Thursday, June 11, 2009

SEAPCP ADVANCE CO COURSE FINISHES WITH A BANG


10 days, 17 participants, 9 countries, lots of stories and strong voices of hope and determination! This is how i am describing the SEAPCP ADVANCE COMMUNITY ORGANISING COURSE 2009 which successfully concluded on July 8th 2009!

In one voice, all 17 advance graduates of the C.O. Course voiced their commitment and rejuvenated vigour to spread the C.O. perspective to their respective country contexts. Echo workshops have been planned and graduates intend to further strengthen their local communities to initiate organising processes in their respective countries.

In the coming months, big things will happen as these eager graduates take up the challenge to put themselves to the test to strongly mobilse their local communities to be organised in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Timor Leste, Mongolia, India, Japan!

Stay tuned to this blog as we share with you stories of what exciting things had happened during the 10 days of the course held in Malaysia!

Jo Hann Tan
SEAPCP course director

16 comments:

Paul said...

Hi it was a great experience. after coming back updating a good no of people on SEAPCP programme.
Meanwhile I tried to catch mako on his email but that is bouncing. If mako come over here then pl contact me on biplabkp@gmail.com, regards Paul

jue said...

hi paul,

already missing mako?

Paul said...

Dear mama:
I am missing all of you. But Mako requested me for some new initiative at Gujarat what i had already done for him; so i thought to pass the detail to him but his email bounced. that is why the mail. how are you? your walking tips were great- but i am still a chicken. regards Paul

Anuka said...

Hi Hi!! i have been thinking to write something, but never could find a time. i've been quite busy since i came back, we've INTL consultation meeting with a stakeholders, and regular visits to the community etc. Tomorrow i'm off to the another where the other communities are. I will circulate the newsletter to all of u, if i ever finish it. hehe. Good luck to everyone!! Miss u all, and Miss beautiful KL, and its friendly/comitted people, and delicious food!!

Anonymous said...

it was me Zola, the above message.

Thanam Subramaniam said...

Hi friends,

It's great to chat with you all again.. Hope we're still in CO spirit... Jo Hann thanks for training modules session.It's really benefit for me since i plan to organize a youth camp in Taiping on December. I realize the important of module making after Jerald's session and its help me to think a lot about my training, preparation and also movement. I'll concentrate in CO activity after July because am still busy with my project paper and Radio Competition III. Thanks for everyone for guideline and supports.. Miss you all so much...

Hassan Nasir said...

Wow!!!!! really feels great, as bad at the same time, to read the above post by Jo Hann... great because it has been a great opportunity for all the participants to learn and master some advance co skills and concepts. Bad because I was unable to participate in the course due in huge emergency in our country as our NGO, which I am currently working, is playing an active role with over 3 million displaced persons.

However, I do believe we would all continue to share the learnings from the advance co workshop and our work in our respective countries with each other in best spirit of community development and common interest.

Best of luck and wishes to everyone!

Tan Jo Hann said...

great many comments on this blog...i hope we can keep up the pace...and continue to communicate through this blog...calling lian, lulu, agung, ai, mako, vutha, socheat, nareth, myo, nani, marilia and deo to blog in! I will annouce some of the plans of seapcp after compiling all your ideas and suggestions soon.....so blog on!!!

Paul said...

Dear Jo Hann:
I found that my trip back India was not as eventful as of others. However after coming back India it is highly eventful.
As I had shared in KL my organization staff members are quite enthusiastic on CO, but I am yet to get my board convinced in becoming a member of SEAPCP.

I had a detail meeting with Vice Chancellor of Gujarat Vidyapeeth (1 national university). It is the university established by our Father of Nation Gandhiji. And this is the only university where students are taught on non violence and peace based social work and rural development. My objective was to convince them to introduce CO in their education process of Masters in Social Work. In problem analysis I found that they are highly monolithic and protocol oriented. So I offered them to obey their rules and requested for just few sessions. But I understood that instead of strategy I am directly going to action so I changed my approach - instead of taking session I proposed them they can invite Mako (as he is a faculty in a Japanese Univ and give him a chance to teach students on fair trade, non violence and CO content). That worked very well and they are ready to invite Mako for experience sharing as they have provision for international experience sharing (I had discussed the matter in Mako at KL so I am also smoothing the process for him). Even though I can not get an opportunity to take the session I will be assistant to Mako and both of us can ignite some minds for grassroots work. If I can make it then I will invite Lian to come to my place and attend Mako’s session. I am hopeful but needs all of your psychological support.

Secondly, as I had promised I went to state government promoted network of HIV positive people. As Jerald shared these are GONGO (govt operated NGO) they create more problem to people rather than helping them to solve their plight. I could not get any success and booted out (even though minister of HIV action is seeking my advice for the development of this network!).

Then I met local CBOs and individual meetings are getting organized to identify HIV positive people who are interested to deliver some positive work for the society. I am hopeful and within this month I will be able to reach some destination.

This time Advance course was having less game so my daughter who was eagerly waiting for new games is not very happy with Jo Hann!
Bye Paul

Hassan Nasir said...

wow pual, lots of co work on your side....you seem to be in too much work!!!! how do you manage that all.....

Paul said...

Dear Hassan:
The reason is simple - I am not the ED!
How is your son? How are family members? Congrats for winning T20 world cup.

One small good news- I am getting involved in usage of ICT for Development and governance- I have developed some innovative ways of using Mobile technology for transparency and that is getting discussed on 26/06/09 at state level policy workshop.

Hassan hope you will remember our egovernance discussion. regards Paul

socheat said...

Excuse me,
I am still in the process of co-developing CO module and CO strategic plan for the next 3 year. Strategic plan final meeting will be next early month so ideas i have been bringing from SEAPCP will be shared and put into discussion.

We here just found the error of the CO process of our local organizers since most of them usually skip the analyzing step or analyse not deep to the root cause. I am thinking of putting a workshop specifically on Analysing skil, only that because they have been attending a few CO trainng already and also applying it to their community. what do all of you think?

Tan Jo Hann said...

things a re moving, fantastic, socheat, hassan, paul and others. Right now in permas we will be holidng our 2nd liners co workshop to train new and young organisers..hopefully by august. This kind of new blood is very much needed because the "seniors" are already getting too tired and too much work to do...

I know we are all far from each other but as long as each of us are committed to implementing community organising processes in our respective work, then we will become strong locally and then together as a region!!!

good luck and more power to all!

Paul said...

Dear Jo Hann: thanks for compliments. As I had shared in my last communiqué, I am putting my fingers on following subjects:
1. Trying to get CO process included in one of the most prestigious course in our country. For that I had targeted Gujarat Vidaypeeth, which was initiated by Mahtama Gandhi, our Father of Nation. If we can have recognition from this univ then no body can stop us in approaching other univ. The strength in the process is that the vice chancellor of this univ is actually advisor to our president! So later on we can have an easy advocacy task for education dept in our country.
2. I am targeting the MSW course (ie Master in Social Work course) in this univ. these students after completing their course joins developmental sector directly and through this process we can have multifold effect of CO in grassroot. I personally feel that even if we can manage partial success then also we will be able to ignite at least 40 young minds in CO process that will go to 40 organizations then our CO process growth will be exponential.
3. Initially, I took up a wrong strategy to promote the whole process by myself. I had changed it after discussion with the Vice Chancellor. Instead of me Mako can be a great ambassador for this process. This is a tactical move. Mako being a univ teacher can get easy entry into the teaching process as well as his interest in Gandhiji can earn him some partial fellowship/scholarship in this univ what Mako can use for igniting more minds. I being stationed at Ahmedabad do not need any money from SEAPCP for this process rather I can host my dear friends Mako and Lian in my small 1 room house with simple vegetarian food. Further logistic we need to work out.

Now CO process with HIV+ people: yes. Jo Hann, I never forget that matter. I was not sharing in detail as it is taking shape slowly. I got some partial success and am sure of getting a great success. I am not only planning for CO training I am planning quite more – selection of the trainees, their area of interest, what sort of need do they have and how CO process has to be molded to suit their needs, detail of participating NGOs, their area of interest, post training what will be their actions and how we can monitor their actions and what should be my role as a follow up workers. I will work on each front and then go for training. Pl guide me about the SEAPCP grant of USD1500. I am not getting any support form our govt system. And GONGOs are not happy with my move.

Video advocacy:
I had cross checked within our community and found KOMAS idea of video advocacy can be highly influential. I need to work upon it further and come back to you all.

regards Paul

socheat said...

Yeah, Community Videos are very effective tool for advocacy and organizing work. I am thinking of inserting community video activities within Strategic Plan.

La...

Hassan Nasir said...

Jo hann thanks for updating us........

Pual, i never wanted to be ED; I always preferred to remain CO but sake of communities and friends I have to accept the role but I never knew it would tied my hands in such a way....that I had to refrain from being a CO. But still a lot of things on my mind which I begin to start from September the time by which I expect my work to mainstream with some new colleagues coming to join our organization and sharing some work load.

But like we were discussing, and jo hann has been pointing, we all have our families so have to earn as well beside volunteering to do the co work; so far the my family and friends I had to think of some earning...you know how badly we have to suffer in Pakistan and India.

I am really pleased to know that you, Pual, are doing such wonderful initiatives.

Thanks for congratulations on our T20 trophy; the only huge happiness our nation got in last over 15 years.