Prince George, BC
Four years ago less a month I was running a huge Open Space event here in Prince George, in fact in the building that right outside my hotel room window. Called “Seeds of Change” the event was a kick off for the urban Aboriginal Strategy, a community driven and led process intended to begin and seed projects that would make a difference in the lives of the urban Aboriginal community in this northern city of 80,000 people.
One of the participants at that event was Ben Berland, who was at the time working with the Prince George school district as an Aboriginal coordinator. Ben had a vision of doing something really different within the education system here in PG. He built upon a long standing recommendation to start a different kind of school. He attracted a number of interested folks at the Open Space and moved his project idea forward.
A couple of years later, a task force was struck to study options for systemic change in the school system and one of their recommendations was to establish a primary Aboriginal Choice School within the school district.
The choice school idea is based on some very successful models in Edmonton and Winnipeg. Getting it rolling has been a lot of work for many people here in Prince George, but tonight was the first of four consultation cafes we are running with four inner city school communities to find out what it would take to make a choice school successful in this city.
Ben, who is now working with the local Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council showed up tonight to hold some space with us and help run some small group conversations. When he saw me the first thing he did was to remind me that this whole idea – four years in germination – had started at the Seeds of Change event.
This whole choice school initiative is a huge undertaking and it feels like in many ways the community here is just beginning its work, starting to engage in earnest with the complexities of finally implementing the idea that gained momentum across the street four years ago.
Things take time. It’s interesting that we know that and we forget it at the same time. We crave immediate results for our ideas. When we forget that things take time, we forget everything that has gone on to take us to the point where we are finally able to start something and we forget the people that laid the groundwork for things. So tonight I am sitting here grateful for Ben’s reminder about where things come from, and what it takes for big shifts to happen. It takes hard work, and a firm conviction and most of all, it takes time.
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This week in the feedreader:
- Alison on why the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement makes us complicit in human rights crimes.
- Lovely little non-verbal film on hope and traditional teachings.
- Doug Germann on why he is a lawyer.
- George Nemeth on doing small things
- Matthew Baldwin reviews great board games for 2008
- Ravi Tangri’s blog, an Art of Hosting friend.
- Otto Scharmer on awakening the giant.
- Dave Pollard on what you can do to help Obama.
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Jack Ricchiuto was writing about narrative the other day:
We need to start reviving the narrative aesthetic where stories are more fields of countless possibilities than linear in nature, where the possibilities of meaning are more infinite than finite. We need to stop calling sound bites stories, which they’re not. We need to call stories the narratives that evoke a sense of wonderment more than conclusion.
Stories are dear to my heart and storytelling is a practice that seems more and more about who I am. I think one way to help people become story tellers is to practice inquisitive listening with them. When I run AI interviews for example, I often invite people to practice being Elders. I invite them to tell a story the way an Elder tells it, with a lesson buried in it. And start from the beginning and give over the sense of what it was like to be there. For listeners, I invite them to practice being students and learners, listening to the storyteller as if that person was telling you something of great wisdom and importance.
When we enter into this kind of relationship, we create a storyfield that deepens our inquiry, our learning and our relationships.
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Tenneson Woolf from a harvest poem called How Are You Navigating in the Time of Dramatic Change?:
I sound like I don’t know what I am doing, but I do know.
I find my way in the immediately infront, the next simple elegant step.
The next simple elegant step describes my approach to action. Recently, in our little consulting firm we have adopted a project status process that involves writing down only the next step for each of our projects. When you take the to do list and write it as one thing to do only, one elegant next step, it invites consciousness and beauty and elegance and simplicity to the work. So I am becoming more conscious about filling in the little box that says “Next step” and taking a moment each time to find the clarity that is needed for that next step to invite more.
Navigating this drama with intention, consciousnes and invitation. Creating more of all three.
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Received an email through the NCDD list asking for help in Texas…
Galveston is in trouble. That is almost as much as I can say about the community here. My name is Jimmy Mai and I’m a Member with Americorps’ National Civilian Community Corps. We’re stationed in Galveston, TX doing needs assessment post- Hurricane Ike.In doing this, we are walking door to door and stopping people on the streets to see what they may need. From that we are making notes on whatever support they require and enter it into a nation-wide database called the Coordinated Assistance Network (or CAN). CAN is a system that allows hundreds of Non- Profit organizations to come together and look at these individual needs and send out help respectfully.The problem is we- Americorps NCCC members- have no idea how this network is being managed. Case managers are supposed to overlook the people we are putting into this database, but that’s not supposed to be for another three weeks, and we have no idea why there is a postponement. We are told that organizations like Metro United Way, Salvation Army, and The Red Cross are apart of this, but we haven’t been told any information on what they are doing to use CAN to it’s potential.There is a hinder in the recovery process because of this and FEMA response. Although FEMA has helped a few, the number of untouched cases and unheard people are overwhelming. We go to the community and listen to their stories; unfortunately, there’s an agreement on camp that the amount of people being helped, compared to those not, is unacceptable.…These people need help. These people need a voice, and they need resources to help them through this. This community has many strong points; they are accustomed to bad weather, and have an amazing resilience and sense of hope. But Hurricane Ike is really testing them; lets help them fan the flames once again.If anyone knows anything that might help this area, please let me know. If anyone would like to call or meet for further discussion, don’t hesitate to contact me, because many corps members and I are in need of information and networking that might help these people. Americorps members are at an advantage in that we experience first hand what this community is going through. We’ve heard the stories, but now we need to get something done. Thanks so much for your time, and please contact me if you think you can help in the slightest bit. An alternate email address of mine is ncccgreen6pol@gmail.comJimmy MaiAmericorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC)Project Outreach Liaison- Green 6502-417-0524
Remember Hurricane Ike? That was before Sarah Palin, before the election, before the collapse of the market? All of twelve weeks ago. If anyone is in south Texas and can lend some facilitation and organization skills to Jimmy and the NCCC, that might be a nice Thanksgiving present.