Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.....If you wish to SEND a report...send to your ICA contact person OR...go to the members section on the ICA International website

ICAI Board Report:      January 01 2013

Happy New Year to ICAI members and ICA colleagues worldwide. I am excited and honoured to begin my term as ICAI President on January 1, and wanted to start the year with a brief message to the ICA global network on behalf of the new ICAI Board.

First of all, sincere thanks to my predecessor Larry Philbrook of ICA Taiwan, and to Kevin Balm of ICA Australia, Sabah Khalifa of ICA MENA in Egypt and Dick Alton of ICA USA, as they complete their terms and stand down now from the ICAI Board. Under Larry’s energetic and inclusive leadership over the past two years, ICA International has been transformed in line with the new ‘peer to peer’ approach agreed by the 2010 General Assembly in India. Also, that meeting’s decision to close the Montreal-based Secretariat has been effectively and responsibly executed. This has been no small or easy task, and I am grateful also to all those members and colleagues who have played their part – not least our colleagues in Canada who continue to provide invaluable financial and administrative support to ICAI, our creditors who have generously agreed to write off the loans they had made to support the Montreal operation, ICA Nepal for delivering an outstanding 8th Global Conference on Human Development in Kathmandu, and the publications team and Sisters of Virtual Facilitation who have done so much to renew and revitalise our global relationships through innovative new online forms of meetings and communications. ICAI now enters the New Year not only with a new President and Board, but with a clean slate and in a very strong position to consolidate and build on these achievements – in order to better advance human development worldwide through the efforts and activities of our members and wider network.

At the online General Assembly in December we presented the roles of the new Board, and a strategic framework and outline budget that were approved by the Assembly to guide the work of ICAI and the Board over the next two years 2013-14.

Shankar Jadhav of ICA India, Isabel de la Maza of ICA Chile and Gerald Gomani of ICA Zimbabwe will continue on the Board and serve respectively as Treasurer, Vice-President for the Americas and Vice-President for Africa, MENA & Europe. Newly elected Board members Saci Kentish of ICA Canada, Seva Gandhi of ICA USA, Krishna Shretha of ICA Australia, and I will serve respectively as Secretary, Vice-President for Communications, Vice-President for Asia Pacific and President.

The strategic framework identifies eight key areas by which we shall structure our own work, and facilitate and communicate members’ contributions by means of ICAI’s decentralized “peer to peer” approach:

1. Support & encourage existing & emerging ICAs to achieve & maintain statutory membership where possible, otherwise associate
2. Develop, maintain & promote effective means for online networking & collaboration among members & colleagues, synchronous & asynchronous
3. Facilitate peer to peer support & collaboration among members, including face-to-face networking, staff, programme & curriculum development, resource mobilization & institutional sustainability
4. Oversee & support global initiatives of members, eg: global conferencing, ToP worldwide expansion, journal & policy advocacy
5. Focus the messages & expand the reach of internal & external publications including website, Global Buzz and Winds & Waves
6. Renew & maintain global relationships on behalf of members, eg: UNICEF, ECOSOC, CIVICUS
7. Clarify and strengthen inclusive ICAI governance and operations - inclusive relative to geography, language, age, technology etc.
8. Engage members & colleagues to develop longer-term vision & strategy for global ICA movement & ICAI.

The simple and prudent budget shows income from membership dues rising gradually to $15k in 2013 and $20k in 2014, and basic governance and administration expenses from $5.5k to $5.8k over the two years. Coupled with the small surplus accumulated through very prudent financial management of the past two years, this allows for $11k and $14.2k in 2013 & 2014 to support members’ peer-to-peer initiatives.

The Board is now developing a work plan to translate this strategic framework into priorities and objectives for each Board member’s area of responsibility, and we will share this with the network next month. We would very much welcome your feedback and input as we work on this, so please do get in touch with any of us to share how you would like to see the strategic priorities of ICAI and the Board. I think that ICA International is now again in a position to be bold in its ambition to the extent that our members are ready and able to be bold in their ambitions and contributions.

Finally, a little about me for those that don’t know me. I have been involved with ICA in a variety of roles for most of my career, since first training through the ICA:UK volunteer programme to work with ICA India in 1986-87. After a couple of years involved with ICA’s returned volunteer network in the UK I then spent six years with ICA in Egypt. Since 1997 I worked with colleagues in Britain to re-establish and grow ICA there, and after 16 years I have just stepped down as Chief Executive of ICA:UK in September. I am therefore delighted to have this opportunity to continue to serve ICA and our global mission now as ICAI President. I previously served on the ICAI Board from 1998-2006, including six years as Treasurer. I have since served for four years on the Board of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), and have just now completed a term as IAF Chair. I am now working on a freelance basis as a facilitator, trainer and consultant based in London, and would welcome opportunities to be of service to individual ICAs and to work with ICA colleagues in that capacity. To find out more about me, and to connect with me on LinkedIn and follow me on twitter, please visit www.martingilbraith.com.

Martin Gilbraith           martingilbraith@aol.com

ICAI Leadership Team Report:      December 01 2012

Global Leadership Team/ Board meeting gathering of old and new board for a day to reflect on the journey and report on the current state of all ICAs - 8th Global conference that had 347 participants, 100 organizations, 36 nations - the Nagarkot Gathering, 45 participants, 30 topics, 3 regional gatherings - Virtual ICAI Regional Meetings, Asia Pacific, North and South America, Europe and Africa. (report has been shared with all ICAs

Concerns
1) How to shift from clearing away old systems into global strategy/ longer term framework while maintaining the peer-to-peer self-organizing structure?
2)How to approach global topics like - How do we develop a strategic plan for ICAI - Following up the Nepal Conference - ToP Global involving both ICA structures and other organizations in a way that protects ICA intellectual rights, local ICAs, and other individuals/Organizations involved in promoting ToP methods.- Supporting ICAs that are struggling in such a way that they have the opportunity to become self-reliant functional entities or acknowledge that it is not possible at the moment.- Succession strategies - raising up the next generation of leaders while making sure the Archives project succeeds so we continue to give the world access to what we are doing

Next steps
General Assembly - Dec 17
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Dear Colleagues
I am returning to my role at ICA Taiwan and leaving the Presidency, Board and GLT as of Dec 17, which as I hope you know is the date of the GA. I would like to thank all my ICA colleagues for their efforts to work toward our new structure, each in your own way have helped to stabilize and demonstrate that we can be self-reliant and supportive of each other at the same time. In the last two years we have been re-forming our organization through self-organization and creative initiative. It has been creative and perhaps frustrating at the same time.

A few colleagues I would like to mention specifically for their efforts in making the great changes of the past two years possible.

All of the colleagues in Nepal who stood up and demonstrated a great way to host a global conference. There are too many people to name but I do want to highlight the support team and the virtual team who along with the global/local facilitation team created a high quality event. Our global colleagues also to many to name who joined physically and virtually to make this conference a special event.

Bill Staples, Nan Hudson and their colleagues both at ICA Canada and ICA Associates for helping us to make the transition from Montreal to Toronto and establish the new financial and legal framework.
To the Sistahs of the virtual world: Cheryl Kartes, Catherine Tornbom, Sunny Walker, Kathy McGrane, Nadine Bell, Tamyra Freeman, who launched ICAI into the virtual world and in a different but extremely important way to others that helped those communications happen, Peter Ellins, Maryann Philbrook, Lan Levy, Irina Fursman, Jo Nelson, Sheila Cooke, and Ester Mae Cox.

Robyn Hutchinson, John Miesen, Peter Ellins, and the entire Winds and Waves team for putting together a great magazine that connects us to the world.

Our colleagues in Japan, ICA Associates Canada and John Patterson for caring for us in many ways, particularly forgiving our past financial commitments so that we can move into 2013 debt free.

My colleagues on the Global Leadership Team (Isabel, Dick, Gerald, Sabah, Shankar, and Kevin) each has taken a lot of their time and energy to serve our global community and to re-establish connections and dialogue.

I have had the pleasure of talking with almost all of our ICA members and seeing the number begin to grow again as more organizations formalize their commitment to the global community. I have a great hope that we can continue to expand our regional and global cooperation and communication one step at a time.

With respect, Larry

Larry Philbrook           larry@icatw.com

BANGLADESH:

Happy New Year!

On the eve of the new year we would like to share some events about ICA Bangladesh.

We introduced the Rickshaw project in November to help, 'Improving the Quality of Life for Street Children in Dhaka City' (Phulki). We started the project in 2009 with the support of TUC Japan and with the generous donation of an US-Bangladeshi named Mr. Kaiser Ahmed. We first introduced the Rickshaw project in Chandpur Ghoramara Human Development Project back in 2007 under the Working Gifts program with a view to empower disadvantaged families by giving a Rickshaw - a means of earning a livelihood for a family of 3 to 5 members. The community formed a supervisory committee for the management and administration of the rickshaw project, facilitated by ICA colleagues. In the Phulki, the rationale of the project is the same - empowerment. But one major goal is to have the parent of slum children not engage them in child labour, which would result in them dropping out of the Phulki educational and life skills program. Abul Kadir, who is the father of one son and one daughter and who attend ICA Phulki's educational and life skills training project, funded by TUC Japan, is the first puller of the ICA Phulki Rickshaw Project. Abul, from Kishoreganj, aged around 40, has been in Dhaka for the last 5 years and has been struggling to earn an income for the family, which had no alternative but to depend partly on the income from a child. Abul is glad to have a rickshaw and thanked ICA Bangladesh for the initiative. We thank Mr. Kaiser Ahmed for his generous donation of a rickshaw.

We had our 8th(2012) and last 2012 Board Meeting in December. We reflected on the whole year at the meeting. Importantly the Board decided about the members active engagement, especially the new Board member's role. The Board also hopes three core members: Zaki, Fuad and Alam who attended the 8th Global Conference and Capacity Building training in Nepal to make difference. The Board thanked ICA Australia and the Maguire's for their generous financial support enabling their participation. The financial statement of 2012 was presented at the meeting. The Board acknowledged with appreciation two foreign funders - TUC Japan for their funding the Phulki project and ICA Australia for their office and staff support in 2012. ICA Bangladesh hopes they will continue their support in coming years.

Aziz attended the General Assembly online and shared a brief report. ICA Bangladesh believes in the great leadership of the new Board of ICA International.

November was a busy but great month for ICA Bangladesh. Following the return of the Nepal conference delegates, Maria and Richard visited us. They were engaged in capacity building of ICA members, and they spent one day with the Phulki street children project, and two days with the Chadpur Ghoramara village human development project. ICA Bangladesh appreciates Fuad, Tahmina and Sharful for committing in regard to ToP faculty development and income generating training in May next year.

Good to all in 2013!

Staff           admin@ica-bangladesh.com

KENYA:          December 01 2012

ICA Kenya have now prepared the Impact Assessment report for the:
LEADERSHIP TRAINING AND INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (LTID} The complete report will be featured in the next issue of Winds and Waves magazine which is to be published on December 15th.

Meshack Mutevu           icakenya@ymail.com

NEPAL:           December 01 2012

After the conference, ICA Nepal is now focusing more time on the follow up process locally. We are asking all the theme leaders to provide reports. Tej Karki has taken the responsibility to compile and prepare the overall report. We have also organised planning workshops with the aim of coordinating and expanding ICA Networks. And we have also organised a series of training sessions in Kathmandu for our staff from the Far Western region of Nepal.

Tatwa and Kushendra will be joining Wayne and Shizuyo and the ICA Japan team in Bihar on Nov. 27 to learn more about their work and have discussions about Peace Centres and other developmental activities. ICA Nepal is also supporting Reach Out Nepal, an organisation from Australia to manage the care home in Kathmandu. We also worked with the local Rotary Club to submit a proposal this week.

Tatwa P. Timsina           ica@icanep.wlink.com.np

PERU:          January 01 2013

The ICA-Peru staff is closing out 2012 with a two-week vacation for the holidays and a lot of excitement about the promise of 2013. Today we finally received approval for our January program and have four major projects in the approval process, most of which are longer term projects which will place new demands on our staff to produce visible results of our leadership formation programs.

Karina Yactayo has left our staff to have her baby and we are searching for a qualified woman to replace her, plus another male/female team to expand our capabilities. Maryann Philbrook will join us in a week or so to spend a year (or more) with us to work with Gloria Santos to link together our many contacts into a viable network of collaborating colleagues. We now have active leaders working in about 250 communities located in 15 of the 24 Departments of Peru, and we are on the hunt to leverage our presence and resources to add another 1,000 communities to our service list in the coming years.

We wish our colleagues around the world a most joyful and fulfilling year in 2013!

Staff          admin@ica-peru.org

PERU:          December 01 2012

2012 has been a challenging year with only 5 out of 11 programs contracted, and yet a rewarding year as we were able to support an expanded staff, make many improvements in our facilities and pass 250 communities in 15 of the 24 departments of Peru, served over the past 5 years with new leadership and new hope . We are indeed blessed.

What we have learned over the past 5 years is to extend our services beyond 3-weeks of leadership formation in our Training Center in Azpitia to a 6-month program, not only to assist in the recruitment process of the candidates, but to work with them after Azpitia back in their villages to establish them as accepted leaders for a new mode of Community Self-Development.

And now for 2013, we are extending the projects further to 12 months and more as we support the new leaders to build a vibrant local economy, restoring their confidence in their rural values and traditions, and learning once again to produce their own goods while meeting the standards of living as viable communities in the 21st century. The only hope of our staff these days is that we can learn fast enough to stay ahead of the people we are awakening, for we know well that there is no limit to their creativity once they have a vision of a new future which they themselves can control. These are exciting times to be working at the local.

Staff          admin@ica-peru.org

TAIWAN:        January 01 2013

Events

• Continue Creative Collaborative facilitation training in Shanghai for Module 2
• Met with old colleague Bill Wong
• Truth about Life on Healing
• Committed to UN programs for 2013
• Worked with colleagues to schedule public programs in Hsinchu 2013- Received work permits for 3 more years
• Larry was very involved in Global Leadership team turnover and GA prep
• Lloyd and Lela Philbrook are visiting for the holidays

Peer to peer

• Met with Nepal conference themes virtually - Education, Leadership and Peace Building
• Hosted General Assembly (Evelyn was one of the Technical support along with Sunny Walker from the US)

Concerns

• Larry shifting role from global president to regional and local focus without losing the global learning or disconnection with colleagues
• Still unclear on our strategy for supporting expansion across China. Lots of opportunities but how to use these to build community and a Chinese owned network

Coming events

• Larry steps down from President of ICAI - Jan 1
• Mar 17-22 UN program in Entebbe Uganda
• Shang Hai Creativity Facilitation Module 3 Jan 19-20

Public courses

• April 6-7 Hsinchu GFM1
• May 25-28 Hsinchu GFM 2
• July 6-7 Hsinchu Dialogue
• Aug 17-20 Hsinchu PSP & mentoring
• Sept 28-29 Hsinchu Imaginal Learning
• Nov 9-10 Hsinchu Spirit of Facilitation

Larry          larry@icatw.com

TAIWAN:        Decemberr 01 2012

Events:
Larry and Evelyn focused on supporting the ICA Nepal Conference in Kathmandu which ICA Nepal pulled off with great warmth, style, and finesse hosting 350 people to the opening, 218 people in theme groups, and the post conference ICA Nagarkot meeting, Nov 3 & 4 with 45 people.

Evelyn joins the Social Artistry Leadership training team conducted at the National Technical Training Institute in Bhaktapur, Nepal with Janet Sanders, Pramila and Anita, on Nov. 6, 7, & 8 with 40 participants.
Dick holds Truth About Life on Healing Modalities, a monthly dialogue/salon held on Saturday morning 9:30 -12:30 at ICA Taiwan.
Larry, Paulina and Eve launched the Creative, Collaborative Facilitation Certification in Shanghai, China, first of eight visits over nine months.
Federal Travel Group Taiwan with Larry and Frieda conducting Strategic Planning Workshop.
Gail holds an Open Space Exchange held in Taipei for twenty people.
Dick continues weekly Tuesday morning virtual study on the book, The Great Work, by Thomas Berry with Baileys and Rebstock.
Forty-seven people join the Annual ICA Thanksgiving Feast and Potluck, Sunday, November 25, 1- 4 pm. Two roasted turkey, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, fresh cranberry compote, Cioppino, and vegetarian fare grace our table along with many yummy entrees and desserts.

Peer to Peer:
Larry hosts ICAI Regional Meetings: Asia Pacific, North and South America, Europe and Africa, as preparation for Annual General Assembly meeting in December.
Larry works through Nepal Post conference follow up, by setting up Themes to send their final reports to Tej Karki in Nepal and write articles for Wind and Waves.

Concerns
Money and Time are not the issue, priorities are the issue.

Upcoming Events
Truth About Life on Healing Modalities Dec. 22nd. GFM-1 Jan. 19 & 20, and GFM-2 Feb. 16 & 17 at National Taiwan University

Evelyn Philbrook for ICA Taiwan Team           icataiw@gmail.com

UNITED STATES:         January   01 2013

Service Learning Program to Grow in 2013
ICA's Service Learning team has announced its spring and summer sessions for 2013. The two opportunities will take place during May, June and July.

The 2013 program will build on the successes of previous years, especially with the work done by the 40 interns as part of the Accelerate 77 project in 2012. The first session will be three weeks long and is scheduled for May 13 through 31. The second session will be a six-week period from June 17 through July 26.

Participants will balance challenging academic while experiencing purposeful civic engagement and intentional community life. The program is centered around three modules: creating a just and equitable society, shaping sustainable communities, and building the foundations for peace. Both sessions this summer will be residential, and participants will experience community life at the ICA's building at 4750 N. Sheridan Rd.

The program aims to enhance the leadership capacities of the students, while providing a systems perspective on social issues, and training them in methods for social change. The students will spend their civic engagement hours contributing to ICA's resilient communities program, more specifically, the Accelerate 77 project.

Each session offered is eligible for university credit: three credit hours for the three-week program and six credit hours for the six-week program. ICA has a partnership with Oklahoma City University to provide open enrollment for credit hours to students that are interesting in participating in the program, bearing the fact that their home institution will accept the credit transfer. For more information, go to the Service Learning on the ICA website or email: servicelearning@ica-usa.org.

Advisory Committee Meets to Discuss Phase III
The Advisory Board for Accelerating Green Initiatives in Chicago's 77 Community Areas (Accelerate 77) met on December, 6, 2012 to discuss the start of the project's Phase III.

The event brought together the Advisory Board for Accelerate 77, community activists and ICA staff members to discuss how to build on the success of the first two phases of the project, which included the Sharing Approaches That Work Conference at Truman College on September 15, 2012.

The goal of Accelerate 77 is to accelerate green initiatives at the local level. By engaging community-based leaders from each of Chicago's 77 community areas to share and apply their green efforts on a larger scale, the project will build and expand a tight network of collaborative leaders who will leave an invaluable impact on every community involved.

Phase III will encourage and accelerate local efforts while catalyzing follow-up work in all of the city's communities during the next two years through networking, planning training workshops, local share fairs, and new collaboration efforts between neighborhood groups to build a common vision. The anticipated result will be multiple local initiatives that will significantly accelerate their contribution to the success of the Chicago Climate Action Plan by 2020. Progress, learning and activities will be tracked, shared and managed by the website co-created by university and corporate partners.

Representatives from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, the Retrofit Chicago Commercial Buildings Initiative, the Edgewater Sustainability Project and Chicago State University, among others, discussed implementation of methods of facilitating change. The methods examined were the Community-Led Sustainability Roadmaps, creating a Chicago Sustainability Leaders Network, developing a Sustainability Resources Database, using the "Greenrise Uptown Learning Laboratory at 4750 N. Sheridan Rd. in Chicago as a model and facilitating the intergenerational learning and engagement in addressing local challenges. The database will be available online.

During the next three months, Accelerate 77 staff and volunteers will have community gatherings in each of the three major geographical areas of the city: north, south and west. The south side event is Saturday, January 26, 2013; the north side meeting is Thursday, February 21, 2013; and the west side gathering is Thursday, March 14, 2013. Locations and times will be announced closer to the dates. For more information, go to www.accelerate77.net.

Tom Wray           twray@ica-usa.org

UNITED STATES:         December 01 2012

ICA Hosts International Training Session
The ICA building at 4750 N. Sheridan Rd. recently hosted the International Management Development Programme's (IMDP) Training in Chicago.

Sponsored by The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, it addressed management challenges faced by national health program managers and health care administrators in poor and middle income countries.

Participants came from Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi and Switzerland. Among them were the director/national coordinator and administrative staff of the Department of Public Health of the Ministry of Health for Nigeria. This is the first time that this training has been hosted in the United States.

ToP Facilitators, Dennis Jennings and Judy Weddle, are on the IMDP faculty and work with two other faculty members from India, Indu Rao and Viswanath Gopalakrishnan.

The training focuses on influencing, networking and partnership skills and includes ICA's Technology of Participation (ToP) participatory approach launched in 2010 and it continues to be a valued course among health care administrators.

ICA Board Elects New Member and Officers

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The Board of Directors of the Institute of Cultural Affairs elected Kadi Sisay of Chicago as the newest member of the ICA board and picked new officers for the coming year.

Kadi is an organizational development consultant and is president of ChangeSource. She has facilitated more than 300 strategic planning workshops and retreats in her career, primarily using the methods of Technology of Participation (ToP), developed by the Institute.

Some of Kadi's clients include Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Park District, Milwaukee Public Schools, the Donors Forum of Chicago and the YMCA Alliance.

She completed a Master's of Science degree in Human Resources Management and Development at National-Louis University. Kadi received her Bachelor's in Human Resources Management with an emphasis in Organization Development from Northeastern Illinois University.

The Board also elected new officers for 2013: Larry D. Loeppke - chairperson, Cheryl Kartes - chairperson-elect, Joyce Sloan Secretary; and Alan Gammel - treasurer.

Tom Wray           twray@ica-usa.org