:Title: Minciu Sodas :Author: David Bale :Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:52:07 PDT :Modified: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:54:55 PDT :URL: http://www.ned.com/group/wwc/news/9/ Should we be entering into a dialogue with `Minciu Sodas`_ to see if there might be ways to work together? .. _`Minciu Sodas`: http://www.ms.lt/ *edited to add link* ---- **Comments** :Author: Mark Grimes :Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:02:56 PDT David, I was a *Minciu Sodas* member years ago via invitation...but never quite got it. Can you please explain what they do, and what types of ways we might be able to work together? Thnx. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:50:26 PDT Richard Otieno sent me the following draft by Andrius Kulikauskas of "a proposal to to promote UK innovations in Africa": Andrius prefaced the proposal by saying: I will sleep for several hours and then I hope to finish my draft of my proposal so that you can write letters of support! Meanwhile, here is what I have so far. I am thinking of calling my proposal "Orchard of thoughts" because that is what Minciu Sodas means and perhaps there is a subconscious connection with gardens and orchards throughout our work. I appreciate our thoughts! Andrius --------------------------------------- Orchard of Thoughts Minciu Sodas is a worldwide community for independent thinkers. Minciu Sodas means "orchard of thoughts" in Lithuanian. We would like small gardens to be the concrete way that we come together around the world. Small gardens are revolutionary. Gardens flourish as activity centers in the "food desert" of Chicago ghettoes; commitments to sustainability in Silicon Valley; "nutritional resistance" in summer and winter for Soviet-occupied Lithuania; a first income for alternative farmers in Missouri; a monastic refuge in Austria; a laboratory where women are free to experiment to heal HIV/AIDS victims in Africa. Samwel Kongere, a Kenyan fisherman, led our Kenyan team for `My Food Story`_. He organized a Minciu Sodas regional network in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. We collected 500 stories on-the-ground with the help of participants in Serbia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Israeli-occupied Palestine, India, the United States and the European Union. We learned that our world's food supply chain makes for concrete stories that link innovations and human values. Our friendships moved us to respond to the post-election turmoil in Kenya with our `Pyramid of Peace`_ of 100 online activists and 100 peacemakers, 1,000 volunteers on-the-ground engaging gangs, opening roads and saving lives. The Public Broadcasting System championed our innovative use of cellphone minutes for emergency barter. Our creativity embraces differences with human pyramids, community theater and peace caravans with camels. Samwel now leads a center teaching ICT and entrepreneurial skills to 3,000 women. We appreciate the challenge of including African women. Villages crush independent thinkers, but four or five of them can transform their village. We come together locally as informal hubs of projects and guests, working towards "global villages". We want to establish our global network of rural and urban hubs by cultivating our gardens. ---------------- How will clients benefit? We are building human bridges that link us around the world with African women with small gardens who help us reach out further. And the men and women who champion them. Investigators gain education as if they were attending college. They gain relationships and along with them, computers, video cameras, travel to conferences in Africa and Europe, paid work. Contacts. Our efforts are meaningful if they allow for others who think independently, if they reach out further to include other points of view. We are motivated to lift ourselves out of poverty, material and spiritual, when we are able to expand our context, which is to discover the significance of our actions for ever more sisters and brothers, so that in our work and play we love and are loved. We want social networkers to motivate African women to think of themselves as included in this global context and to provide their leadership. --------------------- How many people will benefit? We will grant 1,875 microloans of 50 GBP to at least 1,000 women for their projects for participating in our culture. 2,000 men will be taught enough ICT so that they can each contribute a "food story" about a woman in their family. They will all become active champions of our culture. We expect 20,000 people in their families to benefit from their projects and from the principles that they espouse. We expect 200,000 people to benefit directly from the nutritious produce and 2,000,000 people to take inspiration from the stories and ideas. We likewise expect 2,000 active and 20,000 supportive participants online. Benefits in six months and in two or three years. ------------------------- Impact and monitoring 375 investigators will receive 100 GBP stipends and 100 GBP microloans for their projects. Each investigator will coach and monitor a team of five women and they will be rewarded for each other's success to keep the default rate low. Local coordinators. Microloans and microresearch projects Food stories network of ------------------------ Overcoming obstacles We enjoy success in Africa because we engage our participants as equals. We expect them to have a deepest value, an investigatory question, and to work for free in the Public Domain on what they wish to achieve. We thereby repel the selfish and attract those who care. We are then confident to provide them with 50 GBP of paid work even never having met them. We are able to share energy with each other as independent thinkers. Our care for their activity motivates them much more than any earnings, gains in productivity, or local opinions. Samwel notes that our "knowledge-based approach" transforms our minds so that we seek to learn in everything we do. We should reach out to the hard-to-reach, both the very rich and the very poor, so that we are all one human chain. We then value every person who reaches out further, but also those who hold us together. We plan to always have at least one "ambassador" from Africa work from our bases in the West, and from the West work in Africa, so that we discover a global context for each other's food stories, weave relationships and impress upon us our global relevance. ---------------------- Indicate risks Medium risk: Women often suffer domestic violence when they try to improve their conditions. We will ask men in their families to stand up for them and present their accomplishments with food stories that help us all engage them. Medium risk: Women may default on the microloans more often than we expect. We will reward each team that completes its projects and repays its loans with 50 GBP for their own fund to loan to each other. Low risk: We may get leaders who care about money and not our culture. We will therefore recruit as leaders those who have their own research interests. We will promote RNRRS innovations as catalysts for further African innovations. Low risk: We may have trouble moving content back and forth between local languages and English. We will make sure that our local coordinators have a good understanding of our investigatory culture and work with them to structure our activities so that we can share globally what is most relevant. Low risk: Our centers may not find work to sustain themselves. Yet we are tenacious, creative and thoughtful investors. We value the human capital that our centers and gardens yield. ------------------- Exit strategy Our goal is a growing worldwide network of self-reliant rural and urban bases for independent thinkers. We will start with Kenya and Lithuania and within three years we expect to have rural and urban bases in Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Missouri, Chicago, California and Austria. Each base will be led by a team and evolve into a physical center for co-working, which means a space for working-for-free on one's own projects such as education, arts, sports and also working-for-pay on projects such as ecotourism, knowledge work, agricultural sales to make a living and provide revenue for the center. Each center will provide Internet access, Skype and video bridge services. Our local network of gardens and thinkers will affordably accomodate those traveling from the countryside to the city or vice versa and those visiting from other countries. Our worldwide community will encourage research projects at each base and foster a culture of leadership through investigations. We will encourage individuals from the West to support microresearch and microloan projects with a website much like Kiva_ except that we share our food stories, we work in the Public Domain, and we invite all to engage our participants. .. _`My Food Story`: http://www.myfoodstory.info .. _`Pyramid of Peace`: http://www.pyramidofpeace.net .. _Kiva: http://www.kiva.com ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:29:01 PDT Mark says: David, I was a Minciu Sodas member years ago via invitation...but never quite got it. Can you please explain what they do, and what types of ways we might be able to work together? Thnx. I don't quite get it either. That's the reason for the thread. I hoped someone here might explain. For example, where is the revenue stream to finance their proposal? Perhaps someone might invite Andrius here to explain? One way the WCP might benefit from the Minciu Sodas proposal is - if it is workable - their networking approach using (paid?) local coordinators: We may have trouble moving content back and forth between local languages and English. We will make sure that our local coordinators have a good understanding of our investigatory culture and work with them to structure our activities so that we can share globally what is most relevant. One way Minciu Sodas might benefit could be from the overall WWC framework that may attract new supporters, especially from developed countries. ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:36:32 PDT I might note that theirs is a (to me) dangerous adherence to a kind of "openness" or "transparency" principle which encourages people to use full names, email, phone etc during crisis situations (in the press, on the internet, etc) where reprisals are a very real possibility. This was evident to me in MS work during the election crisis. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:08:29 PDT Thanks, Lars. That figures. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:39:54 PDT My understanding of the communications infrastructure you have in mind for the WWC is that it be light weight and distributed. What I mean is that the central office--for lack of a better term--would have a Web site and a database of activities, but the correspondence between partner areas would more or less be left to the partner areas to figure out. I mention that because Minciu Sodas offers a concrete example of what that sort of infrastructure might look like. Something I've mentioned in various threads here might be framed as a question: Should David Bale be famous? Not once when I've brought this up has there been a peep. I take from the silence a resounding "No!" from David. I'm saying this rather awkwardly, which probably means I'm not really clear on my thinking. In any case thinking of Minciu Sodas as a sort of model to look at for how the WWC might be organized, it might be worth while to notice how that organization depends on Andrius being "famous" in some sense. What I'm getting at is figuring out how to make David Bale to not be indispensable to the welfare of the WWC is an important challenge to figure out. LOL either that or you're going to have to get comfortable with the idea of being "famous" David. My feeling is there is much to learn from Minciu Sodas, how they use various Web sites and manage their garden of small projects. It is kind of hard to do that precisely because their activity is spread out in many groups. Viewing it from the inside requires a time consuming plunge into the network. And Andrius serves as a sort of gatekeeper. The best way for a sort of view of Minciu Sodas is perhaps to engage with a few people who are active there. My first approach would be to look in an open-ended way rather than to go into the looking with an eye to collaboration. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:03:25 PDT John, thanks for your thoughts about Minciu Sodas. BTW I don't think I would have any problems with being famous. But as I wasn't born famous, would it be better for me to be seeking fame or waiting for fame to be thrust upon me? ;) Most likely it's because most people don't think the WWC is such a good idea as I do. :( ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 04:50:43 PDT :Modified: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:42:30 PDT To be honest, I think Mark does a good job navigating this "tension" you raise John. I encountered something similar with Peace Tiles. Perhaps the most difficult challenge I encountered was something like: - Starting something like Peace Tiles required a lot of heavy lifting by a small number of committed people who believe in the power of the idea (Downside of this is that you get "boxed" or "pigeon holed" as the Such and Such guy - its a mixed blessing) - Success of something like Peace Tiles depended on growing the number of people who believe in the power of the idea - Sustainability of something like Peace Tiles required pushing "ownership" outward: ensuring space for people to "make it their own" - this can conflict at the strategic level Just some thoughts. Being "famous" (which I define loosely as, "Your reputation precedes you") should be ancillary to the pursuit of an idea that you believe in IMHO. ---- :Author: Richard O. Kananga :Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 04:54:11 PDT David, I guessed Ceris of Wales could share some light on the issue? I think ms is the greatest thing that ever happened to Africa. ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:09:25 PDT :Modified: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 07:12:13 PDT Richard wrote: I think ms is the greatest thing that ever happened to Africa. Could you perhaps say more about why you think Minciu Sodas is the greatest thing that ever happened to Africa, Richard? ---- :Author: Ceris Dien :Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:42:22 PDT Richard Otieno said: David, I guessed Ceris of Wales could share some light on the issue? Sorry, I don't know anything about Minciu Sodas! ---- :Author: Richard O. Kananga :Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:31:24 PDT Lars, by gauging from the kind of stuff these guys write seems things are on their way up to improvement and at an unprecedented pace. Ceris, oh, sorry too; I think I confused ms and Kayiwa's non-profits. Do not know why I thought were related, anyways... ;) ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:06:05 PDT Richard Otieno wrote: ...by gauging from the kind of stuff these guys write seems things are on their way up to improvement and at an unprecedented pace. Hi Richard, I'm still not sure I understand. Can you say more about the kind of stuff the guys are writing, what things are on their way up to improvement, and help me understand the pace? Much appreciated. ---- :Author: Richard O. Kananga :Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:20:35 PDT Lars, I doubt it is anything worth anybody's serious attention. i guess improvements and probably its pace are subject to human interventions at various levels. I doubt we need care much about them as much as we need yearn for the benefits of the outcomes. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:53:17 PDT :Modified: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:29:46 PDT Richard said: Lars, I doubt it is anything worth anybody's serious attention. I think quite a few of us are either interested, keen or simply curious to know more - good or not so good - about Minciu Sodas. I shouldn't think Lars is looking for you to provide a sound technical evaluation about what exactly constitutes an "improvement", just some indication of what's so impressed you about MS's work recently. What would help me most would be to know: * In which countries is the work of MS gathering "unprecedented pace". * And where can we find out more about this? Thanks. *edit for spelling* ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:17:05 PDT :Modified: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:56:42 PDT .. line-block:: Edit: I put up a post which contained some really thoughtless parts. So thoughtless in fact, that the only way to parse them was as hurtful comments towards Lars and others. That's not what I meant. The trouble is I did post and I'm sorry. I went back and edited the post to try to better say the points I was trying to make. It's still not coherent, but I hope doesn't cast aspersions or is offensive to anyone. I did not mean to do that in the first place and am embarrassed and sorry I did. All of you know that I'm going to go off topic. It seems to me what I'm thinking about is on-topic, but I'll admit in a tangential way. What interests me about Minciu Sodas is that it is an example of an effort in some ways similar to the World Wide Connectory as a distributed effort of many. `Minciu Sodas`_ offers some communications infrastructure as well as a culture of practice or ethos perhaps summed up by the mission to organize free thinkers. They operate as a networking club. As the WWC is still in the planning phase it seems a good idea to look for models. As I understand it the WWC proceeds from the question: What if the people of the world shared poverty? That's not exactly how you stated the question, David, and I'm sure you said it better, but it gets the gist. This question interests me very much. Richard has as fundamental questions about what poverty is, and in my own confused mind have been wondering too. But even while questioning, I've never really moved from the feeling that poverty is a bad thing. But proceeding from another set of questions, for example questions about how to overcome sexism, how to reduce environmental destruction, to challenge the ever expanding demand for wants at the expense of needs, for all of these the way to proceed seems to be economic cutback. Economic growth ignorant of limits imposed by the larger ecosystem seems a cancer on the body politic. The Global Fund, a worldwide effort to do something about AIDS, malaria, and TB. More than a billion people have died from TB since 1700. People in rich countries more or less figure they don't have to worry. We imagine that our wealth somehow inoculates us. With good sense we would worry because while disease afflicts individual people what to do about disease prevention requires thinking about how disease affects a population. We are connected whether we know it or not. So the question about sharing poverty gets turned around: What if people **knew** we shared poverty? A second question easily follows: What would we do? And it seems to me that these questions are what the WWC seeks to answer. People have been volunteering their efforts in service to others for a long time. But the Internet and other communications tools open new ways of organizing such efforts. Following many threads here at Ned the idea of P2P or commons-based peer production is an idea we all are wondering about. There's a great `Ted Talk`_ by `Clay Shirky`_ Institutions vs. Collaboration. It seems quite relevant because part of the planning about the WWC is how to get people collaborating. Clearly the purpose of the WWC is encourage and promote collaboration, so it good to look at ways that institutions oppose collaboration. Dave Pollard's `post today`_ *Agents, Intermediaries and Collaborators* touches on this subject. I noted that the first comment was Jon Husband. The tag line on `his blog`_ is: You know more than me, we know more than you, and wherever this all going, we’re going there together. Right now we assume that to do something we have to get organized and we presume the way to get organized is to make a hierarchy. Husband's blog is called Wirearchy and this is how he defines that term: Wirearchy - "a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology." The ways we think about doing things is changed by the hyperlinking networks of online collaboration, so that many of our presumptions based on a hierarchical perspective are altered. I know that many in the poor partner areas have less access to the Internet, but still at root I believe that the WWC is a P2P collaborative effort which makes the questions about how the WWC might be organized very important. But we're new at this sort of thing and there's lots to invent. Omidyar.net was one sort of experiement to invent ways to organize in this many to many way. But experiments show it's not always so smooth. Remember all the arguments at Onet whether we were doing anything good at all? The way that collaborative efforts are organized is often different from ways that traditional employer-employee organizations are. Even organizations which engage volunteers to provide goods and services follow lines of authority. The idea of the WWC seems to be to match partner areas and have these areas organize their own collaborations. It hard for me to imagine the lines of authority for the more than three thousand partner areas when the WWC is fully operational. There will be thousands of experiments of various scales going on. Some of these ways of organizing will not be particularly worthwhile or successful. Many of these attempts will be contentious and questions raised about their legitimacy. So issues about how to maintain the credibility of the WWC organization are difficult. The important thing is to imagine what one can be reasonably be responsible. There's been quite a bit of discussion about here about the issues of responsibility of the WWC in ongoing discussions. I do think that the way that Minciu Sodas is organized points out some pitfalls in how to run collaborative organizations. It seems to me that Kulikauskas tries to keep the legitimacy of Minciu Sodas by being sort of a personal bottle neck. Since the idea of the WWC is so expansive such a bottle neck in David Bale seems a poor model to follow. In short I don't think it's good to imagine that David Bale can control the whole organization, unless he controls a hierarchical institution. But that seems no good because the very core of the idea of the WWC is not a hierarchy, but rather to use Jon Husband's word a wirearchy. David has a great idea which he's invested so much of his time. The institutional approach would be to set up an organization or foundation and partner areas would form their own organizations or foundations which would be members of the main organization. I'm painting with a broad brush here, but I think everyone would understand a set-up something like this. But this may not be the best way to conceive of the organization, nor the only way it might be conceived. Models like the Red Cross, or the Boy Scouts depend obviously on many volunteer efforts, but still at root are hierarchical organizations with employees and chains of command. The model that Mincu Sodas provides is of a networking club. A unique response to this challenge of inventing new ways of organizing. The problem I imagine with this applied to the WWC is that the ethos of the organization is enforced through one person which I don't think will scale well to the size that David imagines for the WWC. I don't have a solution as to what to do. But things seem to be moving quickly and I'm concerned thing will get tricky quickly. .. _`Minciu Sodas`: http://www.ms.lt/en/servingthinkers/index.html .. _`Ted Talk`: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html .. _`Clay Shirky`: http://www.shirky.com .. _`post today`: http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2008/09/08.html#a2238 .. _`his blog`: http://blog.wirearchy.com/ ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:30:42 PDT John wrote: Or consider Lars' concerns about Kayiwa and the KJT right now. Due diligence for Lars means: show me your license, show me your accreditation, show me your books, prove to me your legitimate by showing me your hierarchy. Lars is of course a very nice guy, and the demands he's making have a moral resonance, so it's an easy step to go from no-hierarchy = bad, or even criminal. John, you are dangerously incorrect here, and so - whether nice or not - I'd like to ask that you *not* put words in my mouth. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:15:02 PDT John, you have a fine appreciation of ideas - and from the start have attuned yourself precisely to what this project is intended to be about - but your appreciation of people's characters is sometimes surprisingly wayward. I've never met Lars but have now read hundreds of his posts here and on Onet and I was a little shocked at your caricature of his attitude towards Kayiwa and the KJT. I think Lars expressed himself very precisely (in separate posts) on the matter of MS and of the KJT Supporters Club. I believe he was wrong in suggesting that the two are connected in some way. But that is not the point. My understanding of what Lars said was not really about due diligence (and certain not about due diligence as described here), but about some misgivings he felt about lending his support to an organistion (MS) whose rhetorical grandiosity rang alarm bells for him. In other words, Lars seems to be someone for whom intuition plays a part in his decision making and not someone whose only criteria for decision making is that all the required crap is there and that it is all stored in its proper place. No wonder Lars has reacted strongly! I don't believe for a moment that he is remotely a control freak. At the same time you'd have to be pretty stupid not to pay due attention to due diligence. And one thing I'm sure we can both agree on is that Lars is not stupid! ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:17:33 PDT I think I've posted [my last post] too soon. I might have guessed that John would have the generosity of spirit to want to edit his post and avoid misrepresentation. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:51:24 PDT I really screwed up. Lars highlights just one of the offensive passages in my post, but is enough to show the gist of what's wrong with it. I had to go do something else right as I saw Lars's post, so the best I could do is to take it down. Probably should have deleted it, but I wanted to take a look at how best to deal with the context of this thread. Putting words in someone's mouth, saying what they have not said is inexcusable. I am very sorry. I apologize to everyone who read the post. I'm still sorting out how to make amends. ---- :Author: Gayle Rogers :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:14:48 PDT I don't want to sound like a clunky, self-absorbed meme **BUT** I want to write something about Minciu Sodas and it feels like if I do it now, I'll be interrupting. (and will end up being sent to Meron & Gayle's Corner or something!) G. xoxox :) ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:20:52 PDT David, thanks for the clarification. You may be correct that MS and KJT are not connected - it could be something I've wildly read into the whole `connections for wellbeing`_ and `minciu sodas`_ relationship. Please don't hesitate to tell me directly when you think I'm off point. John, thanks for pulling the post. I'm sorry to be short tempered - I guess you've inadvertently discovered a pet peeve (guess you couldn't have known I take my words as seriously as I do my art, teaching, etc. As Obama recently said to Palin, "Come on, words mean something!"). Anyway, consider this a handshake. .. _`connections for wellbeing`: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/A69/A97 .. _`minciu sodas`: http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?BarbaraHorst ---- :Author: Gayle Rogers :Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:32:01 PDT ....and my four year adoration of you guys continues with a big dopey sigh. PS: out of time....I'll be back later to OT the daylights out of this thread!!! **:)** ---- :Author: kayiwa Fred :Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:34:39 PDT KJT is not connected with MS as its not the source of support for it. However, personnaly am a member of MS and a love it because i have got many connections there there are many people there Individually whom i have met face to face share good ideas, get help from people on ms as aperson, just like recently i have recieved 3 books called Creating A world without povert by Yunusu muhamed from bangaladesh and i have given them out to some friends including lectures to read through and improve their bussiness skills So i would suggest that if we need to know more about MS then we have to invite The Director for it here, he is called Andrius and his email is open to every one on www.ms.lt ---- :Author: kayiwa Fred :Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:38:49 PDT However, I fell like you have some questions about KJT which iam one of its leaders Please feel free to ask me direct of course using simple english because i must admit that although am in the university doing Social work bachelors, i find hard to Understand the english Lars, David and Powers and mark use some times its too pure lol ---- :Author: Ceris Dien :Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:42:10 PDT David Bale said: I think Lars expressed himself very precisely (in separate posts) on the matter of MS and of the KJT Supporters Club. I believe he was wrong in suggesting that the two are connected in some way. I just want to clarify that at no time did I think that Lars was connecting KJT Supporters Club ("my" concept)with MS or CfW. So you can all cross me off the list of possibly offended people :-) ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:25:16 PDT Fred, thanks for your clarification. Really, my only question at the time was whether an MS-affiliated person or organization was handling payment for the KJT/Michezo Cup effort, and if so how that worked. My preference would be to support ned.com members in their efforts through ned member-initiated channels (and Fred, thank you for your PM on that matter last week). Hope that makes sense. I just don't know enough about how MS works and what their approach is on the ground to square that with their self promotion. Ceris, thank you - I think you've fingered the point of confusion well. ---- :Author: kayiwa Fred :Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:36:48 PDT Perfect Lars we welcome your help it will be given all the accountability am not alone in the giving it but we are a group of 3 locals who work hard to ensure everything is perfect ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:19:22 PDT Kayiwa Fred said: ... we are a group of 3 locals who work hard to ensure everything is perfect And you're making a fine job of it! :) ---- :Author: Richard O. Kananga :Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:33:20 PDT It is amazing how our world could be rife with indeterminable controversies! The subject of this thread reminds me of those days when the water group subjected the defunct O.net to a Katrina of some sort. It is interesting to notice just how people are quick to shove their way right into the core of such kind of controversies even when the dew of earlier ones are hardly adequately resolved. Out of this indeed I have come to appreciate that such concepts as "due diligence" could still be hurled around and so unweighed. Of late still, I have noticed the growing strong voices concerning various issues here. I am particularly intrigued by how Lars has suddenly lately developed into a certain voice of conciliation. Undoubtedly, Lars is a gentleman, a deserving and largely agreeable gentleman at that! And a gentleman who most times is not so repulsed from the attempts to subjecting some particularly Richard to undue duress while cleverly finding comfort behind an alibi in "inconsequential" (as he'd most oftenly like an insinuation) dialogue. I am personally not at all averse to dialogue: as much as I am also not so unawares of its powers; like in lifting us from seemingly unresolvable quagmires and indeed its weaknesses; as in plunging us deeper into unforeseen sloughs along the road to future... ---- :Author: Gayle Rogers :Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:30:03 PDT **What??????????????** ---- :Author: Richard O. Kananga :Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:59:19 PDT Hey Gayle, *like*...? ---- :Author: Gayle Rogers :Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 05:44:35 PDT Ummm - like what was the previous rant of yours all about?? As difficult to piece together as it was in places, it seemed to me like the thrust of at least part of your post was dedicated to having a big, fat hairy shot at Lars for reasons that don't seem clear at all to me. Innuendo - when it has a combative tone - really bugs me so, what gives?? Cheers, Gayle ---- :Author: Richard O. Kananga :Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:15:27 PDT Gayle, I guess Lars might be *clear* himself on *the reasons*... ---- :Author: Gayle Rogers :Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 03:30:48 PDT Okay - so based on the above post, you **are** pissed off or upset (or angry or hurt or something uncomfortable) with Lars then. Clearly I've missed something!!!! But gee - I do wish that everyone would call a spade a spade if they are upset.....name it and own it and work it out. Mmmmmm - if wishes were fishs eh! ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:23:10 PDT Gayle, I've no idea what Richard is on about - I've missed it too. Richard, what are you talking about? Are you affiliated with MS yourself, and uncomfortable with this discussion? ---- :Author: Richard O. Kananga :Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:39:43 PDT I am surprised that at times you are too good at *picking* at others not so good at *missing*... I too do not understand, and mind you I am no longer *on*, Lars. ;) ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:38:17 PDT Still not sure I'm following what you're writing about, Richard. At this point in the conversation, it may not matter: we should move on. Seems clear there's not a lot of *specific* enthusiasm for MS, and some *general* discomfort. Perhaps this has helped David clarify a direction to take WRT the Worldwide Connectory. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:50:11 PDT Lars says: Perhaps this has helped David clarify a direction to take WRT the Worldwide Connectory. I think it has. There seems to be no point in pursuing any centralised liaison with MS (at the present time at least) though it will of course be up to individual areas and partnerships to form whatever links they think are best for them. And that may well be with Minciu Sodas. I say this with the proviso, of course, that if any areas fostered totally unsuitable links (I'm thinking here of hate crimes and terrorism, not adoration of Sarah Palin or Michael Jackson), the WWC would need to sever all connections with that partnership, probably by disbanding the separate areas and allow them to re-develop again later. ---- :Author: Janet Feldman :Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:36:39 PDT Dear Friends, It has been quite some time since I posted at Ned, though I do have individual linkages with some of you, and just posted to David privately--with a forward from a Minciu Sodas forum (mine, in fact)--before reading this thread. The letter is from Andrius, who posted in response to an alert about the WWC by some of our members. I added my own request for David to consider the forum I moderate (my working group), called Holistic Helping, where there are a number of individuals and nonprofits from Africa in particular. I have also offered my own individual networking capacities (ie not connected to MS). This a huge topic being debated here, and each viewpoint does have some validity. For instance, Lars mentions openness of contact info during our peace project as something which could have been dangerous. This in fact could be so, and it was one among many topics that were vigorously debated. We decided that in order to build an emergency-phone network, we did need to have that contact info. And by "we" in this case I mean our Kenyan members themselves, who were courageous enough to want to be "open" about who they are and how they can be reached, as they felt that this would do more to promote the peace process. It was not without risk, however, and it is an open question whether we would always work in that way if such a challenge arises again for our members. On the issue of money, some of us in a position to donate did give funding to that endeavor, and there were small amounts given by others who believed in the work we were doing. All of that has been well accounted for in public statements. As for the African Innovation grant, I worked on two that were submitted, one within MS and the other not. Matching funds that we need to have for the MS proposal, should that be successful, we are brainstorming about now, as we have no ready-made source of income for MS as a whole, and those of us who donated to the peace project are broke. This is a common concern and challenge for most orgs and endeavors of this kind, as not many have an income-stream that is continuous and sustained by regular and in some cases even identifiable donors over time. In fact, some donors do not want to publicly be listed as contributing to projects. I recently had to amend the KAIPPG (www.kaippg.org) site to exclude some of our biggest donors, in fact. That seems counter-intuitive (why would donors not want to be seen as "doing good"?), but on the other hand, it is understandable in context, given the level of need and the inability of even the deepest pockets to fill those needs. Thus, "tranparency" and "accountability"--openness--are going to mean different things to different people/orgs and in different contexts. I have found that in MS there is the desire for "super-transparency", which can have its own challenges. So there is no "intention" of being obfuscatory or non-transparent, though it may still be hard to understand how we work and what we do :))). I have been a member of Minciu Sodas for 5 years. I was introduced to it by the head of the oneVillage Foundation (www.onevillagefoundation.org), who is a good friend, and also member of ActALIVE (www.actalive.org), an arts coalition and nonprofit I founded in 2002. MS head, Andrius Kulikauskas, is also a member of ActALIVE now too. As for what we do, there are a variety of things, the most prominent being "working groups" which a number of members conduct and direct (linked to yahoo forums), where we discuss goals, dreams, values, and projects pertinent to us, and work with our members to realize same. One of my "deepest values", as Andrius calls it, is a desire to help foster "holistic" approaches to issues such as health and poverty eradication. In the HIV/AIDS field, for example, it is clear that one cannot address that pandemic in an effective way without also addressing poverty, lack of nutrition and healthcare facilities, lack of education, and the unequal status of women. So that's what I mean by "holistic", and this is one reason the WWC is of interest to me. One member forum, called Learning from Each Other, is investigating and hoping to apply approaches to poverty eradication by Dr Yunus and the Grameen movement. Still another is interested in the social aspects of agriculture, while another is most active regarding peace-related issues in Kenya (though Holistic Helping was the forum where peace activities centered earlier this year, in part because I have longstanding ties from other forums and activities to Kenyan members of HH). We all interact and sometimes work together. There are times when some of us clash too: Andrius and I had deep disagreements about how to approach our Pyramid of Peace project, including how to structure it, who would make decisions and how that process would take place, who would be responsible for what and what our working methods would be. He and I discussed and disagreed mostly in the open. That was painful in some ways--for us and for members--and of course things could not be fully addressed at the time because our members in Kenya were in the middle of a crisis. Out of those disagreements and differences some illumination and also some clarity has emerged, I think, while other issues are ongoing, and will hopefully be addressed over time, as new experiences crop up to help us do that. This type of organic approach to growing, building, sharing, and developing is something that all organizations, networks, coalitions, and group entities face, and need to work on if their efforts are to be sustainable and effective. Minciu Sodas has been identified by many members, especially in Africa, as highly valuable for them, not only because of the projects we are doing and hope to do, but because of the camaraderie and the international atmosphere. In addition, the development of "independent thinkers" is very attractive, perhaps in part because many of our members are not otherwise asked their opinions, thoughts, and feelings (in most cases because of the socio-political settings they live in). This is especially true for women. I hope myself to create a space where many more women will come: to discuss, work together in a cooperative way, to share-teach-learn-grow-create. To design and find funding for development projects, and then implement them. In a number of respects, MS is akin to O/net and Ned. I have so much enjoyed being a member of both/all There are some differences too, though these in combination have created "double the value" for me. David, with regard to the WWC, I would suggest that some of us linked to MS might do networking and work on your project as individuals. As a group identified with MS, we might do the same thing, contributing in particular both to the "twinning" aspect of the project, and also to the database of nonprofits you are building. This does not have to be a formal partnership. In fact, I wonder if you do need those types in any case, as that may engender more issues than you would want to address at this point. Organizations like Sister Cities International would seem to be an excellent fit if you do want formal partnerships, and of course the same can always be worked out with anyone over time, and with the experience of working informally together to see how it goes. Thanks to all for your feedback and perspectives, including your concerns and doubts. Nothing is a monolith at MS, or anywhere else, for that matter, so whatever you are thinking and feeling is also going on within our working circles, and hopefully being addressed in such a way that change, growth, sustainability, and social-justice are served and improved. With thanks and blessings to all, Janet (Feldman, KAIPPG International and ActALIVE) ---- :Author: Lars Hasselblad Torres :Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:25:34 PDT Thanks Janet, nice to have your perspective in the mix. Sounds like you've found a good and productive way of working with MS. ----