Over the last six months, Leadership Inc, an ICAI Associate member based in China, undertook a range of community building and education related projects.
The community building activities focused on helping develop governmental and NGO capacities to undertake participatory community development in China. Our Director, Karen Lim has taken the lead on this initiative with a range of projects including.
- A “Participatory Community Development” program with 60 participants from Shanghai, Pudong including street officers and party’s secretaries. The program introduced the benefit and methods of letting community people self manage their communities and how this aligns to the country’s vision.
- Speaking about “Education for more Compassion and Children involvement in Community” at 2018 International Caring for Life Education Innovation Forum organized by ACT Asia Animals Protection Group and Suzhou Technology University at Suzhou.
- Speaking about “The Values of Participatory Community Development” for 250 government officers and community leaders at Zhenjiang Government Civil Hall.
- Leading a “Participatory Community Development Lite” for 30 people Zhenjiang street officers and community leaders. This stimulation program, developed by Leadership Inc, lets participants experience how to make a plan with concern for the influence of global and national trends.
- A programs on “NGO participation in Public Services and Social Governing” with leaders of local Chinses NGOs and Association of Physical disabilities Officers. This program was held in three cities in central China and included handicapped participants. They learned to utilize ORID and Consensus Workshop to gatheri their ideas, suggestion and thinking to involve in policy advocacy of handicap benefits.
The education related projects involved working with college students and professors to create creative experiences and dialogue. Mark Pixley has coordinated a range of program including:
- Facilitating a one-day discussion about “Hong Kong City planning based on the ideas of Jane Jacobs” with college students, professors, city planner and architects, and
- A four day tour of Shenzhen and Guangzhou for a group of 10 professors from the US looking at Society & Religion in China and India. The program was design to provide a Kaleidoscope of urban images… from the urban villages to the Hi-tech Parks.
We have also continued our work with disaster recovery and building community resilience by leading a two day GFSC (Global Facilitators Serving Communities) training program on “Facilitating Disaster Recovery” with a group of 30 facilitators in Seoul, Korea.
This post was written for ICAI’s monthly bulletin the Global Buzz, August 2018.