I sat with Sister Fidelis Rubbo recently on a return flight from Haiti. I first met her six years ago as we frequented the same cybercafé in Port au Prince. An American with the Franciscan order, she lives in the remote countryside near a village called Pestel in the southwest and works with the local priest and representatives from 14 chapels. It was a great to reconnect with her and to learn how her work is evolving.

“I need to tell you something, John. Having your colleagues Fremy and Abelard come and do Circles of Change training with our leadership and Chapel representative was the best thing I’ve done since I moved to Haiti seven years ago.” She went on to say, “I’ve watched groups transform the way they function together. There’s much less conflict and the solutions that the groups come up with to problems regarding our cistern, water and micro-credit projects are effective because they take into consideration the wisdom and perspective of all the committee members. I see attitudes and practices changing and we’ve begun training more of the 10,000 people who are part of this parish network. Thank you for what you and your colleagues have done and are doing.”

Open Space Training

Beautine, Pè Alphonse, Daphne, Abelard
Originally uploaded by John Engle

March 24-25, 2008
Villa Manrese
Port au Prince, Haiti

28 participants ranging from directors of schools, to teachers, to organizers working on child and environmental rights to an Episcopal priest. One concrete outcome of training is plans to do in July a two-day Open Space and Reflection Circle seminar with more than 200 teachers from 20 different schools.

Work group pictured above during the training. To see more photos click here.

Click below to watch 2-minute video.

View SEEDS OF CHANGE

BEYOND BORDERS 9TH ANNUAL OPEN MEETING

It's less than one month away. We'll have more than 20 people coming from Haiti and Dominican Republic.

To learn more about the annual meeting and to reserve your place go to www.beyondborders.net.

This year we've created a website called Beyond Borders Network to help people who are coming to the annual meeting and others who are interested in this work to communicate. We invite you to join! Here's the link: beyond borders network

We’re so grateful for all the good people who are helping to make important work possible in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere. We’re grateful for these friendships and partnerships.

So we’re inviting you to participate in Beyond Borders 9th Annual Open Meeting in Vero Beach, Florida, January 25-27, at the beautiful McKee Botanical Garden.

Each year Beyond Borders invites individuals and organizations to come together to think, pray, work, discern, laugh, break bread, and celebrate. These meetings are an opportunity to connect and reconnect. New ideas, initiatives, and partnerships are born. Existing relationships and efforts are strengthened. There will be at least 15 people coming from Haiti and dozens more from around the U.S.

We use the open space meeting format, which means that everyone present has the opportunity to propose topics and then people join the conversations that interest them. This simple, empowering approach is one of the ways that Beyond Borders cultivates “bottom-up” development and institution building in Haiti. Haiti will be a focus of many conversations, but not exclusively. It’s open to whatever topics people are interested in, usually around the theme of social justice.

We hope that you will come for the entire weekend starting with dinner at 6 p.m. on Friday evening, January 25, and concluding with a picnic by the beach at noon on Sunday, January 27..

But if you can’t come for all of it, come for any part you can! Space is limited, so register online now at www.beyondborders.net or call Beyond Borders at 1-866-424-8403. Registration and meals (Haitian cuisine for dinners) for Friday evening through Sunday lunch will be on a sliding scale from $100 to $190 (not including lodging). You can register online for individual meals if you can’t attend the whole event.

Contact Vero Beach Comfort Inn at 772-569-0900 if you need lodging. It’s less than a mile from the McKee Botanical Garden, where we’re meeting. Mention Beyond Borders to get a special rate.

It’s going to be a weekend rich with meaning and learning. Much work will get done, and we’ll have fun in the process. We look forward to seeing you in Vero Beach!

Learn more and register online at www.beyondborders.net.

I just returned from spending ten days in Haiti.

Following Beyond Borders’ sister organization Limye Lavi’s annual meeting, we finished filming for the new Beyond Borders DVD. During four days, we met with hundreds of Haitians: students, teachers, community organizers and members of Haiti’s business elite. “Reflection Circles change the way teachers relate to us,” said tenth grader Dumaitre Esperancier. “We’re accustomed to teachers acting like dictators, as though they know everything. They’re mean. But, the teachers who use Reflection Circles treat us with respect. They’re interested in hearing what we have to say. They encourage us.”

Repeatedly we heard teachers and leaders say things like Moricet said, “Before I participated in these processes I was only concerned about my point of view. I was number one and had no interest in hearing anyone else. Now, I invite and listen to other’s perspectives, even when they’re different from mine. It’s completely changed the way I function with others including my own family. Consequently, there’s less conflict around me.”

All combined, the tiny staff of Beyond Borders and Limye Lavi alone will engage nearly 3,000 Haitians in Open Space meetings this year and nearly 1,000 in Reflection Circles training. This stuff is really spreading exponentially, as we hoped and prayed it would. These numbers don’t include other organizations doing Open Space and Reflection Circles. Thanks to the support of so many people, a culture of respect, tolerance and participation is spreading.

World Bank
Youth Open House
June 11-12

A report about this event which convened 120 young leaders (ages 18-30) from around US and Canada is now available on World Bank's website. We used open space for a significant portion of the gathering.

OPEN SPACE WITH WORLD BANK

May 7-9 I had the opportunity to facilitate open space for 350 people at World Bank in Washington, DC. It was the annual Communications Network gathering. They used open space last year and were pleased with the approach and the facilitator. But, the facilitator was from Australia and they decided that a round trip flight was one way to respond to budget constraints.

The meeting went well and allowed people to deal with some of the complex issues being faced by the Bank. Here are photos.

Open Space seminar

Thirty-five organizational and community leaders and teachers convened in Carrefour, Haiti, April 9-11 for a seminar in Open Space Techonology. Fremy and I used open space format to facilitate the training which included participants who were quite experienced in open space and those who never previously participated in an open space meeting. The group self-organized and did an extraordinary job at making use of the space and time to accomplish what needed to be accomplished.

Beyond Borders (Circles of Change is a program of Beyond Borders) is on World Blu's list of "Most Democratic Workplaces."
To read an article in Christian Science Monitor about this, click here. To learn more about World Blu, click here.