Would you like to join in for Community Action Day?

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Stimulating a movement fuelled by local responses

Community Life Competence is expanding. Communities in a wide range of contexts and locations rely on their strengths and take progress on issues of their concern in their own hands. Can we as Constellation members, facilitators and coaches all over the world make large scale progress and involve even more communities, including our own in this movement fuelled by local responses? To do so we propose to organize a Community Action Day.

We often see especially in the cities that people want to re-connect with their community members. This would be a good opportunity to do so. Boris from the Netherlands suggested that he could host such an interaction over a barbeque!

What would the day look like?
On the Community action day communities meet to do their self-assessment and thereafter, make action plans based on the self-assessment. The day will be an occasion where people share, listen, appreciate and support each other. It will also stimulate people to reflect and respond to their concerns.

Sharing with friends around the world
Communities could then share their self-assessment and action plan online with thousands of other communities. Being part of a global movement of change can stimulate them to take action and to connect for learning and sharing.

Partners
We would start from within, with Constellation members and partners in our own network. We could offer to collaborate with UNAIDS on World AIDS Day and RBM on Roll Back Malaria day. We could test it within the Constellation this year and explore it with potential partners in 2011.

We need your help
Do you have any ideas for the day, or would you like to join the working team to plan and coordinate the event all over the world? Please write to me at [e-mail] . I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Rituu

[Marlou]

Fantastic Kristin, that is a great application. The group will make a resource package available on this platform early on in November. Hope that will help in your preparations. You can help by encouraging others to be part of the activity - and by sharing the results of your community. Great!
Be well,
Marlou

[Kristin Bodiford]

Hi everyone, We have our community meeting to co-design action on December 3. We look forward to joining with other communities around the world on Community Action Day! Let us know what we can contribute. Many thanks for your leadership - Kristin

[zoneziwoh]

Dearest All, hope you are doing great.
what have we decided as regarding the CAD for 2010.

This is my humble suggestion / tentative program of activities, thought it just a continuation of my last remark on the forum.

I ponder over the following questions within the week:

1) CAS Theme for 2010
a few thought came to my mine which I am about sharing them - one of the striking words which somehow succeeded to convince my thought was the word ' Emerge: Linking Up with the Communities' in this light I though of our dream; A world, our Community without HIV/AIDs, Conflicts, Violence... A world with Peace . etc

2) Date / Days of Activities
here, i also debated with myself on the choice in the dates / days, reminding myself also about Marion's most recent remark . that said i came up with the following which i am about to review;

- Dec 2010, 4th could be the launching of CAD, for 2 reasons; assuming that our theme is based on 'Emerge...' it is thus wise to linkup with the members so as to reachout to the deepest part in the community. in addition to that point Dec 4th is in the 16 days of Activism against GBV, as well as some days after the World Aids Day, and also some days before Intl Humanrights Days, as such directly or indirectly we will be enagage with lots of activities in our respective communities in one way or the other. and so, the date/ experience learnt on the feild will still be fresh in our minds for members to be able to communicate interactively in the forum since most members will be doing their report writing...submission of activities reports, recommendation etc.

despite all that, I also forsaw the following contraints;
- community members will get so worked up with field works and might not have time to commit themselves to the few hours chat/ community debate online etc
- 4th Dec seem right thought on the other hand it might seem that CAD is trying to take 'shortcut' that is to say CA (community action) is only for these peak of activism etc

Lets keep the flag blowing.
I look forward to reading your comment

Zoneziwoh

[zoneziwoh]

Dearest All.
I'm so pleased with the marvelous contribution here on the forum. Just as Marion had said (if I understand her view perfectly)
I will like to suggest that if we could make it a week activism and by the end of the activism, we call on a day as the CAD, with its Theme for that Year.
In order word, Since we are representing different communities from the six Continents, with difference in Time Zones, it might be easier if we decide Now on when we intend to kick-off with this Action, then divide them into Zones(Continents of similar Time Zones).

In that act, we are creating a global awareness as at the same time, while in the forum, members are having Multi -Discussion on the relevant strategies to apply in attaining individual goals, through various Assessment Tools etc

Partners: I agree that we start from within, we should be our partners and contributors, in my humble say- each member should be expected to volunteer an hour or more, depending on her /his accessibility / availability, in His/Her respective communities, with groups etc, share ideas, propose best strategies etc.

Lets keep up with the discussion and gradually we are getting to the point,

I look forward to reading from our other members

Zoneziwoh

[Marion]

Dear friends,
I was remembering the whole discussion we had. It was really nice, and many ideas emerged already :) Congratulations to all of you !!

My next suggestions would be:

- We should let the communities and organisations choose their date for the CAD. I think it is quite difficult to impose only one date for each participants. The CAD will bring together many people, from different backgrounds, from different cultures, different ways of living, with their customs, their habits... Woow I am so excited, just thinking about all the people it can bring! Anyway, I still think it is quite hard to impose ONE day, because each of us will have his own activities planned;

- That is the COMMUNITY Action Day, so I think it is normal to let them choose the subject, according to the issue they deal with, for the CAD (HIV/AIDS, malaria, diabetes, etc. ...);

- The Community Action Day should emphasize the cohesion between the communities. But I think that the most important is the sharing around this event. Each community or organisation should find inspiration in the experience of each other. I mean, the day is not really important (the date), the subject can be different from one community/organisation to another. The most important is what we learn, what we share, how we link, how we appreciate... SALT !! :)

- I think we need to centralize the informations. My suggestion would be the creation of a website, only about the CAD. Ok maybe it is too much, because we already share on other interactive platforms. But I think that it would be easier, in order to keep concentrated on the CAD, to have a single website about the CAD. Of course, we can share the link to this website from Ning, or Facebook. And we even can create some "Event" pages on Facebook, about the CAD in each country. Because I think that on Ning we already have a lot of groups and blogs, maybe it would be easy to get lost in the great amount of informations on this dynamic platform :) So I would suggest the creation of a website, where we could share along the process of the organisation of the CAD.

I hope it is quite clear, haha I had to organize a bit my ideas before writing to all of you :)

I am full of hope in that new adventure !!

Warmly,

[Gaston]

Great tips Phichet. They surely match my experience. Let us ask ourselves continuously if we engage with communities like this as well.

[Marion]

It is very interesting Phichet !! Now we are conscious of those skills, we have to "use" it unconsciously ;)
But it still remains very useful, and good to know ! Thank you for sharing !!
Malee

[Phichet Munpa]

I have one thing to share about 10 Tips to Effective and Active Listening Skills
(http://powertochange.com/students/people/listen/). It may benerfit SALT activity.

[Joma]

Now we can show the difference more, and help the Community to measure how much efforts they have been putting together, besides I am sure that I hope we could see a productive plan as they will see and encourage by what difference the community have made. It will be good to be in the working group.

WAD will be the best day for on this day every voluntary org. and NGOs will come out to observe the Day. Giving them the main role to make the prog. success.

[Dr. E. Mohamed Rafique]

Dear Rituu,

In CARE India EMPHASIS program, you can be sure that for the CAD, we will try to complete the self-assessment tool in the mobile populatitons that we work with. However, let me explain what this involvement is:
1) Bangladeshi mobile population in the transit area at Petropole on the West Bengal-Bangladesh border, and at Kolkata, along with their respective NGO partner staff, namely Bhoruka Public Welfare Trust (BPWT) and HDRI.
2) Nepali mobile population in transit area at Gaurifanta and Gadachouki on the Indo-Nepal border, and at Delhi, along with their three NGO partner staff, namely that of BGVS, Anchal, and Modicare.
Thus, it involves, working in multiple communities of four states through six NGOs.

As you know we are just starting to introduce ACP in these communities, so please wish us luck!