From November 3rd through November 10th of 2016 the Facilitation Week took place in Ukraine. It became the platform for best practices exchange, demonstration of expanded use of ICA’s ToP facilitation as technology for involving people in reforming society. This event became an important marker of the relevance these facilitation technologies play in our social transformation.
Promotion, active integration and systematic use of ToP Facilitation Methods in Ukraine is due to the activities of the ICA Ukraine (Institute of Cultural Affairs in Ukraine), which will mark a 5 year Anniversary in May of 2017. ToP Community in Ukraine (project launched by ICA Ukraine in April of 2016) decided to hold several events in honor of the fifth anniversary of ICA Ukraine. The first event was the one day conference “Platform- Ukraine of my dream: international facilitation practices”, which took place on November 3rd.
The Platform “Ukraine of my dream: international facilitation practices” was designed and organized by the ToP Community team members in September of 2016 using ToP Action Planning process as a tool to help the team define the scope, the purpose and the plan to make it happen. The initial planning activity followed by 37 days of preparation and online coordination of sub-committees consisting of 14 people from 2 countries (Ukraine and the United States) and 4 cities (Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv and Maplewood MN). The final program included 18 case studies and 3 master-classes from Ukrainian and international speakers, including Lawrence Philbrook (ICA Taiwan) and Arthur Kasza (Focus Homini Poland). Remarks and greetings from ICA Ukraine mentors and supporters were recorded and played during opening ceremony: Bill Staples of ICA Associates Canada, Ted Wysocki of ICA USA, and Irina and Richard Fursman founders of ICA Ukraine.
More than 100 people from 5 countries attended the event. The cases presented at the conference were representing transformational work in three subject areas: business facilitation, facilitation for the territorial / local communities and facilitation of education and youth movements.
Guests and attendees at the Platform noted their brightest impressions with the “full house”, “ringing silence during reports”; one of the most shrilling cases was noted the 2014 P.E.A.C.E. Summit with the participation of the international facilitators team; energy and deep insights from the teen participants at Open Youth Forum and their deep and direct questions to Nicholay Kuleba, Commissioner of President of Ukraine Office on the Children Rights, and the friendly selfie of teens with him.
Lawrence Philbrook , one of the founders of the facilitation techniques, arrived to Ukraine to share experiences; inspiration through the faces of the participants and guests; a lot of communication, meaning, insight, the birth of new projects directly on the platform. And yet – the people’s eyes, filled with the hope that these projects across the country ARE the creation of ” Ukraine of my dream”
Volodymyr Onyshchenko, director of ICA Ukraine, noted: “Platform “Ukraine of my dream: international facilitation practices “- a kind of report and debriefing on the work of the ICA Ukraine team over the past 5 years, the exchange of experiences and long-term plans for the future. ToP Facilitation Methods is a tool that allows you to find a consensus between society, business and government, change the rules of the relationship that will move faster. Therefore, our team goal for the nearest future – the dissemination of knowledge about the ToP facilitation, training new people and actively apply it in practice in Ukraine. ”
Impressions on the participation in the Platform from Arthur Kasza of Focus Homini Poland: «I was invited by ICA Ukraine to an event in Kiev that happened on the 3rd of November 2016. I was very happy to go because it came just a few days after my group in Poland, under the name of Focus Homini, was accepted as a new associate member of ICA International, and it was my first visit to Kiev ever. I had an extremely warm welcome in Kiev by very kind hosts of ICA-Ukraine. The event showed me the great enthusiasm and strength of the Ukrainian team and their great diversity (coming from different regions of the country and speaking Ukrainian and Russian at various presentations). The event also showed me the great diversity of activities that people related to ICA Ukraine are involved in. Hopefully we can take a bit of that enthusiasm and power to Poland and to the West».
Deep projects generate other good projects, say great thinkers. On our Platform also were born a few new ideas. One of them – to make this platform an annual event.
This post was written for ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz, December 2016.