AUSTRALIA:

Location: Asia

Conversations with various colleagues in recent weeks, reveal that the working partnerships between ICAs in the Asian region is ever increasing.  In February and March, alone, colleagues from ICAs in Taiwan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, USA and Australia are working in various collaborative teams, and sharing training materials to support TOP training in Bangladesh and Nepal.

Robyn Hutchinson           rjhutchinson@optusnet.com.au

BANGLADESH:

Location: Dhaka

Some NGOs - UCEP Bangladesh, VERC, NFOWD has informed that their management has approved some participants for our forthcoming February training program. Aside from this, Action Aid Bangladesh, Save the Children Australia, NGO Forum for Drinking Water and Sanitation, Waste concern, HFW Bangladesh, Oxfam GB, Plan Bangladesh, World Vision are going to decide soon for nominations. We are expecting more participants despite our limited marketing.

Shankar and Shubhnarain are doing their visa formalities to come along with Stovers for capacity building training of ICA Bangladesh members in February in Dhaka. We will get Nelson and Elaine from 12-17 February and Shankar and Shubhnarain from 12-18 February with us in Bangladesh.

Azizur Rahman           admin@ica-bangladesh.org

CANADA:

Location: Toronto

Plans are being made by our Georgina project co-ordinator to prepare the youth trainers by having them practice delivering the YFL workshops.

Eowynne and Cara continue to plan their activities for the coming months.

Cara Naiman           cnaiman@icacan.ca

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Listen to the Drumming launched its first ever aeroplan donation campaign. This is a campaign which allows us to collect air miles from willing donors to enable free travel for ICA Canada volunteers and staff to travel to Africa.  Our goal is to raise 400,000 miles which will provide 3 free roundtrip flights to Africa. We will keep you posted on the progress of this campaign which runs for the full month of February.

Also, our very talented drummers, the Abbey North Drummers, have decided to create a CD for use in fundraising and they are also conducting a drumathon to raise money for Listen to the Drumming. All exciting events for ICA Canada!

Liz Donnery          ldonnery@icacan.ca

ICA ASSOCIATES INC. (Canada)

Location: Toronto

Bill Staples taught another Community Development workshop to front line workers from United Way related social service agencies.

Wayne Nelson is teaching a 14 session facilitation course at Sheridan College to students as part of the  Community Outreach and Development Workers Program.

Duncan Holmes injured his knee and will have it in an - imobilizer - cast for about a month.

Jo Nelso returned from Austrailia with stories of IAF certification, ICA Australia's annual gathering and her visits across the country.

Wayne Nelson           wnelson@ica-associates.ca

PERU:

Location: 100 Valleys

Gloria Santos, Jesusa Aburto and Esaud Caycho are doing a great job with the 28 excited participants in the AVANZA PERU 3-week community leadership formation program going on in Azpitia.  The many visiting presenters and the weekly field trips have opened the eyes of these community leaders to the potential for their communities. 

Meanwhile, Alison Hamje is completing the marketing of the second program which begins in just two weeks, and some major advances are happening on the major funding as well. 

The Saturday formation program in Lima is creating another set of new colleagues for the huge task ahead.  The team is a little tired now, but in great spirits!

Ken Hamje          kenh@ica-peru.org

TAIWAN:

Location: Taipei Taiwan R.O.C.

Participatory Strategic Planning - Nineteen participants joined the PSP Course this weekend. Eleven new students joined this program of which a few are joining the series for the Facilitator Certification Program of ICA Taiwan.

Nepal Training Program - Two practice sessions of modules to be presented for the Nepal Training Program in February 2007 were held at ICA Taiwan and Open Quest offices this week as we fine tune preparations.

Korean colleagues will be holding Open Space Programmes facilitated by ICA Taiwan in April after being referred by Harrison Owen.

ICAI Board Membership nomination form and letter for June 2007-2008 distributed to ICAI members and posted to ICAI website with a deadline of 30 March 2007.

Welcome communication from ICA UK and their requests for board criteria and financial reports.

Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook           joyful@icatw.com

ICAI:

Location: Montréal

This has been a busy week of catch-up and follow-up, as I returned to North America from three hectic but productive weeks in Japan and Kenya.

It was a great pleasure to connect and work together with colleagues from ICA Japan and ICA Kenya. Reports from these meetings were circulated earlier this week. In case you had trouble downloading the files on email, they are also available on our website at For Members > Documents. Have been reminded again through these travels of what a vital role we have to plan in human development globally.

Have a new look at http://icai.smugmug.com, which has many new photos and been redesigned by Peter to integrate with our website. Please continue to share your new project photos with the network via this site!

There is a lot on the table for February, including very full fundraising and communications agendas, finishing many of the major components of the relocation, a financial audit, and bringing important new staff on board. It has never been a more hectic or exciting time to be part of ICAI!

Sarah Miller           sarah.miller@earthlink.net