[OSList] 20,000 OS meetings in Africa??
David Glenwinkel
david at villagecare.com
Tue Mar 5 09:39:40 PST 2013
Hello Celia
David Glenwinkel here, I am the guy in the shadows that Harrison mentioned.
I have been monitoring OS list emails for a few weeks to get a feel for the
forum. I contacted Harrison a few weeks ago to ask permission to use some of
his writing. I was introduced to Open Space by a friend in California in
2005, read a little about it on the Web, and took my very reluctant friend
to Africa to help me with a pilot project I called Village Care. From that
time to my contact with Harrison I had no idea a forum existed, had not read
any of the books, and frankly developed the program on dumb luck and my
naturally contrarian view. I started OS with one village in Kenya, near lake
Victoria up in Kisi. I went to Africa in 2002 at age 48 to climb mount
Kilimanjaro, I had no intention of helping anyone. I became very irritated
at what I saw and my willful aspect kicked in, I had some background as I
grew up on a farm and have a degree in International Agriculture, and
trained peace corps volunteers in my college days. I ended up as a business
consultant and expert in international taxation, a longish story. After the
climb of Kili and five weeks wandering around villages in 2002 I returned to
the US to reorganize my business, then returned to Africa for four months
showing up unescorted and unannounced in Villages in Western Kenya. Over the
next four years I tried dozens and dozens of projects, and stayed a total of
about two years accumulated time in villages just observing and getting to
know people, mainly in Kenya and Tanzania, but I did manage to trek my way
through the great lakes region and down to Capetown. I failed at every
attempt to make effective change of any kind during that entire period,
literally exhausting my resources. In 2005 I met with a group of widows in
Kisi, about a hundred of them. Folks I had come to know well over the years,
as it is a community I often retreat to. That was our first Open Space
meeting, which lasted three days. I formed Village Care
(www.villagecare.com) as an official 501 C at the end of 2005. Today we have
over a thousand member villages in 11 countries, 5 in East Africa and 6 in
West Africa. We have well over 100,000 African volunteers working with no
stipends or allowances. Our mission is to equip leaders (OS Facilitators) to
mobilize their communities to improve the wellbeing of their orphans and
widows with no outside donations. We have impacted about 150,000 orphans who
are now cared for within those communities to a UN standard without donors.
We have two effective programs, one our main program, is called OPOS,
Outcomes, Practices and Open Space. It is a three day OS around a framework
of principles that I believe are universal. Our second program is called
OFB, Outcomes for Business. Underlying the written program is a set of
principles that are fundamental to true empowerment. I have been reading
through Harrison's work the past few weeks, and gleaning new insights.
Since we at VCI work only with the poor, and largely in areas that are not
Donor Infected, I think we have a pretty easy audience in many ways. I know
this is getting boring by now, so I will wrap it up. I am the one who claims
to have caused more than 20,000 OS events in Africa. Taking my daily walk
this week, I was thinking about the truth of that statement, I am sensitive
to accuracy, (our key programs all start with the word Outcomes). All of our
outcomes are measureable. I believe 20,000 is likely a very low number, so I
am satisfied with the claim.
To your points below, I was "schooled" in Kenya in exactly those same
excuses. Ultimately rejected them all, with great resistance from everyone,
including my own leaders, and I rejected a lot of other myths as well. We
started with some basic assumptions:
1. Members of the local community are best at creating their own
solutions. Only Africans can solve the problems of Africa.
2. Only Africans can lead in solving African Problems
3. The local communities already have all the resources they need to
get started.
4. Any outside infusion of capital, ideas, commodities, of any kind,
will destroy the heart of local empowerment. To that end we do not allow
westerners to facilitate OS or any other programs when in country. I removed
myself as a facilitator about three years ago.
5. The community must start and fundamentally succeed using only the
resources they have on hand.
6. Only the poor can solve the problems of the poor.
Needless to say these are very contrary positions, and very controversial.
We have not enjoyed any partnering relationships! I am not saying capital
infusions are not necessary, I am saying that such infusions reflect 60
years of failure in Africa because the seeds of empowerment were sterilized
by colonialism. Those seeds must be re nurtured and allowed to take root at
a fundamental level, re awakening what is in our human DNA, so the heart is
changed and transformation can occur. My observation is that is about a two
to three year process.
We do not provide allowances, food, travel, or any incentives for
participants. Each country has an independent NGO Village Care Initiatives,
the board is entirely indigenous, and they run their own program. We fund
only one leader in each country. We are not political in nature, but we
consider ourselves to be a path to peace. Our largest works are in Muslim
led communities, some radicalized, and in those communities Christians,
Traditionalists, and Muslims commonly co lead and participate in thousands
of projects. We are not on the radar, suck at fundraising, yet we are
thinking the program scope will double this year. At that point I hope to go
more public and seek more global awareness. I want the proof in the pudding
to be irrefutable, and as we grow I am seeing some drift in leadership
(Moving off of OS a bit) that puts us at a critical point of challenge right
now in my thinking.
I am a volunteer, VCI has no paid US Staff and all of us from this side of
the pond travel and work with VCI on our own dime. I do have some materials
that should be ready to within the next few months. I have written a book
called the Insanity of Africa, which defines the root problems that keeps
the poverty industry lucrative and perpetual. I think you might find it
informative.
Reading your points, really struck a note with me, and you are in my
thoughts and prayers. I have simply never had a bad OS experience. I have
had many bad experiences, and a ton of failure in my life, but OS resonated
with my DNA in some odd way. I have worked some very tough groups! I would
say that there is a dance, or rhythm in good facilitation. Being a catalyst
is a much harder job than being a teacher. My best tool by the way is
"sticky wall" an awesome way to let ideas move and flow. I would tend to use
the word "organic" which implies a very complex form of organizing that is
elegantly simple in form, rather than the term self-organizing. That is a
nuance to me, but has significant implications.
David Glenwinkel
From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Celia Bray CEO
Omni One
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 12:39 PM
To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list'
Subject: Re: [OSList] inquiry OS
Thanks so much for your feedback. To answer your questions so far.
1) Participation was voluntary, although the culture in Kenya is that
people expect to get a payment to attend forums, so some of them were
misinformed and may have come for the expected money. This is a culture
started by foreign aid and is now endemic. The first thing people ask if
there is a forum is 'how much money will I get' to attend. While the money
thing makes true motivation for attending cloudy, there were some that did
know there was no financial gain for attending.
2) The theme was peace in the community and it was 2 days before the
elections in Kenya. The theme was relevant and something that a lot of
people were directly effected by from the post election violence in the 2007
elections. So relevance was there but that does not mean it is something
that people are passionate about.
3) It was an open community forum, not within an intact system.
4) I noticed also that people stayed in their small clusters of people
they knew. They did not mix or move around to work with other people. Not
sure what that was about or how normal that is.
5) Kenya has an education system where children are told what to think
and what to do. It is not a culture that naturally lends itself to people
making their own decisions and breaking out of the usual tribe.
6) Another observation is that people seem to finish their discussions
very quickly and merge sessions so that they cover all the topics in one or
2 sessions, leaving the later sessions as a blank space where there is
nothing to discuss. It feels like there is a very superficial discussion of
topics rather then getting into the heart of it. In a forum of 100 people,
to cover all the topics in a couple of sessions is a surprise to me.
Any further ideas would be much appreciated. I am a westerner working in
Kenya, so culturally I am still learning a lot. I know I am missing
something important. I think it is helpful to draw my attention to the
question of passion. It does feel like passion is missing, and also the
hunger to get to the bottom of things is missing.
Peace
Celia Bray
CEO
Omni One Ltd
Peace, Enterprise and Community Development
P +254 735 191 344
E celia.bray at omni-one-consulting.com
W www.omni-one-consulting.com
OmniC84a-A08aT06a-Z
'The best way to predict the future is to create it' Peter Druker
From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Christine
Whitney Sanchez
Sent: Monday, 4 March 2013 7:08 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] inquiry OS
Celia,
Adding to Harrison's and Chris's questions about invitation and voluntary
participation, I wonder whether the participants are working together on
something and truly understand the process and benefits of
cross-pollination? Are you working with public forums or within an intact
system?
And I wonder if it might be counter cultural (within the system or in the
larger culture) in some way?
Thanks for bringing the discussion to the list. I love a good mystery!
Warm wishes from the air from Phoenix to DC,
Christine
On Mar 4, 2013, at 10:35 AM, Chris Corrigan <chris.corrigan at gmail.com>
wrote:
Agreed.sounds like a passion deficit. In my experience, when people are
gathered to discuss an issue that just burns within them, OST meetings fly.
We are never bored by immediate need!
My advice in the pre-meetings with your sponsor is to ask - "Why do we need
to hold this meeting? What is happening that makes this meeting important
for everyone who will attend?" From there, your invitation process should
be to reach all of those for whom this issue matters greatly. The key is
not in doing Open Space, it is in invitation. If the structure of Open
Space is a fireplace, invitation is the wood and passion is what lights it.
If one of the three is missing, your OST will fizzle (or work anyway, but
with low energy, if you want to put it that way).
Chris
On 2013-03-04, at 9:21 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:
Celia - Odd indeed! My first thought is two questions: A) Is participation
totally voluntary, or have the people, in some way or another, been "told"
to come? B) Is the subject (Theme) of the OS something that the people truly
care about? If the answers are No, No - then I am not very surprised with
the results. On the other hand, if the answers are Yes, Yes - this is
definitely weird and worthy of study.
ho
Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
Camden, Maine 04843
Phone 301-365-2093
(summer) 207-763-3261
www.openspaceworld.com <x-msg://105/www.openspaceworld.com%20>
www.ho-image.com <x-msg://105/www.ho-image.com%20> (Personal Website)
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From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org]On Behalf Of Celia Bray CEO
Omni One
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 2:05 PM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: [OSList] inquiry OS
Dear OS community
HELP NEEDED.
I have been working in Kenya for the last 8 months and facilitated a few
open space forums. I have noticed a pattern developing in my OS forums that
is not great. I am not sure if i am doing something wrong when opening the
space. It seems that when it is time to start session 1, if people don't
have their own topic in session 1 they just sit there. People only really
engage in the topic they put up themselves and sit around being butterflies
for the rest of the forum, complaining they are bored and waiting for their
session. Also, when they have finished their discussions they don't join
other people's group to contribute.
It has happened a few times. I wonder if it is normal or if I am missing
something. I do explain that if they are not discussing their topic they can
look at other people's topics and go to other groups, but it seems to not be
heard. It is not just a few, it is many people, sometimes half or more of
the forum are sitting waiting for their topic.
Please help me to understand what might be going on or what I might be doing
wrong.
Thank you
Celia Bray
CEO
Omni One Ltd
Peace, Enterprise and Community Development
P +254 735 191 344
E celia.bray at omni-one-consulting.com
W www.omni-one-consulting.com <http://www.omni-one-consulting.com/>
<image001.jpg>
'The best way to predict the future is to create it' Peter Druker
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