I was so excited to hear about everything happening around the world, the wonderful, exciting and inspiring stuff which we can all tap into, the community serving the community. My deepest gratitude to everyone for their creativity and generosity.
Teacher and Students for Earth, Justice and Spirit. Mike Seymour has created a workshop for teachers called Teacher and Students for Earth, Justice and Spirit. Mike is willing to lead this anywhere in the world he is asked to do so. After the training Mike will gift the curriculum to the teachers to use with their students. Sarah Mook a UK facilitator attended a recent training so I am super excited to hear what happens next. Please email Mike for further information at mike@hol.edu
With Christians in Mind Howard Friend has created a document that will augment the V2 manual called with Christians in Mind. He will gift this to anyone within the Initiative who wishes to use it in presenting the Symposium in a Christian church. Howard intents to complete this by the end of month and if you would like a copy of his work to date to offer any input please contact him at hfriend@prodigy.net
Deepening Training Lesley Whiting and Alain Desouches have created a deepening training for facilitators that weaves the Work that Reconnects with what happens in the Symposium. It has four sections: Gratitude, Honouring our pain for the world, Seeing with new eyes and Going Forth. They have gifted this to us all and it is available on the WIKI under Symposium Materials, Community Adaptations, Community Generated Training Materials and will be shortly moving to the Training section of the WIKI
Action Circles Maureen Jack-LaCroix and Derek LaCroix have in Canada, worked to engage the community after the Symposium by creating the Action Circle programme. This is supported by an Action Guide and an online Action Tracker that can be used to support your intention to bring forth and environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on this planet.
Maureen and Derek are keen to share this programme with the community, it has been used by over 500 people with more than 10,000 actions been taken. They have taken this and a one hour version of the Symposium into businesses, schools and mutli faith centres. Find our more about how to set up your circles at: http://www.bethechangeearthalliance.org/
World Peace Through Sports Gabrielle Sundra shared what her husband, Raj Sundra is doing with the ATD symposium. His social for profit company, World Peace Through Sports, offers a shortened version of the symposium to youth sports teams, and invites them to pick a charity to raise money for as they play their sport. He links corporate social responsibility programs (the donor), youth teams, and charities. He recently ran a pilot project in Santa Barbara where he ran a 2 hour Symposium for a girls soccer team, who were then asked to choose a project to support based on the UN’s millennium projects. The funds were provided by the company’s social responsibility budget with 40% going to the project, 40% to the team and 20% to World Peace Through Sports. The soccer team then earned money through their efforts on the field for Girl Child Network in Kenya which assists girls in escaping youth marriage and female genital mutilation. This has transformed the way the soccer team see their sport and why they are playing. The new paradigm in youth sports is based on personal development and philanthropy. www.gowpts.com
Generation Wakingup Josh Gorman is working with Zo Toby and in formal partnership with TPA/ADT as he got the same assignment from the universe. They are creating ways of doing this work that is relevant to young people. They recently hosted the 1st training in Colorado for a group of 17 to 35 year olds from around the world and they spent 7 days off grid exploring who they are as individuals and as a generation and what is theirs to do. They are creating “A Wakeup”, a 3 hour adaptation of the Symposium for the youth which will be available at the end of August. http://www.generationwakingup.org/wp/?page_id=5
Happenings in South Korea Ken Gimm asked the question, what makes a good Symposium? And for him it is to practice your own story and tell it in a way that can make an impact. He and his wife, Susan, set up a Leadership Centre and have been instrumental in training 50 facilitators in South Korea. They are working to take the Symposium into government and education.
Happenings in Mexico Erik Friend and the Morelos Facilitator Community are working the Symposium into the strategies of the local community foundations and into a corporate social responsibility campaign.
Happenings in Argentina A second Facilitator training is planned for October 2010 in the province of Buenos Aires with the energy and commitment of Juana Pereya Iraoola bringing it into being.
Happenings in India Jon Symes from his office in San Francisco, with Arun Wakhlu on the ground in Pune, led a Symposium via Skype for 16 participants in April. The first facilitator training will be taking place in India in October 2010.
Happenings in Germany Earlier this month Jon Symes and Jonathan Hughes led the first German facilitator training assisted by Vivian Dittmar which formed part of a inspiring month long event called ‘Eagle Condor’ – set in a stunning community in the heart of the Bavarian Forest:http://www.hoellbachhof.net/cms/pdf/pdf14.pdf
Happenings in Australia In February the Training Leaders Programme took place in Australia and 19 new Aussie Training Leaders with visitors from NZ, USA and UK were trained.
In September the Melbourne team will be doing a training for Community Leaders and Facilitators and the Brisbane team will offer a facilitator training. The purpose of the Melbourne training is to create a training that is a deepening experience for change agents wanting to engage with the distinctions of the Symposium.
There is heaps happening with Transition Towns in every community. We are seeing convergence as ATD Facilitators are drawn to the Transition Town initiative through Australia. The symposium is clearly recognised as one way that people involved in TT can work on the inner part of the change process. Symposia specifically for TT change agents are being offered. A workshop series has been developed which work deeply with change by using the Work That Reconnects and elements of the Symposium.
Happenings in Hong Kong On August 28th Jo Fok will be leading a Symposium at the Jane Goodall Youth Summit, over 100 students from all over the world will be participating. After the workshop Jo will be overing a workshop on Meaningful Media. On November 30th Jo will be organizing the Tedex Youth Day which will be a global event and will collaborating with Generation Wakingup to introduce the Youth Initiative in Hong Kong.
Happenings in France from Noelle Poncelet A mini Symposium has been created as part of a week long art retreat taking place through the summer and has been sponsored by Terre du Ciel, for information please contact info@terre-du-ciel.fr
A meeting regarding the new version of the Symposium is taking place in Brussels September 21, 2010 from 6 to 10pm, for more information contact Emile Etienne emile.etienne@hotmail.com or Federica Burel federica.burel@skynet.be
Happenings in Denmark In March 2010 the first facilitator in Denmark, Nina Paludan-Muller, did her training with Be the Change in the UK and joined the community as a member of the Cosmic Oranges.
Happenings in the UK We are very excited that the first Training Leaders Programme for the UK, Europe and Ireland is taking place in September and here is the tiniest taster of what the 200 plus facilitators in our community are up to!
Foodshare: http://www.foodshare.co.uk/, Movement Medicine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDiWvv7rwfE, Victeri: http://www.victeri.co.uk/
Other happenings in the US Karl Schule is working on adapting the Symposium specifically for Transition Towns and an enquiry is also being developed to go out into this community.
A global happening – Bike the Earth Chris le Breton from the UK and Roland Smith from the Australian facilitator communities departed from Engineers without Borders, south Melbourne on Day 1 of a 2.5 year expedition by bicycle up Australia to south east Asia, Japan, and over Central Asia to Europe, London, by boat to USA, down to Florida, boat and bicycle to arrive at the United Nations Earth Summit in December 2012 on the 18th July 2010. Along the way they will
Traversing the globe, a team of up to six cyclists will draw the world’s attention to new sustainable solutions and ideas… holding conferences drawing on One Planet Living, the ’Be the Change’ symposium, EcoTeams and Transition Towns. Bike the Earth will present in over 100 capital cities and major communities… actively trailblazing the opportunity of the One Planet aspect of the London Olympics and spreading the FOUR YEARS. GO. campaign in the run up to the United Nations Earth Summit 2012, helping to catalyse an unprecedented grassroots movement for positive change at humanity’s finest hour. Good luck guys, you can find out more at http://www.biketheearth.org.uk/ and join their group on Facebook
Wow after all that I feel inspired, uplifted and in awe of the energy and enthusiasm of everyone. Together we are a genius!