This is wonderful without your permission I have been sending it all over the world to development folks at places like the World Bank with a note saying something like SEE this is what you could be doing.
Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20845 Phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Gilbert Brenson-Lazan Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 3:52 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Corporate Volunteerism Hi, Lisa: Here´s one experience we had several years ago that hasn´t been mentioned yet and may be useful to you. A transnational food products company in Colombia, South America, wanted to show its Corporate Social Responsibility with a corporate volunteerism project in the small farming towns surrounding their plant and where the dairy farmers (their providers) lived and worked. Our original plan was to just do an OS for the interested people in the company and the NGOs that were interested in (read that "competing for") getting the job. Halfway through the day´s work with several excellent plans on the wall, one group asked itself, then asked other groups, why are they deciding this when it is the communities themselves that should be participating in deciding what kind of help they wanted and needed. The idea spread like a wildfire amongst the seventy some people in attendance and the only decision made that day was to take the process to the three small towns and ask them. Three groups of volunteers offered to promote the idea in each of the towns and outlying areas. At each of the three, half-day OS sessions on three successive Saturday mornings, an average of 150 peasant farmers, their families, town political leaders (who of course tried to "organize" the event which we didn´t allow), NGO leaders that served the communities and volunteers from the Company met to discuss the particular community needs and what the company could do, in a non-paternalistic way, to help them develop sustainable programs. The impact was amazing, not just in the development of the programs, many of which are still in place and functioning many years later, but in the collective self-image of the people who learned that day that they can do something about their reality. An interesting by-product that was attributed to the OS events by the Company Vice-President for Community Affairs, was that in all three of the towns, representatives of the predominant, traditional political parties were thrown out of office at the next mayoral and council elections in favor of grass roots representation. Warm regards, Gil At 02:00 a.m. 24/03/2005, you wrote: 7. OS for corporate volunteerism (5) ************************************************************* Dr. Gilbert Brenson-Lazán - Executive President AMAUTA INTERNATIONAL, LLC Bogotá, Colombia - West Hartford, CT, USA E-Mail: <g...@amauta.org> Website: <http://amauta.org <http://amauta.org/> > ************************************* We optimize the effectiveness of those who facilitate, lead and manage processes of sustainable cultural transformation in organizations and communities. * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist