AUSTRALIA:

The 26th May represents the beginning of Reconciliation Week in Australia.  On May 27, 1967 a watershed Referendum was held, with an overwhelming 90 percent YES vote, granting Indigenous people full citizenship rights in their own country!

This weekend marks the 40th Anniversary.  Sadly  we have made staggered progress in Indigenous rights and well-being.  The last 10 years has seen a backward sliding.

In these weeks, church services, marches, concerts, rallies, school assemblies, special forums, radio and TV broadcasts are all playing their part in bringing this appauling sitution to the attention of Australian public and the globe yet again, hopefully regaining a new sense of hope and positive action.

ICA colleagues, across Australia are engaged in many collaborative programs with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, on a daily basis, and many are participating in these events around the country, at this critical time in our Country's history.

Robyn Hutchinson           rjhutchinson@optusnet.com.au

JAPAN:

Location: Japan and worldwide

2008 Global Conference Preparation
We have completed the third version of the brochure and are doing final editing, set for release the end of May.  It is really beautiful and appealing!  Venue negoiations are making excellent progress, for a sea side resort hotel you just cannot resist.

Facilitators Association of Japan
Shizuyo and Wayne lead a Personal Styles Workshop for 25 people at the May FAJ conference attended by over 300 people, and recruited many to attend the 2008 conference, passing out 120 pre-release copies of the Japanese brochure.

NTT Exchange Program
The Vietnam Exchange Program was so impactful that all members of the tour are promoting ICAJ in there local newsletters, which cover NTT Union members all across Japan.

Proposal Writing
We are putting the finishing touches on proposals for Setagaya Ku Japan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Nepal, Belieze, India, and are preparing the next round for Peru, Zimbabwe, and maybe Cote d'Ivoire.  It often takes one or two years to get final approval . . .  We are actively working in Kenya, Nigeria, Vietnam, and Mexico and are finishing final reports for others, plus doing facilitation in Japan.

Cross Cultural Communications Seminars
Andrew Schaffer has completed facilitation seminars for 23 International companies this year, and has just redone the web pages at www.millennium-FTC.com, moving them from ICAJ for marketing purposes and to have the for-profit activities separate from NPO ICAJ.  We are anticipating expanding the staff, as schedule conflicts prevent us from accepting some clients.

Wayne Ellsworth           wayne@icajapan.org

PERU:

Location: 100 Valleys Project

The team had an exciting week of holding personal interviews with 18 other NGOs and government agencies who have indicated their interest in being collaborators in the 100 Valleys Project.  The result of this ongoing getting-to-know-you campaign is that we are learning a great deal about the capabilities of other NGOs and also about their needs so we can see how to integrate them into the structure of the Project.  Their interest is extremely high in the Project and in being collaborators, so we are sure now that we are not alone in this huge 10-year project.

Staff           admin@ica-peru.org

EHIO Tajikistan:

Location: Tajikistan

We havent shared our news with you for a long time because of different reasons  we had problems with electricity, then with Internet, so now we want to tell about events happened during May.

At first, we signed new contract with FARMS Project Facilitating Agricultural Reform and Marketing in Sugd  a project implemented by Canadian Center for Cooperation and Studies CECI in partnership with local NGOs in Sugd region till April of next year. In the framework of this project we continue our work in two districts of our oblast on facilitating dehkan farms which was started last year. It makes us glad because as we hope established stable cooperation with CECI.

Secondly, Aga Khan Foundation conducted survey in our republic to define the level of development of Civil Society and after that published in accordance with this survey a book. Many NGOs were questioned, but to demonstrate level of Civil Society development in our republic surveyors selected 25 most successful, effective and stable to their opinion organizations, one of which is ours. It is of course very pleasant for us.

Besides, we still receive regular offers from international and local organizations to conduct trainings for them  as usual from Mercy Corps, from local law organization Amparo. We have already conducted ToP interactive methods, now is going thorough preparation for the training of Mercy Corps medical program Planning and monitoring of activities of Rural Development Committees.

Also we regularly participate on meetings of working group uniting some NGOs, which as part of Civil Society want to participate in monitoring of Poverty Reduction Strategy, accepted by our government for the near several years.

So, not only exclusively pleasant things happen in our work, we have problems, difficulties, but we try to solve them and overcome somehow.

Till next meeting in Globul Buzz.

ICA EHIO team.

UNITED KINGDOM:

Martin and Anne McGrath delivered a GFM in Manchester, Amelia was busy with the Youth programme, and Jonathan did more work with Sightsavers, met the Living Well team to discuss the impact assessment in Kenya and with Alan Berresford, Ahmed Badawi and Michaela Birk, attended an interview by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation re possible funding for methodological integration in conflict resolution

Jonathan Dudding           jdudding@ica-uk.org.uk

ZIMBABWE:

Beverly is away on study leave. We have continued with preparations for the disbursement ceremony for food relief for the Mufakose community. Invitations have been sent out to the respective guests. Mr Gomani came back from the UK last week where he conducted a thorough research on the latest information on treatment for HIV/AIDS. There are now plans to develop this information into a manual for training purposes.

A staff meeting was held to review the HIV/AIDS training workshops that were conducted during the past two months. Recommendations on areas that need attention were put forward by Mr Gomani.

Easther Razerera