[Oe List ...] Dialogue on the Future

Fri May 30 10:33:14 EDT 2008

Good to hear from you Alice.  Donna Ziegenhorn and I heard Greg Mortenson in
Kansas City not too long ago.  He sounds just like his book.  Marge

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 8:55 AM, Alice Baumbach <abaumbach at new.rr.com>
wrote:

> Thank you, Larry for sharing your depth thinking. I just read _Three
> Cups of Tea _by Gred Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. It is about one
> man's mission to promote peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan--a must read
> for the EI/OE/ICA community. He builds schools for $12,000 that would
> cost their governments megabucks more. His style and methods are well
> worth the read. You may even want to use quotes and stories from the
> book in your training. Alice Baumbach
>
> Marge Philbrook wrote:
> > Love you, Marge
> >
> > On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 5:09 AM, Larry Philbrook
> > <icalarry at ms69.hinet.net <mailto:icalarry at ms69.hinet.net>> wrote:
> >
> >     Dear Colleagues and Friends
> >
> >     I have been thinking a lot about the future lately. I have been in
> >     Taiwan 17 years and am still enjoying myself and learning a lot
> >     but I also see my role as changing - many more of our colleagues
> >     are fully capable facilitators and wise mentors for the next
> >     generation so what is my role? The past year I have been asked to
> >     work in 9 countries besides Taiwan and each offered a great
> >     opportunity for me to learn and interchange with new cultures and
> >     great people. I am doing my best to make no assumptions and to
> >     continue to go with the flow of what life is offering me.
> >
> >     As many of you know my organization, the Institute of Cultural
> >     Affairs, will be doing our 7^th global conference in Japan. This
> >     represents 28 years of conversation about what is going on in the
> >     world. I am trying to figure out what the critical questions are
> >     that need to be asked and who might be people to involve in the
> >     conversation. Below you will see the official context from the
> >     website if you want to read it you can. I thought I would share my
> >     questions and see if anyone else wants to share either in this
> >     dialogue on or offline.
> >
> >     1) I have been seeing a lot of negative signs the last several
> >     years – signs of hopelessness like Iraq and perhaps the final
> >     destruction of the myth of America as the good guys - What are
> >     signs of hope for you in the world today?
> >
> >     / /
> >
> >     2) Despite the enormous efforts made each year to address the
> >     world's persistent development challenges, the international
> >     community can point to only incremental impact on the status quo.
> >     Why? What is going wrong or right with societal and community
> >     transformation?
> >
> >     3) What are the critical questions that it would be worth having a
> >     group research and discuss in depth?
> >
> >     I figure if I am asking others to venture their answers the least
> >     I can do is give it a try so here are my current thoughts:
> >
> >     1. What are signs of hope for you in the world today?
> >
> >     · /For me a sign of hope is that the choice for the democratic
> >     candidate for president in the US is between a black man and a
> >     woman – both seen as strong and viable/
> >
> >     · /For me a sign of hope is some of the youth I am working with in
> >     Hong Kong who are trying to figure out how to be young, Chinese
> >     and in transformative relationships/
> >
> >     · /I connected with a group call the Generative Change Community
> >     (GCC) who are supporting the use of dialogue in deep conflict
> >     situations like the southern Philippines – adding the concept of
> >     dialogue before decision-making to deepened the trust and build
> >     community./
> >
> >     //
> >
> >     / /
> >
> >     2. Why? What is going wrong or right with societal and community
> >     transformation?
> >
> >     · /I see the business of development as being a major driver – one
> >     of my colleagues was talking about working with an NGO and no one
> >     wants to talk about the costs they have because it will reveal how
> >     much their operation overheads eat into the donations this is even
> >     in internal conversations – How do we build viable development
> >     models based on real costs without getting caught by the same
> >     profit motive of the private sector?/
> >
> >     · /Value based NGO's have learned that they can use development to
> >     convert people to their belief system which has long term
> >     consequences on the communities and individuals involved this
> >     shows up a lot in madrassah movement and Christians teaching
> >     English in China - At what point is service for the needs of
> >     others and at what point service to my own vision of how others
> >     should be?/
> >
> >     /· /Development that is tided more to the givers needs than the
> >     communities - wheat growing in Africa because that was the
> >     technology - cash crops over food because of the need to pay debts
> >     to donor countries//
> >
> >     3. What are the critical questions that it would be worth having a
> >     group research and discuss in depth?
> >
> >     · /The economics of today and tomorrow are driving the poor to be
> >     poorer and the rich to be dramatically richer – expectation of
> >     return of investments of 10+ % is very destructive – How do we
> >     shift the context of more more more?/
> >
> >     · /Healing has become a business how do we return to healing as a
> >     vocation - levels of stress and cancer grow every year - we have
> >     begun to have diseases of the poor countries and diseases of the
> >     developed countries. One way to know if you are becoming developed
> >     is the increase in cases of certain types of cancer./
> >
> >     · /How is facilitation a transformational role in organizational
> >     and individual development? What is the edge today in facilitation?/
> >
> >     / /
> >
> >     Just a few thoughts
> >
> >     With respect, Larry
> >
> >     --------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >     My name is Larry Philbrook
> >
> >     I am with the ICA in Taiwan – I have been with the ICA since 1970
> >     based in 6 nations and have worked in more than 30. I have worked
> >     in community development since 1968 and with organizational change
> >     since 1984.
> >
> >     I am happily married to Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook and we have two
> >     wonderful children Lela and Lloyd both of whom are now in Chicago.
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >     *_GLOBAL CONFERENCE ICA International Unlocking the potential to
> >     create a new world together_*
> >
> >     "Despite the enormous efforts made each year to address the
> >     world's persistent development challenges, the international
> >     community can point to only incremental impact on the status quo.
> >     As a result, many have called for a *paradigm shift*, in order to
> >     usher in a new era of holistic social change.
> >
> >     The Institute of Cultural Affairs International's 7th Global
> >     Conference on Human Development: /Unlocking the Potential to
> >     Create a New World Together/ will serve as a *launching pad* for
> >     realizing the paradigm shift needed to overcome our deepest human
> >     development challenges. Breakthrough is possible only through a
> >     *comprehensive, integrated approach*, which facilitates the
> >     exchange of information and collaboration across disciplines and
> >     areas of interest.
> >
> >     The 7th Global Conference will take place over *_five days_*,
> >     from* 17-21 November 2008 *in *Takayama, Japan*, and will include
> >     more than *_1000 participants_*. It will bring together key
> >     stakeholders from *civil society*,* government*, and the* private
> >     sector* to explore our most pressing human development challenges
> >     and design groundbreaking approaches to resolving them. By
> >     bringing together peoples from the various sectors, as well as
> >     different fields within each sector, a tremendous opportunity for
> >     partnership is achieved. To guarantee the productive engagement of
> >     all participants, facilitators will be engaged to guide the
> >     conference process. "
> >
> >     The Central Challenges for this Global Conference are：
> >
> >     1. The Effective Governance and Protection of Human Rights
> >
> >     2. Persistence of Poverty
> >
> >     3. Environmental Degradation and Climate Change
> >
> >     4. Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods
> >
> >     5. Violent Conflict and Social Disintegration
> >
> >     6. Access to Heathcare and Preventing the Spread of Diseases
> >
> >     7. Literacy and Education
> >
> >     8. Consumerism and Over-Consumption
> >
> >     9. Disconnectedness and Barriers to Engagement
> >
> >     10. Private Sector Collaboration
> >
> >     http://ica-international.org/global-conference/index.html
> >
> >
> >     _______________________________________________
> >     OE mailing list
> >     OE at wedgeblade.net <mailto:OE at wedgeblade.net>
> >     http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
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