as twitter.

§  More on this Paul?

·         Discussion on how/if to open up the discussion to everyone
interested in the spirit of OS or not.

o   Concern presented that the discussion/group may get too large to manage
effectively.

o   Suzanne suggests some tools she was introduced to by Ben Roberts of
Dialogue and Deliberation that can be used to break groups into smaller
groups [I think this applies to skype discussions, but not sure!]

o   Seems to be consensus that this approach sounds reasonable





*Village Care chat 4*



Participants: Skye, David Gwenlinkel, Tricia, Linda Stevenson, Denyse
(David’s colleague/acquaintance)



·         Skye: Interested in the intersection among OS, Village Care
model, and her work with autognomics –

o   possibility of identifying *Universal Principles*?

§  Seems to include the existence of “self agency” or *personal agency*

§  *Coherence *seems to be another

o   Looking at the “why” behind processes that work

o   Applying these concepts to *breaking cycles of poverty*

o   Notes that the rate of change is happening at a pace in recent history
that allows us to *observe processes*, not just outcomes, as well as
the *evolution
of process*.

§  Inspecting the phenomena consistent across living systems can aid in a
revolutionary change in the way we think [about our world and place in it]

§  This way of thinking is in contrast to the predominant modern Western
mode of *thinking that is focused on things, fixed objects,* and the
manipulation of these things.

·         We think we can control and predict based on our understanding of
this, but even these seemingly discrete and “fixed” objects have a history
and even a personal agency that makes our ability to control and predict
their behavior impossible.

·         David: requests Skye’s *definition of self agency*. He is
currently pondering the concept of language to use and how to agree on this
in respect to his work and in respect to his second book, which is almost
finished.

o   His language is defined around his OS work in Africa

o   Notes that funders still like the terms, “capacity building” and
“sustainability”, but these approaches are not working and he wants to *define
what his network does* as something different.

o   Skye offers that personal agency can be defined in a number of ways.
Provides the links:

§  Definition  of Personal Agency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_agency

§  Common definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_

§  Notes that personal agency needs to begin very early on and that we tend
to interrupt this process from the start by interrupting the natural
process of birth [not sure what birthing practices are meant here…anyone
know about lotus births? Pretty cool J))

·         David: Reintroduces his self-query, *“what is the appropriate
level of follow-up?” *to provide to the villages that he works with.

o   He has repeatedly seen communities fall back into their hierarchical
tendencies of putting chairs in rows, etc, but that does not necessarily
stop the process – he wonders if they would do even better if they
maintained the more open practices.

·         David also wonders *how you can let go* [I believe in terms of
opening up his Village Care process for use by a broader group or
completely public use] *while still* *maintaining the claims* that they
currently make [assuming this means that the outcomes and success observed
can still be presented as results that can be expected by users of the
process]

o   Tricia’s thoughts on this are that you cannot have both in full
expression/pure form – both the opening and the assurance of “success”;
adaptations will be made – some better and some worse – but you can
mitigate the bastardization and/or improve chances of “quality/accurate”
transmission.

§  Harkening back to the question about follow up: The successes and
attrition will vary –all ideas and methods introduced to the world get
absorbed and applied incrementally and in patterns that are not easy to
observe and perhaps impossible to predict.

§  Any idea, practice, behavioral tendency, or cultural norm is more likely
to grow to a critical mass if allowed the ability for it to be fully open
and spread virally with a likely incidence that at some points it will be
considered “bastardized” or completely separate from the original intent or
core philosophical underpinnings by some.

§  That is not to say it is still not a worthy endeavor to provide
education, support, and advocacy for the principles and practices that you
find to be valuable.

§  In my own experience, people and groups absorb and incorporate ideas
into their world in their own time, when it is ripe for them. It is
challenging to observe when something is having an impression, and likely
impossible and not worth the effort to attempt to predict or manage what is
having an impression and if/when/how it will be incorporated ….That can
probably all be said in a nice one-liner…like, “just let go” J))

·         Skye: Back to Universal Principles and *coherence and effective
action. *Queries, how do we figure out what you do each day? Something has
been effective in your past and then get to choose what you do with it. The
development of values and valuing occurs in this manner.

o   References a *“Breaking the Cycle of Poverty” Program in Mexico *that
is redefining personal agency and empowerment and has been very effective.

o   I believe it is this project – book on Amazon, but couldn’t locate link
for program:

o   “Many international development efforts have been limited because they
are elaborated as exclusively economic projects. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen
argues, however, that combating poverty requires expanding individual
freedoms and capabilities, in place of bolstering only macroeconomic
growth. Based on the work of IMIFAP (The Mexican Institute of Family and
Population Research) in Mexico and Latin America, this book seeks to
transform Sen’s philosophical approach into an operative model for
sustainable development through its Framework for Enabling Empowerment
(FrEE).”

·         Linda: States that she can hear Harrison’s voice (creepy!): *Don’t
work too hard* [this discussion is not listed in perfect chronological
order, so not sure what this input is inspired by, sorry!].

o   The power of OS is the power of self-organization. Reminded about the
concept of a *“nexus of caring” *Opening the space for the personal caring
to flourish. What do you care about genuinely? It starts to reveal itself.
It is because this is who we are – *we already know how to do this – we
just need the invitation. *We don’t want to fall back into a piecemeal
approach.

o   She repeatedly runs into challenges with people she works with in
corporations who want results and have no experience that this can work –
they are tied into hierarchies.

o   Recounts the message from [I think a group of *young people*] at the
World Economic Forum in Davos in 2010 or 2011. Paraphrased: *They are
connected so effectively that they do not need hierarchies and do not need
to fail. They need everyone’s support and are willing to learn from others.”
***

o   Notes that it is *the* *aggregate that self organizes. ***

o   *Innovation gathering proposal: *Linda and Suzanne are interested in
bringing together 100 people in a room – both young and old – for
collaboration and innovation “beyond your wildest dreams” **

·         Skye poses the question: What can we do next? What does everybody
want to do? – she would like to explore how her work fits in, but is not
sure how it is useful. **

o   David responds that he is not sure that “we need to  be in a big
hurry…village care is closer to a place where it can be used
anytime/anywhere”. Adds that while information is copyrighted, it is the
kind of copyright that he wants to be used**

o   Tricia is interested in discussing mechanisms for expanding/opening up
village care; exploring the combination of village care with other
approaches/philosophies such as Skye’s work – even making it open source;
and experimenting herself with applying the model to communities. **

o   Initial thoughts on explore the concept of opening up/scaling:**

§  ID existing networks with aligned missions or audiences for spreading
the word or adoption

§  Explore value, feasibility, and alignment of various methods for
knowledge and expertise sharing – forums, trainings, books, online
resources, face-to-face training, etc.

§  Structures for sustainability - community fundraising, paying clients,
all volunteer, multiple methods, etc.



-- 
Tricia Chirumbole
US: +1-571-232-0942
Skype: tricia.chirumbole
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