SEAPCP COMMUNITY ORGANISING

The community organising process

2011-11-12T14:49:00.017+08:00

RECIPE FOR CHANGE

What does it take to make changes in the community you have been living in for the past many many years. Well to answer this question, we have to ask why the change? This will then lead us to discuss about the present reality.

All these sound heavy and complicated but yet it is not! Imagine your present community with all its imperfections and also the positive aspects. Then think about the ideal or dream image of your community.

If the the image is quite different from the present reality then its time to start thinking of how we can make the dream become a reality. Now you are planning an organising process.

It's actually like cooking...

Cooking a Dish	Organizing a community
You select a recipe	Identifying an issue
Imagine the end product	Projecting your dream
Start to make a plan based on your intended output	Analysis and strategizing for action
Then you start to identify the ingredients, and start to shop for them	Identifying strengths and weaknesses in the organising process
Finally you put all ingredients together and start to cook!	Taking action
Sometimes the final dish needs to be adjusted by adding salt, pepper or sugar or even to revise the recipe.	Reflection, evaluation and then plan action again

Recently my organisation PERMAS who has been working with urban poor communities in Malaysia for the past 20 years has been involved in a community called Kampung Railway (former railway workers housing and staff quarters). They are being evicted now to make way for commercial complex and hotel which are being constructed to give the are anew facelift!

The people have banded together (especially the younger members) and trying to negotiate for appropriate compensations especially alternative permanent housing. In the course of this struggle, they have faced many difficulties as expected, for instance a divided local community, political party interventions, an uncooperative city hall, and a desperate & powerful housing developing company with many strong connections trying to shake the community.

The key for the people to stand in this struggle is exactly that... "TO STAND TOGETHER"! They need to learn how to work together and go through a crash course on how to negotiate with the city hall, the railway department and the housing developer, all in the span of a few weeks or months.

The only thing that will hold them back is themselves. An organising process that fails is usually attributed to the disunity and unwillingness of a community to fight for their rights and seeing the process to the end.

But once the people have tasted the fruits of being organised and empowered, nothing can stop them, its like they have been given a new set of eyes, they will see and feel things differently. After all to build a new community, we have to be brave to dream and make sure it becomes our reality.

by TAN JO HANN, President, PERMAS Malaysia

SEAPCP RELIEF EFFORTS JAPAN

2011-06-02T22:10:00.015+08:00

YELLOW UMBRELLAS TO THE RESCUE!

SEAPCP SUPPORTS JAPAN EARTHQUAKE-TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORTS

In may 2011, almost 2 months after the tragic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis hit Sendai and Fukushima City of Japan, SEAPCP contributed its support to the relief and rehabilitation efforts. Although in a small way but it was a meaningful contribution. SEAPCP network member in Japan, "SEAPCP HOKKAIDO" worked closely with SEAPCP Asia to buy 90 yellow umbrellas which was sent to Tsukitate elementary school (image below) in the disaster affected area of Kesennuma City in Miyagi Prefecture, Northeast Japan. The City located about 300 miles northeast of Tokyo was one of the worst hit areas in the recent Japanese disaster. (see map below).

Our Hokkaido partners were wondering what small ways they could help the relief efforts and were informed by the local contacts there that the school children needed umbrellas for going to school and returning home whenever it rained. SEAPCP Hokkaido (based in Yullfuru Magazine office, Tomakomai City, Hokkaido) immediately bought the umbrellas, packed them in Hokkaido and sent them to the school children on may 24th 2011. In April and May, SEAPCP Hokkaido working together with the Asian Regional SEAPCP collected messages from almost 20 of its partner organisations in 12 countries. These were published in a local newspaper in Hokkaido and also yull furu's latest edition (Volume 28, 2011, see scanned pages below in Japanese language).

page 1-2cover

page3-4

page 5-6

Another interesting effort by SEAPCP Hokkaido and Asia was the production of a set of 20 over drawings with messages of hope by 7-12 year old children from the communities struck by the 2006 earthquake in Jogjakarta Indonesia. (see samples below). These were sent to different parts of the affected areas in Japan and they are being prepared for display and also for publishing in local newspapers and other print media. We are hoping for the local authorities to mount these into a mini exhibition in schools and even the evacuation centers to inspire the affected people.

We hope that this small effort of SEAPCP HOKKAIDO and SEAPCP Asian Network will inspire others to also do likewise, because we believe small steps like these go a long way. GAMBATE JAPAN! (MORE POWER JAPAN!).

Story by Jo Hann Tan, SEAPCP REGIONAL DIRECTOR

2011-05-17T16:07:00.007+08:00

THE SPIRIT OF C.O. IS SWEEPING OVER ASIA

SEAPCP community organising network conducted its 2011 strategic planning and review meeting in Bali Indonesia from may 11-15, 2011. The participants represented 9 countries and 14 organisational partners.

The event was intesive and of course fun as the participants update each other and also exchanges stories, success stories and also challenges in the world of community organising. Most important of all the network decided some simple but effective approaches to continue to strengthen the network!

Photos: Nani speaks, Fitri explains, group work, Jo Hann presents SEAPCP gifts to local Bali Government officials, "fight to the end" participants in group dynamics.

Some of the immediate steps were to set up a special facebook group exclusively for members of the network! This has been done by Mr Son of AIDS Programme of Vietnasm and is already up and running with 23 members and constantly increasing. A system of file sharing on line will also be set up by KOMAS Malaysia represented by Prakkash.

A mapping of possible regional sharing of resources was also mapped out to track the movements of the members across the Asian region for the purposes of maximising these trips to benifit the local partner in each country. For instance, when Jo Hann gost to Vietnam in July, he will also hold sessions with the AIDS Programme, this way there will be minimal expenses used for the activity which is attributed as a SEAPCP effort working with local Vietnam partner.

Another interesting development was also the agreement to delegate Timorese Partner HABURAS and Bali partner Wisnu Bali Foundation to develop a proposal for "climate change and environmental impact on communities". This proposal will involve partners on a regional level and the activities will be closely coordinated by these 2 partners of course with SEAPCP guidance and support.

Photos: drawing the context of community organising, welcome dinner, Jo Hann draws a point, Zola shows a face, deep in discussion, making a point, singing in celebration, music of the heart

It looks like the partners of SEAPCP has once again taken the reigns and moving hard and fast towards to promotion and enhancement of community organising approaches in the region. Watch out Asia, the fire of community organising is sweeping across Asia to organise and empower the poor and the marginalised to rise up and change their situations!

2011-04-09T12:43:00.002+08:00

SARAWAK ELECTIONS 2011

REPORTS FROM GROUND ZERO by Evelyn and Kath, KOMAS

Good Afternoon Niah!

The crowd at Ngu awaiting for DSAI, around 100 people waiting despite the rain. Spotted among the crowd was Nor Ak Nyawai, pejuang hak tanah NCR. All the way from Miri to Niah, i could only spot BN's flags at longhouses by the roadside. Only towards reaching Niah that I spotted 1 PKR's flag.

The foodcourt at Niah pit stop - Ngu side is full with PKR's flag. Supporters for BN are at the other side of the foodcourt. MP Kapar giving his speech as a start off, good response from the crowd, increasing to around 500 people, seems like very strong support from the locals.

Speech by Tuai Rumah Nor Anak Nyawai in Iban. He talks about his court case.

SARAWAK ELECTIONS 2011

2011-04-09T00:23:00.005+08:00

REPORTS FROM GROUND ZERO!

Miri 8^th April Night

Tried to look for BN's campaign site but seems like there's

nothing there. SUPP campaign - only a few attended, orang yang makan di kedai dan pengikut SUPP.

At PKR's campaign at Morsjaya, waiting for Datuk Seri Anwar's arrival. Lim Guan Eng gave his speech earlier. Crowd is around 1000-2000 people, in front of Dr Teo's clinic. Datuk Seri Anwar is on the stage. The crowd seems to love his speech. Around 2000-3000 people are present. Some even brought their own benches. Some already heading back but crowd is still large. Besok YB Lim Kit Siang akan datang.

Reports from ground zero-Sarawak elections 2011

2011-04-08T18:29:00.005+08:00

SARAWAK ELECTION

MONITORING DIARY

Today, we will stay at home and prepare reports from the field for the past 2 days from home. Tonight we will go watch the ceramah by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim at Morsjaya opposite the Merdeka Mall. Since Kath's condition is not really ok, we will go and watch somewhere nearby our house.

Tomorrow, we will travel to Marudi for few days. See how far we can go to the rural area. Then for next week, probably by Monday or Tuesday, we will travel to Niah. Ong's contact, Abun Lim we help us travel around at Niah area. The problem at Niah is internet connection. I will update by phone call or sms if there any latest news.

Our job is very clear, we will observe if there are any wrong doing by the any of the parties, we will analyze the problem and record it in a report. Some of our partners have already lodge police reports regarding the wrongdoings done by the BN parties like hanging banners at ulu baram before the nomination day.

Currently, one of our partners has agreed to help us photocopy the brochures of undisarawak.crowdmap.com. We will bring the brochure along and distribute it to anybody we meet. Till now, we have received positive responses from the crowd regarding this mapping way to record elections abuses. Even though we try to teach them how to submit reports on abuses, some of them are still confused on what is the considered wrongdoing/actions that is against the elections Act.

So far, Ong has been very helpful. Same goes to BRIMAS and TAHABAS groups. They are also very helpful by providing us with information, even though they are busy.

I think, that's all for now. Regards and Mee Kolo from Sarawak!

Evelyne & Kath

2011-04-08T18:16:00.005+08:00

REPORTING FROM GROUND ZERO!

DAILY UPDATES FROM GROUND ZERO IN THIS BLOG:http://seapcpco.blogspot.com

Report by Tan Jo Hann, KOMAS Executive Director

The Malaysian Eastern state of Sarawak on North Borneon island will go to pools on April 16th. 2011, with 213 candidates fighting for 71 state assembly seats. Some are 3, 4, 5, or even 6 corner fights. This is a historical moment for Sarawak State elections because in the past decade since independence the state has never seen so many candidates fighting for these seats. There is also a strong challenge to wrestle control over the governance of the oil and timer rich state from the opposition front under the umbrella of Pakatan rakyat (PR).

Barisan National component parties and their allies in the Sarawak State continues to be led by the controversial Taib Mohammad, who has been the head of state for the past 30 years since 1981. He is also entanggled in many allegations of graft and corrupt practices especially involving the draining of the state's rich natural resources such as native land, oil, gas and timber.

Today the state remains one of the poorest in the country with little more than 50% consisting of the Dayak indigenous peoples, 26% Chinese population, 20% Melayu melanau population.

Since the campaign fever started to kick off on April 6th, many organisations, individuals and party members from both sides of the divide have flocked to the "land of the hornbill" engaged in the intensive and heated campaign trails.

PUSAT KOMAS, Malaysian human rights organisation has also fielded our very own "Anak Sarawak" Evelyne Tawan and Kath Livan to the field to monitor the activities and to document the incidence of abuse irregularities and generally to report the stories from ground zero!

Together with MEO-NET (Malaysian Election Observers Network), they will be delivering daily accounts of their findings from Miri, Bintulu and other parts of Sarawak into this blog.

Brave nurses of the Earthquake hit Tohuku in Japan

2011-04-02T23:47:00.011+08:00

March 29^th 2011, Sankei web online newspaper. (translated from original article)

“We won’t leave here!!”

Filipino and Indonesian nurses choose to remain in the disaster area in Tohoku.

Many medical teams are working for 24 hours in the disaster area. These teams include Filipino and Indonesian nurses and trainee nurses who come to Japan under EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement).

“I cannot leave the elder people behind,” “I am not afraid of the earthquake. I want to help everyone,” said some of these heroic nurses. Their home countries have praise them as “the pride of the country” (Indonesia government), and “heroin of nurses” (Philippine Media) for their devoted attitudes. Their patients are equally impressed and proud of them.

When many foreigners started exiting Japan because of the Fukushima Nuclear crisis, 4 Filipino student nurses stayed on in an old folks’ home in Fukushima where 12 elderly persons had passed away after the Tsunami. They are nurse Mercedez Akino (27) from Nueva Vizcaya province; former NGO staff Ms. Juliet Tobai (27) from Baguio city in Luzon Island and another 2 Filipino nurses.

“I will protect them”

Ms. Akino’s family who is in the Phillipines has called her repeatedly to urge her to return home but she said “the grandmothers have always been kind to me and always giving me chocolates or note books to study Japanese all the time. We cannot just leave without them”

“Ignoring instructions to leave, from the Indonesian Embassy”

Ms. Rita Rutonanintias (35) is from Semarang, Java province in Indonesia and she has been working and studying to be a nurse in the Miyagi Hospital located in Yamamoto-cho. She had refused the instructions by the Indonesian Embassy for them to immediately go to Tokyo. She has remained and working in the area for 1 week since the earthquake had struck.

On March 11^th, she has a day off and had stayed at home when the big earthquake hit. She ran to the hospital and together with others witnessed the 10 meter high Tsunami smashing through their town. She also helped lead 120 patients to the higher floors of the hospital.

As there is a hill in front of the hospital it was not directly hit by the Tsunami. Right after the tsunami waves had hit the hospital, more than a hundred evacuees came to seek refuge in the hospital. There were no electricity, water and no communications with the outside world for a week.

Presently Ms. Rita has already been evacuated back to Indonesia to be with her husband and two children who has been very anxious and worried about her. But she has decided to go back to Yamamoto-cho in April.

“Each day after work, everyone teaches me Japanese language. They have shown me their kindness in so many ways. They are suffering now so I want to help them back.”

“Repay an obligation from Sumatra.”

Indonesian nurse Ms. Suwartie (32) came to Japan in 2008 and has been working at the Himeji Red Cross Hospital in Himeji-city, Hyogo prefecture and at the same time studying for the state nursing examination 8 hours a day. She managed to passed the examination this year (announced on 25^th March 2011).

After the announcement she held a press conference in the Hospital and said “please send me to the disaster area” with tears in her eyes. She was a member of the medical team during the Sumatra Aceh earthquake and tsunami in 2004.

“When Indonesia suffered from the disaster, many Japanese people came and helped us. So this time I want to repay them even though in a small way”

2011-04-02T14:01:00.006+08:00

SOLIDARITY MESSAGES LINK SUMATRAN AND JAPAN TSUNAMI

Design by Shieko Malaysia

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

30th March 2011

“TOMAKOMAI MINPO”(Hokkaido newspaper) JAPAN

“GANBARE NIPPON!!” (Struggle On Japan!)

Messages from South East Asia

Solidarity linkages between Sumatra Earthquake and the support for the revival of JAPAN

Mr.Tomohiro Niinuma, President of IKKOSHA, a publishing company, (Yashiro-cho Tomakomai-city Hokkaido Japan) has received many support messages for the victims of the East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and nuclear crisis. Many of these messages came from the South East Asian people who have also faced similar disasters in their respective countries.

It all started when during the Sumatra Earthquake & Tsunami in Dec 2004 when IKKOSHA supported a campaign to give aid and solidarity to the victims in Dec 2004. Today these messages are directed to support Japan’s relief and rehabilitation especially condolences to the families who have lost loved ones and.

(Photo: Aceh tsunami in December 2004)

These solidarity messages are being collected and compiled by Mr. Tan Jo Hann, a Malaysian who founded the regional organization called SEAPCP or the South East Asia Popular Communications Programme. This group is a network of NGO’s in South East Asia countries advocating for human rights.

Mr Tan’s his wife Kayo Sunazawa is from Tomakomai-city in Hokkaido who is also active supporter of the campaign and also translates all documents and acts as the mediator. So far 25 messages have been received from NGO organizations and individuals from Indonesia, Thailand and many other neighboring countries.

IKKOSHA upon the request of Ms.Kayo and SEAPCP members had established “SEAPCP HOKKAIDO” ( represent Mr. Niinuma when the Sumatra Earthquake struck in 2004. SEAPCP HOKKAIDO then collected donations to support the victims of tat disaster.

Photo: SEAPCP (regional and Hokkaido team discussing the aceh campaign in 2005 in Tomakomai City Hokkaido

About 800,000yen (about USD7,200) was sent to support 7 medical teams from Malaysia to bring medicines and carry out treatments to the victims in Aceh, Sumatra. (At that time the yen value was about 5 times more in Indonesia value so the real value today would be about 4 million yen or USD36,300).

“Many people in Southeast Asia have a good image of Japan and they feel the pain when they heard about this disaster. Please continue to think about the Japanese people and continue to be active to support us” Mr. Niinuma said.

“We also saw pictures of calm, grace and determination of the Japanese people to overcome these challenges. I believe that you as a nation will be able to rebuild again.”

“We stand with you in solidarity!”

“We fight with you about nuclear issues!”

Beside these messages, there was also a drawing of a pair of hands rescuing an origami crane from the waters (designed by a Malaysian human rights artist).

Ms. Kayo said psychological trauma healing will also be needed to support the people.

Mr. Niinuma advises the victims who are still remaining in the disaster area to read the local news papers in Tohoku (disaster) area. They will then know that many people in the world are paying attention to the rehabilitation and reconstruction activities in Japan now.

“Aceh people who have had experiences of big earthquakes and Tsunami have until today remained poor and still struggling. But they still sent their warm regards and heartfelt feelings to Japan who is similarly suffering right now. I really want to share this with the many victims in Japan.

(Photo: 1 year after the tsunami in aceh)

2011-03-29T23:46:00.003+08:00

March 23rd 2011 from NHK TV News.

“MASSAGE CORPS to the rescue!

“WE are the MASSAGE CORPS!! We come here to massage your shoulders!!” These were cries of the 7 to 9 years old elementary school children all lined up at the entrance of a shelter for the evacuees of the recent tragic earthquake tsunami.

They run to the elderly people and start to massage their shoulders. Each group consists of a few children and they take turns massaging an elderly person. (They get tired very fast so need to take turns to massage one elderly person) This is their CORPS strategy!!

These small troopers actually brought smiles to the faces of the elder people. All of them “felt good” and wore big smiles on their faces despite their present difficult situation.

The whole of Japan (and the rest of the world) are desperately thinking what they can do for the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Earthquake and Tsunami. Even the little children have found their roles.

Written by Kayo Sunazawa

TRAGIC TSUNAMI STORY, JAPAN

2011-03-29T17:27:00.005+08:00

Here is a sad account of the tragic death of a friend's family wiped out by the Japanese Tsunami.

Hokkaido family killed by Japan's Earthquake & Tsunami

March 24 2011, The Hokkaido Newspaper

A husband and wife from Hokkaido who owned a small processed marine products business in Otsuchi-cho, Iwate prefecture, and their 2 year old son were killed by the Killer Tsunami in Japan. Their bodies were found by family members who took their bodies back to Hokkaido to be buried in the husband’s hometown in the Otofuke-cho,Tokachi area. The family held a funeral service on 23^rd March 2011.

Mr. Masanao Masuda (age 38) and his son Rui-chan were found inside a car near their house located about 500 meters from the seashore while his wife Miho (age 40) was found in another location.

After the 9.0 earthquake occurred at about 2:50pm on 11^thMarch 2011, it was reported that Mr. Masanao had telephoned his older sister, Mrs. Ayumi Orita (age 44) and told her “A big earthquake has occurred here, please careful maybe it might happen in Hokkaido too! The shaking is getting stronger now so I have to go.” These were his last words as it was not possible to contact him anymore.

Mrs.Orita received the tragic news that the bodies of her brother and family when she was searching for them on the 19^th. of March 2011. She was finally able to go with her other brother Mr.Yoshihito and other family members to Iwate prefecture with his car to collect the bodies on March 21^st morning. They bring back two bodies to Otofuke-cho Hokkaido by the car and arrived in 22^nd while it took some time to verify and identify the body of Mrs Miho which finally arrived in Hokkaido on 23^rd of March.

Mr. Masanao’s father was in the hospital fighting against cancer in Obihiro Hospital in Hokkaido and he finally past away on March 22^nd evening while waiting for the arrival of his son Masanao.

Mr. Masanao was a student of Judo since elementary school and had graduated in a local junior high school in Hokkaido. Subsequently he attended school in the Asahikawa University High School and was part of the top Judo team there. He was also active in Judo in Doto University too and met his wife Miho and later married her after graduation. He became very interested in processed marine products when he helped his wife‘s father in the fishing business. They had decided to move to Otsuchi-cho, Iwate prefecture to start their own business to be close to Miho’s parents’ home.

Their son Rui-chan was born after 13 yeas of marriage and he was the darling of the family. Masanao used to explain to friends and family that their company was named after their son Rui because he believed that “my son will inherit this company from me”.

About 40 people attended the funeral service. Mr.Masanao’s close friend who is a fireman was emotional when he said “He (Masanao) used to always smile to make us feel relaxed. I wish he and his family will live happily in heaven”.

Translated by Kayo Sunazawa, Hokkaido Japan.

Solidarity with the Japanese people

2011-03-28T18:45:00.002+08:00

Mr NOCH CHAMROEN (URBAN POOR WOMEN DEVELOPMENT) Cambodia

To the people of Japan, we are very saddened when Japan faced a big earthquake and tsunami. The Japanese people has supported Cambodia a lot both in technical matters and funding. Many students of Cambodia are also graduates from Japan. When Japan face this big disaster it makes us very shocked and sad. In this hard situation I personally call for all people in the world to share your condolence and support to the people of Japan as much as possible. We stand in solidarity

2011-03-25T00:48:00.007+08:00

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE, TSUNAMI & NUCLEAR CRISIS - SOLIDARITY MESSAGES FROM SEAPCP & FRIENDS

Photo Credits: AP, The Yomiuri Shimbun

For Japanese language version of the support messages, please go to SEAPCP HOKKAIDO page hosted by the following website: http://www.you-full.com

SOUTH EAST ASIA POPULAR COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAMME
A letter to the Japanese people

We are very shocked and saddened by the recent earthquake and tsunami which has to date estimated to claim almost 21,000 lives in Honshu Island of Japan. Although you are a far from our countries in South east asia, our hearts are with you. No person or government can stand alone and also be prepared to face such a big and serious situation. So the “world community” has to respond and extend their hands of support across country boundaries.

The Japanese people are very brave and in this crisis you have shown to the rest of the world the discipline, the community spirit and true humanity you possess. We have seen how the evacuated people in the centers make human chains to carry water and help in distributing food and blankets to the elderly, sick and younger members. We also see the polis and members of the self defense force carry the old and young to safety on their backs. Rescue teams, aid workers and medical personnel are working almost 24 hours to feed, treat and house the half a million evacuated families.

We stand with you especially to strongly criticize the irresponsible actions and attitudes of the Nuclear plant operators Telco Japan for the unsafe nuclear plants conditions resulting in the nuclear crisi in Japan and the rest of the world. We reject the use of Nuclear in all countries on this earth because of its proven hazards on human lives.

Finally we pray that you will stand firm in strength and spirit to overcome this current situation and to build a new future in the days to come. We, your friends in other countries are ready to support in any way possible to rebuild your lives and community.

PUSAT KOMAS (HUMAN RIGHTS NGO) MALAYSIA
To the brave people of Japan,Our heart goes out to the people of Japan in this time of sadness and tragedy. We pray for you and hope you have more power to manage your lives and communities after such a disaster. Eventhough Malaysia is far away from Japan, we continue to extend our hand of support to you and to help in any way we can. We stand with you in this hard time!

Mr Sivutha, Community Organiser Cambodia
I feel sad to hear that many Japanese are dead and missing. We all have to learn what is happening in Japan. We all are together in this devastating natural disaster.

Ms Nareth, Environmental NGO staff member, Cambodia
Dear Japanese People, I am working in a Cambodian NGO empowering youth who are living in slum areas of Phnom Penh. Although I am not a Japanese but I am a citizen on this same planet. I am so sad that Japanese people are suffering greatly because of the earthquake and Tsunami. I express my condolence to the Japanese victims and to all the Japanese people. In Cambodia, even we are living in a poor situation there are people who still try very hard to share their condolence and their contributions to help the victims.

For example a motorcycle taxi driver donated US0.50 to the Japanese Embassy. (His daily income is about USD2.50) He said "Even I am poor, but I want to help Japanese, because Japanese have helped Cambodian a lot so far, especially. I do this, because I want to give a good example to my children that even if we are poor, we can still have a good heart to help each other in a difficult situation. It is a very important value, we are living in one earth, no one wants to get hurt by disaster, but we can't get a way from disaster, so we need to help each other. I do this in order to give my children a lesson that helping each other is a good VALUE".

I was listening to his speech and my tear was falling down and I feel proud of him. So my Japanese friends you are not alone! Remember, we are with you always, you are such a great people JAPANESE! You are full of compassion, respectful and have many good ways. Many people around the world know this about you. You have done a lot of good things for other people around the world now good angels and spirits will take care of you and give you a NEW HOPE! I am sending you "A wish of NEW HOPE"

Mr Demetrios, HABURAS (Environmental NGO in Timor Leste)
Dear friends I do feel that this natural power is so powerful and we do need to vigilance, this is the only earth that all of us share and need to protect! With solidarity and prayer to God, that we strongly hope that more Japanese lives will be saved. My solidarity with you all.

Mr Hassan, Cavish Foundation, Development NGO in Pakistan
We are happy to hear many people are rescued in Japan. It is really sad to know and see this all happen and many lives are still in danger. Our hearts go out to everyone in Japan.

Ms Zola, Human Rights NGO, Mongolia
It is devastating what's happening in Japan, the whole world is with Japan. Mongolia is definitely one of them. People here (NGOs, individuals, schools, the government and many other organisations) already set up/organising humanitarian aid for Japan. We all have to learn what is happening in Japan. We all are together in this devastating natural disaster.

Ms Tijah Chopil (Network of Malaysian Indigenous People “Orang Asli”) Malaysia
I feel very sad to see the photos of the tsunami and earthquake. I am really sad with all the happenings and I send my condolences to all Japanese people and wish them safety. Looks like the nature is definitely more powerful than human beings

Ms. Nani Zulminarni, PEKKA, Indonesia
I have been wondering since the beginning of hearing the news, and watching the TV all the time about the disaster. The same questions in my mind, how much we can raise and will it make an impact, taking into consideration the richness of Japanese government. I feel so sad, bad and guilty, because we cannot do so many things except praying for them. I sent official letters to the JSDF (Japan Social Development Funds) head quarters to express our sympathy and condolences. I think we can start fund raising, no matters how much we can collect.

Mr Nus Ukru, Baileo Maluku Indonesia
We hope that the support for the Japanese people will become smoother because we in Maluku feeling lost how we can help and support the people there. We will definitely continue to support the Japanese people in spirit and prayer from far away.

Mr James Lee, PERMAS NGO (Malaysian urban poor movement)
We want to express our deep and heartfelt feelings for the Japanese people who have suffered lost of lives and property during the Earthquake and Tsunami. We understand very well how it is to lose our homes and property because as urban poor communities, we have also experienced this. In these times of sorrow and sadness, we want to send our condolences to those in sorrow. We pray that God in His mercy will look favourably upon the Japanese people. In these moments, we join you in sorrow and pray for a quick recovery and that the international aid will be abundant to assist those affected to rebuild their lives. We wish you peace, more power and our deep prayers to strengthen you to overcome this difficult time and build the new future. We stand with you in solidarity!

Ms Carmela Millado-Manuel: SEAPCP member (FILIPINA living in POLAND)
My family and I would like to express our sincerest sympathies to those who have lost families, friends, and personal properties during these difficult times. Besides the images of devastation we also saw pictures of calm, grace and determination of the Japanese people to overcome these challenges. This is most admirable and you have showed the whole world that you as a nation will be able to rebuild again.

Japan has embraced thousands of Filipinos who have stayed and enjoyed your hospitality. We are grateful and this has strengthened our Asian solidarity. My husband, in his capacity as the Charges D'Affaires of the Philippine Embassy in Poland has officially conveyed our government's sympathies to your Ambassador here. We continue to pray and wish that your people will heal from these unfortunate circumstances. May God bless you.

Mr Jeff Wong, “Four Regions Slum Network” (FRSN), Thailand
We are an organization that helped in the rehabilitation and reconstruction work in southern Thailand in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004. FRSN understands the difficulties that the Japanese people are now experiencing. We wish to express our heartfelt condolences for your immeasurable loss and we also have great confidence in the unbreakable spirit of the Japanese people and we know that you will overcome this terrible tragedy and emerge stronger. FRSN is keeping the Japanese people in its thoughts and is right now trying to find a way to offer concrete support, especially to the poor affected by this disaster.

Mr Suarnatha, Wisnu Bali NGO, Bali, Indonesia
On 21 March, we, the “World Silent Day campaigners” sent a letter and thousands of origami birds to Japanese Consulate in Bali as an expression of solidarity with Japan. We have to GAMBARU! Meanwhile we will do fund raising in our areas.

2011-03-12T15:39:00.008+08:00

JAPAN EARTHQUAKE

SEAPCP EXPRESSES SOLIDARITY WITH THE VICTIMS AND FAMILIES OF THE DEVASTATING JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE THAT STRUCK ON FRIDAY MARCH 11, 2011.

2011-03-08T13:39:00.013+08:00

SEAPCP Community Organising Network (CON) Reflection & Strategy Planning 2011

SEAPCP has been advocating, and practising community organising for the past 20 years since its inception in 1991. This grassroots network consists of 20 or so solid community organising movements in the Asian region working closely with grassroots communities such as the indigenous peoples, fisherfolks, farmers, urban poor, women, children and others.

This May 2011, for the first time in the history of SEAPCP, we will bring together 22 senior partners and the more recent partners of the SEAPCP Community Organising Network (CON) to reflect on our organising work in the light of the current global trends. The participants representing 15 local grassroots movements from 10 countries will identify strategic approaches for local context as well as on a regional level. The network will try to address urgent issues faced by our respective countries and in the Asian region.

We will also take into account the regional and global political economic, social & cultural trends to see how the SEAPCP CON should align itself with the changing trends in the practice and promotion of community organizing.

The 5-day event will also serve to monitor and evaluate the tools and mechanisms used by SEAPCP and its network to attain human rights, democracy and justice in our respective countries and the Asian region.

Note: The event is not open for observers

2010-09-25T16:48:00.007+08:00

PAKISTAN ORGANISERS SPREAD THE SKILL!

The recent deadly floods in Pakistan has increased our engagement in flood response activities. However things at our our end are running smoothly.

You must recall that in April 2010 we had conducted a community organising training here for Cordaid.

They are already using these approaches in their work and have also conducted a one day session for their new team. I even saw a big poster in their office with the CO frame/process. They liked the approach very much and have asked Cavish our NGO to train their new staff who are working on an education project".

I am currently designing the training and would impart it as a four-day session from October 4 to 8, 2010 for 24 staff members of Cordaid. I am planning to do a video report of the training and would involve Shahnawaz who has been trained in the SEAPCP Community video workshop last April 2010 in Malaysia.

Today we had a seminar on the "role of police in ending violence against women" where Shahnawaz with the support of another camera-man documented the process by Video. Now based on this we will develop a video report of this activity and will share it with all of you.

So we are not only using the approach in our work but also training others. This way the SEAPCP support in building our capacity in CO processes is also supporting Cavish to generate some financial resources through rendering such type of consulting services to others. This way we are getting multiple benefits!

By: Hassan, CAVISH, Pakistan

2010-09-24T13:14:00.006+08:00

Latest from Paul in India!

Some good news from my end!

I have handed over all my responsibilities in our NGO Lokvikas to my team members. In the last 3 months, I have been successful in mobilizing nearly INR 4.5 million (USD99,000) for our NGO and have told my team that now they are the sole decision makers for the NGO. That money belongs to them and the community. I have also shared with them that from now onwards I am not directly involved in the management of the NGO but will help them whenever there is a genuine need.

Now I am planning to start "operations" on a larger scale. I would like to work across India as well as for poor people in other countries. I have started giving my free and voluntary services to the poor people in different parts of India. I am also giving them free "Rights and access" to use the technology on the "Innovation Irrigation Programme of Rainwater" that I had developed for the betterment of the poor people. I hope it will pick up gradually and I will be able to develope more Community Organisers across India.

I am open to share about this technology with anyone who is interested to use it. If anyone needs this technology as well as other support i will give that free of charge but only condition is that they must promise that the benefits should go to the poor.

(Editor's note: powerpoint presentation is available to be sent through email. Please contact Paul directly email: biplabkp@rediffmail.com)

2010-07-06T23:30:00.003+08:00

Young Socheat of Cambodia shares his tale of community organising

Hope you all are doing well with life and CO works. Here are some updates from Cambodia:

1. Our lives are busy and crazy as usual. Mr. Sivutha is still the champion of being the busiest man, traveling to the provinces for CO works.

2. We, participants of advance CO course 2009, Mr. Sivutha, Nareth and Socheat are working together with other activist NGOs organizing quarterly CO Study Circle.

3. Nareth and I together with few activist NGOs in cooperation with LOCOA (Leaders and Organizers on CO in Asia); some of you may know LOCOA is developing CO ToT training curriculum for fit Cambodia context.

4. I as Program Officer-CO for SADP (Southeast Asia Development Program) am practicing Quality Process Approach on Community Organizing with local NGO partners at the fields so that during this month I will be at the field together with our NGO partners doing community reflection and planning at 6 target villages. The reflection will be once in 4 months and the following months will be supporting and following up the community plans. As we are trying to build ownership of the community, the plan will be mostly carry out by the communities themselves.

More updates are coming soon either from my side and Narath+Mr. Sivutha

Good luck
socheat.

2010-07-06T17:40:00.003+08:00

Cambodia CO Touching Many Lives
The following report is from Hem Nareth, a young and dynamic organiser who has undergone SEAPCP Comunity Organising training course in 2008 and 2009.

Here is my latest achievement of providing CO training to young people who living in slums as well as some staff of Village Earth organisation in Cambodia. I am trying to build inside and out side community organisers and now after the trainings, I have 4 more main steps for them:

1. Practice analysing their own community problems sharply
2 Document these in writing.
3. Start to organize community through existing programs such as medical care (in eviction problems and also use income generation as entry points as well).
4. Monitoring and Evaluation of their own organizing work.

After they have finished the 4 main steps, they could achieve the real experience in organizing and they will also get their certificates. (This course will take about 1 years).

Every 2 weeks, I meet them ( those trained participants) for about 2 hours to consult or assist them when they faced problems or challenges. I also integrated CO session in sustainable development curriculum, it's quite a successful workshop.

Now I am organizing the youngster ( at risk youth) by using music class as entry point. It's quite challenging, they get passionate very fast, and also lose interests very fast as well. That's so hard for me to monitor and motivate them so often!

Will update u later about that improvement, take care everybody,

Hem Nareth

2010-07-06T17:20:00.003+08:00

PAKISTAN ORGANISING PUSHES ON!

The following is a brief report from one of our SEAPCP Community Organising Network members Hassan of Pakistan.
Dear all CO's,

Thanks for sharing the interesting training report and thoughts on various CO efforts in your own areas. I am resending the report on the CO training I organized and conducted here in Pakistan. I had shared some photos but the detailed report (available upon request) is attached with this mail. Please do see page 12 on which pre and post training evaluation is given. it was indeed a great success which could be judged from this statement of a participant, Ayaz Abro, from training "i have been working in development sector for over ten years, and in this time attended many trainings, including some on CO, but this training is so the best".

On other fronts, we have organized two youth groups in two districts of Pakistan. The youth groups have been training in using "Puppetry Theater". They would use Puppetry Theater for improving interfaith harmony among Muslims and Non-Muslims in Pakistan. The initiative is similar to one in Cambodia. The focus there is on HIV/AIDS but in our case it's for Interfaith Harmony.

Regards,
Hassan

2010-04-30T16:24:00.008+08:00

VIDEO FOR COMMUNITY!

community video activists from all over Asia!

Field work screening and discussion of video with community

Preparing the shots for screening

shooting community member in the field

Role playing to help participants learn interview techniques

Participants come from 8 Asian countries

Actual community discussions in the field

Jo Hann emphasising that video is a tool for community organising

Interviewing organic farmer during field work

Anna Har sharing about developing a video story

Participants engaged in group dynamics in training sessions

Arul Prakkash sharing about the elements of community video

Participant share his views about developing a story

Yoga leading the field work team in urban poor area

Intense discussions continues during the 7 days workshop

Field work interview in the urban poor community

collecting data from community member during field work

It was obvious that in “COMMUNITY VIDEO”, the emphasis is on the word “community” and then the word “video” 20 participants from 8 Asian countries gathered in Kuala Lumpur for 7 days to exchange experiences and learn new skills and perspective on Community Video from 18^th to 25^th. April 2010.

The event was organized by the South East Asia Popular Communications Programme (SEAPCP) an Asian regional network of community organizers and it was the first of its kind to be organized by the organization.

Local host KOMAS is a Human Rights NGO in Malaysia with 17 years experiences in advocating for human rights issues together with grassroots communities. They use creative media approaches such as video, photographs, group dynamics, and other means to design and mount human rights campaign with different groups in Malaysia.

Participants from Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma, Timor Leste, Pakistan, India, Mongolia intensively picked up skills and approaches in using the powerful medium of video film to facilitate and support community issues.

The event also included a 1-day field work experience in 4 communities namely the urban poor longhouse community in North Jinjang, Poor communities in Banting, Refugees in Kajang area, and an organic farm in Batu Arang.

The idea of the field work was to have a first hand experience in using video to document an issue and immediately to screen it to the community for discussions and feedback. This powerful approach did not require much time for editing and other technical demands as in the usual production of a film.

Community video employs simple approaches where the medium is used as a tool to capture images, interviews and live action, which can in turn be shown back to the community to provoke discussions, analysis, planning and ultimately to spur them to actions in addressing their issues.

Facilitators for the workshop were experienced and skilled community organizing and video experts. Anna Har, an experienced community videographer and professional Director has been very involved in supporting and training communities to use video for their issues. Arul Prakkash is presently the Coordinator of the KOMAS Community Video Project.

Jo Hann Tan, SEAPCP Community organizing Coordinator and Executive Director of KOMAS was also there to conduct several sessions especially in discussing the perspective frame and concept & practice of community video. Yoga Atmaja from Kawan Nusa Bali Indonesia was invited to share his ground experiences in using community video to organize grassroots farm communities in Bali.

At the end of the workshop, most participants felt these skill and approaches are very crucial and relevant to their work. Since this workshop could not include many others from each country, it was suggested to conduct echo workshops or replication sessions in different respective areas of the participants.

Meanwhile all participants were asked to continue their work and to share their experiences and short community videos through the internet streaming utility so that all can view their stories and videos. This is expected to happen within the next 2 months until end of June.

By Jo Hann Tan

"A VIDEO PAINTS A MILLION WORDS"

2010-02-22T17:51:00.012+08:00

SEAPCP COMMUNITY VIDEO WORKSHOP IN MALAYSIA

A picture paints a thousand words, a video film will indeed paint millions of words! This is the basic spirit that has motivated SEAPCP to develop community video among the grassroots communities in different South East Asian countries about 17 years ago.

Since then, SEAPCP has established community video units and centers in different parts of Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Thailand and Cambodia. These are set up to mainly support community organising work and not just to produce "beautiful video films".

In these 17 years, the first trainees of SEAPCP community video have already established their own network of community video practitioners on the ground and have used different types of short films, simple cut to cut productions, news bulletin coverage, or just "shoot and show" techniques to reach out to communities.

These simple approaches are different from the usual video productions that takes weeks and even months to produce. They are used as tools for awareness raising, analysis, and even preparing communities for actions. Sometimes images are shot in the morning and shown in the afternoon for discussions and analysis.

To further strengthen the already existing network of community video practitioners, SEAPCP will be organising its first Asian wide community video workshop in Malaysia from April 18-26 2010. This event is for carefully identified participants who have been involved in community organising and also using the video film medium to support their work.

It is hoped that as a follow up of this event, localised in-country workshops will be organised to enable a further reach of participants for each country. Furthermore it can be conducted in their local languages and include more local community organisers to develop the community video tool for their work.

Keep tuned into this blog to get the latest about this exciting event of SEAPCP!

by: Jo Hann Tan
SEAPCP community organising coordinator

2010-01-18T13:03:00.002+08:00

Mr. Makoto Arakaki (An Interview)

He was born in Naha city (in Okinawa Japan). After graduating from high school, he went to UCLA, USA to study about the minority issues in America. Since 2004 until now he has been involved in the present activities. In 2005 he established an international Network NGO called “ONE LOVE” together with his students based on the theory of international relationships. He is 43 yeas old and lives in Nakashiro village, Okinama prefecture.

We cannot just be strong leaders but it is essential to build up a closer connection to the other party

Mr. Makoto Arakaki

Pofessor of Okinawa Christian University.

He takes his students to other Asia counties and is also active as a community Organiser.

1. How did you start this activity?

In 2006, my Filipino friend asked me to join a program for local youth to learn to stand on their own feet in the slum areas in Manila. I went and saw for myself the problems there such as gangsterism, drug addiction and others.

I would just cook soup with young people and sell it to their neighbors but actually they could not make much money. So I brought my student there and made them discuss about what they can do together with the slum community people. We started to make accessories like a holder for a hand phone and try to sell it in Japan. I stayed there with my students. The young people there are discriminated against and their neighbors would feel afraid and stay away from them. These young people continued their exchange with my students and gradually they grew more self-confidence.

I participated in a community organizing training program organized by SEAPCP in Indonesia in 2007 and in Malaysia in 2009.

2. A Community Organizer is not a social activist leader?

A Community Organizer can not be a strong leader. CO work is to facilitate people to become aware of the problems among themselves and encourage them to plan a strategy of what can be done.

3. What kind of activity you do in Okinawa?

Okinawa has some significant issues such the US bases, the destruction of the environment and development and others. So we are always in the front line of civil society movement. Many activists support from outside and we help the residents to see the difference between the positive and the negative factors. It is sometimes very difficult to use CO approaches. I encourage my students to participate in these activities including being abroad in the Philippines to improve their awareness about the common issues between them and Okinawa.

4. Do you think need there is a need to build closer relations with other Community Organizers in Asia?

There is exploitation of people everywhere because of the free trade agreement between countries and multinational corporations on a global level. It is essential to build up a closer connection between local people to fight against these big enemies. The participants of SEAPCP training were from Mongolia, India, and other SEA countries. The network linkages remain closely and strong.

(Interviewer: Mr.Nishiyama, Asaha Shimbun)

Working hard to improve the communities

2010-01-17T23:18:00.004+08:00

Translation of article published in Asahi Shimbun Japan 1.1.2010

Community Organiser in various places

To encourage the people to seek a solution to the poor and promoting human rights issues.

The activity called “community organizing” is becoming popular in various places. It makes the local residents tackle social problems such as poverty and also to resolve those problems by themselves. More and more attention is being paid to the concept of micro communities especially in European Union countries or “East Asia Communities”. In the USA since the period of a civil rights movement in history established networks that spread slowly in the other regions in the world.

Photo: Mr.Tan Jo Hann(left) discuss with residences front of the longhouse.

The “Longhouses” of Jinjang Utara is located in the suburb capital city Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Toward the end of December, community organiser, Mr. Tan Jo Hann (age 47), President of PERMAS, spoke to some women with their children. One of them sighed “When can I get out from this area?”

Malay, Chinese and Indians are living this area which has a total population of 10,000 people. In this area many children who have stopped school become a juvenile delinquency, unemployed or turn to drugs and alcohol. This place is like a place for social failures among poor people.

In 1970s to 1980s, Kuala Lumpur had many young workers from the outskirts who went to the towns to look for jobs and a better life. In the beginning of 1990s, they got ordered out because of the redevelopment. The government promised them permanent low cost house for the lower income group. But they have not got the confirmation letter from the government about their promised houses even until now.

Mr. Tan started to work with this area in the mid 1990s. He encouraged residents to discuss among themselves and gradually organized them to struggle for their demands for permanent housing and to improve the quality of their lives.

“The main actors are residents and we just support them. Our role is to pass on our knowledge and experiences to the people, so-call ‘empower them”. Sometimes, he had to confront bulldozers from property developer companies wanting to forcibly evict these people.

He was born into a Chinese family in Ipoh a small town in the middle of Malaysia. He is a Christian. When he was a high school student, he thought “why poverty exist?” Why is it that even with Christian church providing services to the poor but still they exist and he could not find an answer.

After he graduated from high school in the 1980’s he met some experienced “Community Organisers” and became a member of a group of 14 community organizers people. They were from different backgrounds working as an employee, a factory worker, a teacher or journalist and other professions. They actively organize the slum areas while working in their usual jobs.

Under the former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad’s administration, the government employed very strict control on activities which seemed to be against the government. That time when Mr. Tan joined the group he was also restricted by the authorities and police. The group members were sometimes hiding from the Government and Mr. Tan went to University of Philippines to study. In 1993, he came back to Malaysia and re-started his activities especially in the poor housing issues.

Mr.Arumugam is a taxi driver and lives in a longhouse. He is under the guidance of Mr. Tan. Now, Mr. Arumugam is self-reliant and became active as “a local organizer”. He would discuss with local government about the community issues such as resolving the public bus transportation system and they were also successful.

Mr. Tan is one of the founders of a network group “SEAPCP” (South East Asia Popular Communications Programme) which links up organisers in the SEA region. To date Mr. Tan has trained and developed more that 60 organisers in Malaysia as well as overseas. “Now ordinary people can confidently discuss with government ministers on an equal footing. I am glad to see them being changed” he said.

As Asian country economies grow in the region, community organisers are increasingly needed to develop the consciousness of the people.

By Mr. Tsukamoto at Kuala Lumpur

ASAHI SHIMBUN, JAPAN

2010-01-10T21:02:00.007+08:00

JAPANESE TOP NEWSPAPER FEATURE SEAPCP ORGANISERS

TOP DAILY NEWSPAPER ASAHI SHIMBUN OF JAPAN INTERVIEWED SEAPCP COMMUNITY ORGANISING NETWORK COORDINATOR JO HANN TAN ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES AND WORK IN MALAYSIA AND DIFFERENT ASIAN COUNTRIES.

THEY ALSO DID ANOTHER ARTICLE ABOUT MAKOTO ARAKAKI ABOUT HIS WORK AS AN ORGANISER IN OKINAWA.

BOTH STORIES WERE PUBLISHED IN A SPECIAL NEW YEAR FEATURE ON JANUARY 1st. 2010 IN JAPAN! THE STORIES WERE HIGHLIGHTED ALONGSIDE WITH ANOTHER STORY ABOUT USA PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND HIS EXPERIENCES AS A COMMUNITY ORGANISER BEFORE ENTERING POLITICS.

2009-12-24T17:18:00.003+08:00

Merry X'MAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
TO ALL COMMUNITY ORGANISERS OF THE WORLD! Continue to fight for justice, democracy and human rights for all!!

WOMEN ORGANISE TO FILL WATER WELLS IN INDONESIA

2009-12-13T22:23:00.013+08:00

Elin Septiva from IISES (Indonesia Initiative for Social Ecology Studies)organises the women to deal with their water problems in Bogor Indonesia

This is about my experience with IISES on Community Organising. My colleagues & 1 from IISES have been facilitating a suburban community in Cibanteng, Bogor to deal with the scarcity of basic needs. One of problems that they face is water scarcity especially in the dry seasons. Many women complain suffer from this and based on their complaints we are trying to get them together to collectively solve the problem in this area.

Finally we understand that the water scarcity is because almost all the households depend on the water wells as a source of clean water. In the dry season the well experiences drought so the women have to take water from the springs that are located far away from their homes.

There is also water mismanagement. Water distribution is also not fair between upstream and middle/down stream community. The community upstream gets enough water to fulfill their needs such as for fisheries, agriculture and household needs. But the middle/down stream communities lack water supply.

The problem solving involves other parties such as village government, informal and religious local leaders as well as other communities. Recently my colleagues and I have actively facilitated the multi-stakeholder to discuss about the social problems related to water supply.

During the process, some methods that I learnt from our SEAPCP Advance CO course in Malaysia were found to be very useful! For example we use community video tools to help them analyse and understand the situation and condition. We know that this method has worked well as indicated by how the community has started to discuss what should they do, who should go to local government, and other tasks that needs to be done.

But we continue to challenge the people to keep their spirit to plan and organize themselves. Now is the rainy season so most of the community wells in Cibanteng are full with water. Due to this situation, the spirit and motivation of the community seems to have decreased to deal with the water problems.

RIRIN ORGANISES "GOAT COMMUNITY" IN YOGJAKARTA

2009-12-12T12:30:00.006+08:00

After the advance CO workshop in Malaysia in June 2009, I conducted a "big" internal evaluation of our "DESA PERDIKAN" project. We "down sized" our ambition to be more realistic and do-able. Currently I am focused on organizing the community in a village in Purworedjo that is known as the "Etawa Goat Village". Etawa is very specific goat and very expensive, and they are protected by the local government.

But currently, there are some buyers from outside (especially from Malaysia, hehehe..! sorry to say ya!) who pursued the villagers to sell the "A-class breed". They bring the goat outside the village, even outside Indonesia, and renamed the goat. If we cannot stop these activities, the village will lose their "specific Etawa goat", their identity and their main source of income. We started working with local villagers to increase their daily income, to prevent them sell the "A-Class goat" outside the village. It is really still the very beginning action stage. Besides that,

Currently we are developing a book of "DESA PERDIKAN JOURNEY". It is our reflection on organize the community to achieve our dream "Desa Perdikan". It will not be a "success story book" but a "story behind our experiences", it is an auto critic of our "foot print", so in the future, other can do better than us.

Sorry, I have not write anything in the blog. May be after we get some improvement in Purworedjo village, I will document it and share it with you.

Ririn, Perdikan Jogjakarta Indonesia

2009-11-19T18:01:00.004+08:00

THANAM WORKS WITH YOUTH IN MALAYSIA!

I am still using SEAPCP's CO principles in my work. My role is mainly supporting communities in their CO processes and I am currently working with PGT group (Kindergarten Teachers Association) now. I'm start travel to many places together with them and give awareness about CO and FOI (Freedom of Information) through radio and journalism training.

I am presently focusing on women and young people in different areas like Taiping, Batu Arang, Jinjang and Johor. I'm try to educate them about their basic human rights (especially women's right); freedom of information(the importance of community media in Malaysia and how media is controlled by corporate companies, advertisement companies and politicians) and how they can be involved through CO processes to solve their problems.

We (CIJ and PGT) are organizing a youth Camp in February 2010 to educate them about their basic rights and encourage them to support their CO processes through producing radio programmes and writing articles to newspaper or create own newsletter. Although am not directly involve in the CO processes but I still use the principles in all my activities.

Currently I am busy with "16 days activism - end violence against women project" together with the JAGs (Joint Action Group for Gender Equality). In this project, we encourage women and young girls to use ICTs to create awareness about their rights. For example we encourage them to produce:

Audio programmes - script writing, recording and editing;

Make simple video - using photos, audacity and Windows movie maker software. At the same time we also organize a workshop - where we'll play simple video on how media portrayed women, then ask them to do discussion and produce audio programmes based on that ( what I have learned in the advance SEAPCP CO Course!);

Blogging - we'll launch a blog in Tamil on 24th November where we encourage women to write in blog about their rights and problems.

SMS campaign

Quotes campign

At the same time, I am also trying hard to develop jinjang youth as community trainers and try to involve them in internships and become model for upcoming youth.

My work is totally different from all my CO friends where they are directly involved with communities but I'm not. I'm doing it slowly. I've put my youth training pictures in my Facebook (feel free to see it).

S. Thanam
Community Training Officer
Centre for Independent Journalism

2009-11-18T12:56:00.005+08:00

Zola's CO stories from wintery Mongolia!

Greetings from Wintery Mongolia! The weather here is getting colder day by day, right now it's -25 celsius!!! I am hardly surviving... hehehe... in the afternoon -15 celsias...soon it's going to be -25 day time, -30-35 at night...........sooo cooooolllld....

Yes I am still working with the communities (we have communities in different parts of Mongolia). I am utilising the CO skills everyday. It is part of what we do. There is one video I shot during the flooding at the urban poor area where I work. I am not sure whether I sent you all this video, but anyway, this flood happened last July and many people lost the lives and homes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwrOKX96z3U If this link does not work please search on youtube "anukazola floud" the video will appear. If you all interested i can send you the copy of documentary video which we've just produced (of course, not produced by us, we requested professional people).

I've also taught the communities how to use their mobile phones for basic video/snap shot in a disaster period. I run a CO workshop every other month. i am renewing the workshop module using the books which Johann gave us. Tomorrow i will send you the recent narrative report of the communities...

2009-11-10T22:28:00.005+08:00

The Star Publications Monday November 9, 2009

Fuad (Kuala Lumpur Mayor) apologises to Jinjang residents for miscommunication

By BAVANI M

KUALA LUMPUR mayor Datuk Ahmad Fuad Ismail has apologised to Jinjang Utara Longhouse Sector D residents for the fiasco that took place last week at the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) headquarters. “I am sorry. This is a miscommunication with my officers and it should never have happened and could have been avoided. But we made a mistake and we are truly sorry for it,’’ said Ahmad Fuad.

Angry lot: File pic shows PERMAS president Tan Jo Hann tearing up the DBKL letter at the DBKL headquarters after officers failed to turn up for the meeting.

The mayor was responding to the incident last week where 12 residents from the longhouse were kept waiting for two hours despite being told to come at 11am for a meeting with the officers.

After waiting for so long, the residents, who had taken time off from work to attend the meeting, lost their temper and staged a walkout. They had requested a meeting with the DBKL to discuss their living conditions as their 16-year-old transit homes were falling apart. Fuad also said he would go down and meet the residents next week to see for himself their living condition.

In 2002, about 200 families from Sector D were given notices to move to another longhouse about 500m away. They were informed that low- cost units were being built for them to rent and buy. Developer Mega Legacy was supposed to build low-cost units at RM42,000 each in 2006, but nothing has materialised.

“We will give an ultimatum to the developer to submit the development plans for the units and if they fail to do so we will terminate their contract. We cannot be helping developers who fail to deliver,’’ Fuad said.

For now, Fuad said the developer must carry out rectification work on the units which were falling apart. “I realise that something must be done and quick as safety is also a concern. The developers must take responsibility for this.

“If they fail to do so we will take back the land. We regret that enforcement was not done sooner.

This issue is long overdue and I will personally look into the matter,’’ he said.

The Jinjang Utara Longhouse was built to house squatters relocated from various areas in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. There some 2,000 residents living in the longhouse. Out of that number, 276 residents are from Sector D.

2009-11-10T22:14:00.004+08:00

CO SUCCESS IN INDIA!

Report from Paul Biblap, INDIA

In continuation of my effort on SEAPCP Echo workshop- I took the matter to the Community and put effort with various groups (stakeholders) such that CO trained people are given platform to test their skill. Community Care Centers agreed and I took up gradual follow up process one to one basis with the trained HIV positive women and ultimately 7 HIV positive women members took part in peace process organised by all Faith programme. All these people were ecstatic and they felt it was a great day in their life (even though it was very hot day).

Then these women were further trained on how to take up the organiser roles and now they have promised me to use it at their local areas for other HIV+ people. I will come back with further info. Meanwhile, I have tried to link these trained HIV+ women with formal system of Government run centers but I failed. I will start further endeavor in that direction once again.

The best part is that news of our CO session with HIV+ people is getting disseminated in various quarters through their own verbal channel. And results are pouring in! I got invited by HIV+ people from Mahesana district whether I will be interested to organize a CO session for them. I immediately agreed and had series of meetings before the session. Each meeting was eye opener for me and unfolding a good no of issues which needs serious attention.

I found that compared to Ahmadabad echo workshop Mahesan echo workshop is quite different from many accounts- Ahmadabad was urban slum and people knowledge were comparatively better but Mehsana people are from rural areas and they are coming from different background where abject poverty is very common and medical services are of very poor quality. In other words a HIV+ person can access better logistic for health care in Ahmedabad compared to that of Mahesana rural areas. I will try to link echo workshop in that direction also.

I guaranteed of my full-fledged support to Mehsana team but asked for their commitment to implement the learning at ground. I will need to follow it up further and then come back to you after completing the task.

I will develop a small case study and send it to SEAPCP for putting in blog on one of the HIV+ woman who has been doing very good work after getting trained in CO.

regards
Paul

KOMAS FREEDOM FILM FEST 2009

2009-10-08T18:55:00.015+08:00

"COMMUNITY VIDEO TO EMPOWER THE PEOPLE!"

KOMAS FFF2009 community video forum

by: Tan Jo Hann, KOMAS Executive Director & Community Video Facilitator

The message was clear that in "Community Video", the emphasis is on "community", and video is the tool. This message was being echoed throughout the community video forum organised by KOMAS. The half day event was a special highlight prelude to the official launching of the KOMAS Freedom film festival on October 2nd 2009 in Kuala Lumpur.

The event provided a platform for community video activists from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to share about their experiences in using social videos with the communities they are working with. The content portrayed in the simple but creative films moved the participants of the forum to seriously reflect about video as a tool for social transformation.

From Indonesia, PPSW (Centre for Women's Resources Development ), PEKKA (Program for Women Headed Households), KAWAN NUSA (Bali), and KAMPUNG HALAMAN (Indonesia Youth Community Media) screened their short films and share about how they were used to raise awareness and prompt communities to take action in addressing their community issues.

From South Thailand, a short video slide show was shared about the worsening conflict situation in South Thailand. It was presented through the use of a very powerful and emotionally charged poem read by a young girl with visual inserts of photographs of the desperate living conditions of the people there.

FFF host Pusat KOMAS and their partner communities also shared their experiences in using different forms of community videos in their work among the Orang Asli (Indigenous peoples); to promote voter and citizenship education in Sarawak and among resident association in different local councils in Malaysia. The 60 over participants also had opportunities to dialogue and to share about their own experiences in using the video medium in their social transformation work with different communities of people.

At the end of the day, the message was clear that video is merely a tool for the community facilitator and organiser to raise awareness, conduct collective planning and motivate people towards action! Without this element video becomes merely entertainment, and will not affect changes in the lives of the communities. (If you are interested in learning how you can use community video processes for social change, please contact Mr. Prakkash, Community Video Coordinator, KOMAS, Tel: 03-79685415, or Email: komasjj@pc.jaring.my)

2009-10-06T19:29:00.005+08:00

Nareth trains young organisers in Cambodia!

Editor's note: Nareth was a full time staff from YRDP Cambodia and has recently completed the SEAPCP Advance CO course in Kuala Lumpur.

In August this year after the SEAPCP ADVANCE CO COURSE, I just recently designed community organizing course in Khmer Language ( Handouts) already for a youth group of YRDP called "Young Leaders for Social Accountability" and provided a 24 hours training workshop for them. And now they have become organisers for a community in Kandal Province. Now I produced 15 outside young CO's from that community. They are starting to organize and engage villagers to involve actively in demanding good governance, transparency, planning commune development and so on.

This goup of youth will be the outside CO's for that community for a year and at the same time they have to find and create the inside young CO's for that community to take over their roles when the project finnishes in late 2010.

Now YRDP has community organizing course handouts in Khmer Language (References from Jo Hann Tan) I will continue to update you all on what is going on with them, what are their challenges and their successes

I received a job offer from an NGO in Cambodia called "Village Earth" working in Slum areas in the urban areas. Their main work is to improve the livelihood of slum communities through mobilizing their resources using a bottom up approach to development. I will be their Development and Mobilizing Program Advisor. I will start working with this NGO in early of 2010, and I will be working a lot with the grassroots people. I am writing a diary about my CO work with those communities and will share it with you all when I have the chance!

Hem Nareth, YRDP Cambodia

2009-10-06T19:02:00.004+08:00

AGUNG TRAINS CO ACTIVISTS IN BALI

EDITOR'S NOTE: Agung from Walhi Bali was one of the participants of the SEAPCP ADVANCE CO COURSE 2009.

Suar and I just conducted a "CO Training for Young Activists" in Bali last month September 2009. The 2 days training was very dynamic and Jo Hann spent his time to share some lessons in analysis skill, of course through fun way (games) ! Although the participants were young activists with less experience in working with the community, they had very strong wills to learn about CO. We used simulation (how to deal with community as CO) and games to make it easy for them to understand.

In the evaluation, they said that they love the training which did not make them feel bored. For the next plan, they were planning to get more lessons from the field through organizing an urban poor community in Denpasar. After the training, I found that they are starting to interact more with the community.

Those who are found to be more active will be identified to join the next CO course (a longer and deeper training together with activists from the villages in November 2009. As for me, I learnt a lot as a CO trainer and realised that I have to improve my skill more. Thanks for listening to my sharing, guys!

Peace, Agung Wardana

Julie the jailbird!

2009-09-18T18:46:00.013+08:00

Take a look, this is julie in jail a few months ago when she and some of us stood with the urban poor community to defend their houses against demolition in an area in South Jinjang in Kuala Lumpur!

This was secretly taken in the
police lock up with hp camera! ha ha

Finally after 4 hours of fighting and 7 arrests (julie and other community leaders), the city hall bulldozers crushed the houses and the 14 families had to move out. I bailed out all leaders and we lodged a police report against the city hall! Well, its almost always a losing battle when it comes to defending against forcible evictions in urban poor! So the trick is to do all the defending and negotiations before the bulldozers arrive at our doorstep!

Anyway enjoy the pictures!

Julie in the truck

2009-09-13T19:06:00.005+08:00

Spreading the CO approach in JAPAN!

Makoto Arakaki (right in photo) of Okinawa Japan reports

Paul, I really like your strategy and very excited to work with you. I would be my dream come true if I can stir up things there (India) with you! I have done two workshops since I came back to Okinawa. One is with union workers at the seaport. It seems they have a problem with recruiting fresh blood to their union membership, so I went there to do workshop with them.

The other one is with local public teachers who have trouble with their authority in doing peace education. Both groups need more time to work out their problems, and I am committed to them for a long term. I am also looking forward to working with my Cambodian team! Sivutha, Socheat and Nareth, let me know when you have your co workshop. I would love to work and have fun with you!

Serve the people, makoto

Makoto Arakaki is the present Coordinator of the Okinawa NGO council and also a lecturer in the Okinawa Christian University.

Paul organises HIV women

2009-09-13T17:42:00.007+08:00

Paul trains HIV community in India

Initial ground work!

I got some success (at last!). Last few weeks I have been updating you about my endeavors to carry out the local community organizing workshops. It was a very interesting process for me and I learnt a lot from it myself. Initially I had thought to do it with my team only but later on after your detail guidance, I put effort in expanding outreach to other people.

Instead of simply reaching out to staff members of local organizations or non positive organizational staff, I also targeted a mix of HIV+ people and non HIV+ people who are interested to do something for their society. HIV+ people are very vulnerable and few of them are very depressed (some ladies tried to commit suicide with their kids). Instead of the usual training format (completing in one go), I am trying to develop them into community organizers gradually.

I have contacted the HIV+ networks and had a series of discussions in explaining the process (the network members are all HIV+). Once I was accepted by them, I requested them to extend support to me to reach out to the others and now the success is trickling down to others!

Orgainising the workshop

Firstly I had a session with the organization heads along with my team to explain what is the SEAPCP network and why we are doing this echo workshop and how local people can benefit form the training process to become community organisers. Secondly I also built up confidence with them during the pre-training rapport building. Thirdly after we had established the objectives, we selected the potential participants. This is the toughest task as not a single woman wanted to participate in the training programme as they did not want to be marked as being HIV+!

Fourthly I made the HIV care centre as the focal point through which we can collaborate to do the follow up work after the training workehops. This process can also be useful for the HIV+ network as they can be supported by the center. Next I had to explore some sort of sustainable mechanism for the entire process. I had shared about the whole organizing strategy with other institutions who had ultimately agreed to support these people.

I also observed that a good no of potential HIV+ volunteers are in dire need to go back to their homes at night and they can not afford to stay more than one day at a stretch of the workshop. They are under heavy medication and often suffer from the side effects like lethargy and vomiting so they prefer training session of 1 day at a time. So this challenged me to design the session to make it as simple as possible within a 1-day frame.

Training the people
Finally I organised a 1-day session with 15 HIV volunteers last week! It was kept simple and I facilitated them to know about themselves and each other as individuals. Then to know what it mean for them to be with family (ie their home) and then what they feel about their society (ie their surrounding).

This simple exercise opened up a flood of knowledge for the participants as well as for me and the organization’s volunteers. I got an insight into their lives, how tough it is for them and how vulnerable they are from police, local leaders and lastly from their own family members.

It was an eye opener and they felt very enthusiastic and now they are very keen to attend the next session. We have succeeded in creating a desire to learn among this very depressed group. Each participant is very poor but we made it a point that everyone had to pay INR 5 (Indian Rupees) as an entrance fee. Then the best participant would be able to take the entire collection home at the end of the training. They were highly amused and agreed with it.

”Fruits of our labor”

This is just a curtain raiser as the final training is yet to come as I am gradually increasing their interest in learning. I had given them some small tasks which will be reported at the next workshop. It seems like a slow process but I am sure of a successful outcome! Please guide me if I am wrong or if I need to change my strategy (it is for my learning also).

After the 1^st workshop, I have been approached by these women to organize a second workshop on how they could organize themselves! I have also been invited by other "Community Care Centers" to share about my strategy to develop community organizers among the HIV+ people. They are now studying my approach and plans to see if it is relevant for their work.

Meanwhile, I found there is an urgent need of CO session for the peace building in riot affected areas of urban slums of Ahmedabad. This will become my next target area to spread the spirit and strategy of community organizing.

Paul Biplab has been involved in community upliftment in drought and earthquake affected areas of Gujarat in India for last 14 years. He has been awarded "Change-maker for India, an Ambassador for Peace" by the United Nations Peace Federation as well as winner in IDM 2007 of World Bank. He was selected as one of the participants in SEAPCP Community Organising Course 2008 in Bali Indonesia and Advance course in Kuala Kumpur Malaysia in 2009, and is currently a member of the SEAPCP Community Organising Network.

Video Volunteers Creates a New Kind of Sustainability Using Community Video

2009-08-29T20:30:00.003+08:00

Dear COs, I found this interesting article about community video training and digital activism in communities। It’s really interesting; I thought some of you might be interested in reading it further. Please do comment. Hassan
-------------------
Video Volunteers Creates a New Kind of Sustainability Using Community Video
"You mean to say that sending the email is free?! I don't have to pay for it?"
Laxmi was amazed that there is no equivalent on the Internet to paying for a postage stamp to send a letter. The first twenty minutes of this workshop on digi-activism being held in Goa, India were over her head, but when she saw her own language, Telugu, appear on the Google.co.in search page, she jumped to attention. For the first time, Laxmi is seeing something on the Internet that she can actually read. She smiles and begins chattering away in her own language as she reads through the search results for "human rights" on the Google Telugu page.
Laxmi is a community producer with a community video unit in Andhra Pradesh called Manyam Praja Video. All of its producers are so-called "tribals," meaning they are members of India's indigenous communities that live mostly in the remote mountainous parts of the country. Laxmi was one of 130 participants at Video Volunteers' (VV) 5-day Community Video Training Camp held at a resort in Goa from August 11 to 14. Roughly half of the participants were VV's community video producers. Other participants included college students studying journalism and communications and workers in NGOs.
Participants signed up for different workshops on topics including music videos, creative camera work, digi-activism, silent film, video blogging and animation. Each morning and evening featured presentations by different community media groups and media activists, and the last two days featured panel discussions with academics and NGO leaders.
When Mary Joyce, an workshop instructor and the founder of digiactive.org., was observing Laxmi, she understood her challenge for the rest of the workshop -- to balance the amazing skills and experience she can share from her days working for the Obama campaign's new media department with the needs of some participants who were seeing the Internet for the first time in their lives.
In the next room next to her, instructors Kamayani Bali and Freeman Murray were projecting videos made by the community video producers in attendance. The producers were amazed when they saw their work on YouTube.
"12,000 people watched our video! Youth can change things!" one said.
"Can you translate the comments?" asked another.
The instructors obliged and translated the comments. "This is democracy in action," read one comment. "Media that is of, for and by the people."
Another person commented that "You, Samta [the producer] are a hero to young girls. You give a voice to those who aren't heard."
A video about the demolition of slum houses sparked a typical Internet rant about the "filthy people in the slums," and some of the producers who live in those slums were introduced to the whole concept of freedom of speech on the web.
For the past two years, VV had been bringing our community video producers together for joint training workshops. This year, we wanted to widen the group of participants to include NGOs and students who'd expressed interest in community media, or were carrying out successful projects of their own. We'd talked about the idea of community video as a movement, and we wanted to test out that concept. The response was overwhelming: more than 250 people applied for only 130 seats. We had applications from roughly 55 NGOs from all over India, all of whom want to get into community video.
Below is a brief rundown of what happened.
Workshops
All participants were assigned to different tracks such as music videos, creative camera work, digi-activism, video blogging, silent film and animation. Each of these workshops was led by an outside facilitator, such as well-known documentary filmmaker Paromita Vohra and Bollywood director Arjun Bali.
These tracks were all areas that producers had previously asked to learn about. Freed from their usual pressures of making work with a focus on social change, these workshops on "fun" subjects like animation and music videos stimulated their creativity in fantastic ways. In each workshop, the participants made 3 to 4 videos that were later screened on the last night of the workshop. Many of the videos were funny and clearly inspired by Bollywood. They also had a strong romantic subtext. Watching all 20 videos together on the final night gave everyone a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
The videoblogging workshop had producers create a video blog where each week they would select one online video that relates to a specific theme. The exercise was simply to search YouTube for videos of water, for example, and select the one they liked best. But for people who were seeing the Internet for the first time, this process opened up their minds to new possibilities. One learning I took away from the workshop is that we must get the community video units online because it can help them conduct independent research and learning.
For those of us at Video Volunteers who have put so much emphasis on developing the critical thinking skills of the community producers, it was really important to see what a shared learning environment would be like. The mixing of groups turned out really well. The NGO workers became convinced of the potential of community video when they worked side by side with such articulate, empowered individuals.
The producers, some of whom had had traveled on a train for the first time in their lives to attend the workshop, had a chance to make videos with people who had a high level of expertise and life experience.
As for the college students? Well, the typical response was, "I've studied film for three years, and I've seen hundreds more films than they have, yet these community producers know so much more than me."
Another response I heard was, "When I saw their videos, all my stereotypes went away. I had no idea they would be making films better than our own student projects."
Another volunteer expressed it quite simply: "I'm humbled."
For the producers, the positive feedback they received was immensely motivating and confidence-building. The conversations that took place around the poolside bar each evening between the community producers and the highly experienced facilitators gave everyone a sense of being valued professionals.
This was only a small experiment. But it certainly made me feel that universities and schools could successfully put students with formal and informal education in the same classrooms.
Panels
The two days of panels started off with producers from each community video unit telling "impact stories." Neeru, a young Dalit producer from Gujarat, recounted what had happened to her a few weeks back.
She was making a film about migration that described how people need to leave the villages for work. The "call to action" of the film was that people should access the government's program that guarantees 100 days of employment to all rural unemployed, as this is a way to stem migration. On her own accord, Neeru led a rally of villagers to her local government employment office. Three hundred people joined her in the rally and demanded work. The government officials tried to push her -- and especially her camera -- out of the office, but they persevered.
The next day, all 300 people were given work assignments. It was apparent through Neeru's breathless retelling of the story, which included details about her background and childhood, that she feels deeply about the importance of what occurred.
On August 13th, we held a one-day panel for Goan activists and journalists to discuss how community video could be strengthened in Goa, a place where Video Volunteers only recently arrived.
Newspaper editors from three different papers had a healthy debate about whether the Goan press is representative of, and responsive to, community needs. In many ways, the Goan press is better than the press in other parts of India because Goa has strong social movements with support from a large middle class. It is therefore in the interest of the papers to fill the need for community organizing.
However, as anti-mining activist Sebastian Rodriguez pointed out, most papers are owned by the mining industry, which is the biggest player in the local economy. The editors acknowledged this and added that they are not allowed to report on anti-mining activity.
On August 14th, we had a panel on how community media in India can become sustainable and scalable. Rajen Varada of Unesco talked about the business models the government is using to scale the Internet kiosk model to a national level. Dominic D'Souza, director of Laya, VV's partner organization, gave tips to other NGOs who are thinking of starting Community Video Units. Vinod Pavarala, the dean of the S N School of Communications in Hyderabad, spoke about the history of community media in India and talked about how colleges can better equip students to be facilitators of community media. I presented VV's new community journalism program as a possible way to scale community video and partner with the mainstream media for financial sustainability.
Sajan Venniyoor from All India Radio explained government policies around community television and public access broadcasting. Many of the people present had been active in the successful struggle for community radio licenses, and we discussed whether community television is a cause that media activists should rally around. If community television is made legal in India, we can equip the community video units to broadcast within a 20 mile radius for roughly $10,000 per CVU.
Focus Groups on Sustainability in Community Media
Each morning from 7.30 a.m. to 8.30 a.m., we conducted focus groups to discuss how community video can earn revenue. VV recently started a research project with the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India's leading business school, to investigate if community video groups can become financially sustainable through partnerships with mainstream media and local communities. On the morning I attended, we discussed the benefits and possible pitfalls of sharing the financial details of a CVU with the communities they work in. We also talked about how CVUs could receive donated space and rent from the community much in the way that one our partners in Andhra Pradesh does with their community TV centers.
Morning and Evening Group Presentations
The participants met each morning and afternoon in a big hall for group sessions. Different groups, such as Amnesty International's Asia campaigns, the Modern Story Project, and the Maraa Media Collective in Bangalore, presented their work. The community producers also performed skits, street plays and music performances that they had prepared in advance.
The highlight of these sessions was a presentation by the community filmmakers from Malegaon. Malegaon is a largely Muslim town south of Bombay where local people have started their own small film industry to make spoofs of Bollywood films. Their latest film, "Superman in Malegaon," is their first attempt to take on Hollywood. It features a shambling, bathroom slipper-wearing Superman.
This small film industry, run by director Nasir Shaikh and Akram Shaik, the actor who plays the lead villain in the films, is an amazing community media success story. They mobilize local talent in order to celebrate -- and poke fun at -- local communities. Their films cost about $500 to make, and they fund them via local DVD sales and people paying to be featured in the videos.
This group is the subject of a fantastic documentary by Faiza Ahmad Khan that has been winning tons of awards. Amazingly, this was the first time that they had been invited to speak about their work and share their techniques for low cost media production. They left Goa with a huge new fan base. We're proud to have given them the first platform to share the details of their work. We're also incredibly grateful to them for teaching the community producers about humor, drama and entertainment.
A different kind of sustainability
Overall, perhaps the strongest impression that stayed with people was the sense of family shared by the producers. Rob Goddin of Amnesty told me how impressed he was by the sustainability of this model. I thought he meant financial sustainability, but he corrected me and said that the real sustainability was the commitment and dedication of the young producers.
We have learned that the success of the community video unit rests on the intellectual curiosity of the participants. Their jobs are very tough. They not only make the films, but are responsible for showing them and ensuring that they have an impact. These people are filmmakers and social workers, which is more than most filmmakers can say.
As members of their community, they navigate pitfalls and prejudices that an outsider wouldn't encounter. Celebrating their work is critical to keeping them motivated and sustaining the entire process. So too is building a sense of community and friendship. The singing, music-playing, dancing and skit-making sessions that went on late into the night will be the single most important experience that for some of the producers and participants.
In order to recognize the amazing work they're done, we organized the "C-Oscars," or "Community Oscars," and handed out awards for best impact, best filming, best editing and best online videos, among others.
We also made sure the conference was held in a nice place -- a resort with a pool and access to the beach -- in order to provide them with another reward. We had to explain that they should complain if something didn't work in their room We also told them that every day, perhaps for the first time in their lives, someone would come in to clean their rooms.
We also took a moment to celebrate two marriages between producers. One couple consists of a girl from the slums in Mumbai and a boy from rural Gujarat, a highly unlikely pair. Off-stage, the two young husbands talked to Mahima, a reporter from Delhi, about their choices of wives. "Because we worked together with these girls in the CVU, we know how talented they are," one said, "and we will never treat them like housewives who are supposed to be our servants."
There are some things that we will do differently next year. Translation and language is an issue that must be dealt with, because each workshop required simultaneous translation into three languages. We wish we'd been more successful in bringing in more local Goans, because this was a chance for us to announce our presence in Goa. Next year we will also try to bring in more funding agencies, directors of journalism schools, and people from mainstream media.
Overall, the workshop was a great success. Hard-working staff and volunteers handled the logistics and people are filled with enthusiasm about the idea of community video. This is the beginning of a movement.
"This workshop changed my life," said one young man from an NGO in Delhi and Assam. "Before I came here, I thought communications was just something an NGO needed to do. But now I see how it can change people's lives."
Our friend Rajen from Unesco told us, "What you guys have here is the groundswell of support from the grassroots. This is the thing that is missing from other similar efforts. Now if you can keep growing this groundswell, and simultaneously others can work at a policy level to gain more support for programs that empower people with a voice, then real change can be created."

In the next few weeks, we'll be creating a Wikispace site with all the workshop materials for modification and addition by others। You can also read two articles (
1, 2) about the workshop।

http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2009/08/video-volunteers-creates-a-new-kind-of-sustainability-using-community-video233.html

Sanam Fakeer -- A different kind of social activist

2009-07-23T12:10:00.006+08:00

The Context
Eunuchs, transgender, transvites, Khawaja Sara, Fakeer, Hijra, Chakay etc they are all names of the third sex, neither male nor female, as we all perceive them in the society. Due to their sex, they have to face all kinds of discrimination in Pakistani society. Not just the common public but their families also throw them out forcing them to live a life deprived of all basic social, economic and political rights in today’s Pakistan. They dance on marriage ceremonies, birthday parties, Chattis and occasions of happiness to earn their livelihoods. Moreover, they are widely victim of sexual abuse. And the religious clerics blame them to be the punishment of God for all human kind.

But this is not what the transgender historically were! The Mughal emperors of the Hindustan employed them as servants for their female members of the royal family because the Mughal didn’t fear any harm from them as compared to male servants. And it were the Mughal who gave them title of the Khawaja Sara – a title which all the eunuchs in Pakistan and India of today wants themselves to be called as they take pride in it.

Sanam Fakeer – A visionary Transgender (eunuch) Social Activist

Sanam Fakeer[1] was born in 1975 in house of Paish Imam[2] belonging to a Syed family of Sukkur District. She is number nine in her ten siblings. Sanam completed her education up to class eight. While her father was alive, he supported her and treated her like other family members. After death of her father, her brothers and uncles forced her to leave home. She then joined a eunuch commune lead by Guru Meer in Sukkur District.

Today she is still living with same commune. Her brothers never want to see her but she has been fortunate to visit her sisters whenever she wants. She has even been denied the right of share in property left by her father.

While Sanam started living with the Eunuch commune in Sukkur, she started realizing the miseries eunuches ha to face in spending their lives.

“We normally do dances and beg money from people for earning our livelihoods;” says Sanam. She adds, “However, as we age, it becomes difficult for us to earn our livelihoods.” But over the time, Sanam has developed hatred towards using dance and begging as mean for earning money. She wants that transgender should learn vocational skills and start their alternative income generation activities. “As I realized this, there was a shopkeeper from whom I took a small loan and went to Quetta; I purchased Shaals from there and started selling them in Sukkur to shop keepers and in homes. And I start making lots of livelihoods.” she shares.

The Endeavors

Building upon her own success story, Sanam wanted to take practical steps to facilitate her colleagues in starting alternative income generation activities. However, her efforts are not just limited to eunuchs but she has been supporting ordinary men and women as well.

Sanam Fakeer Social Welfare Organization

In order to practically work for the welfare and development of the eunuchs, Sanam has registered her organization as CBO, community based organization, with Social Welfare Department in Sukkur. Under this organization, she has been doing different charity works for eunuchs and other target groups.

* Sanam from her own earnings provided a tri-cycles to disabled persons.
* Sanam bore expenditures of eye operation of one her senior eunuchs among the eunuch commune she lives with.

Sanam Fakeer Community Citizens’ Board

Recently, Sanam learnt about CCBs under the local government system and facility of funding for small projects. Sanam proactively worked and not only got her CCB registered with the Community Development Department Sukkur but also prepared project for opening vocational skill development center for eunuchs and women in here area. The proposal has been submitted with the district government and the Nazim District Sukkur has ensured Sanam that her CCB would be provided the funds.

Relief Material for IDPs from Malakand Division

Following displacements of millions of the people from Malakand Divison as result of fight against terrorism, Sanam sold her gold ornaments and bought different relief materials required for the camps. She travelled all the way from Sukkur to Sheikh Yaseen camp in Sukkur and distributed the relief material to the IDPs.

Supporting Her Sister’s family

For last over 10 years now, Sanam has been provided cash amount to one of her sisters who live in Quetta on monthly basis. She is doing it support her in making both ends meet as her sister is a widow.

The Way Forward
Sanam wants to develop a vocational center with residential facility in Sukkur targeting the socio-economic empowerment of eunuchs from all over Pakistan. In this regard, she is working hard to raise required funds from different sources.

Moreover, she is organizing and mobilizing other community members to register their computerized national identity cards as it would help them get small funds from the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) following the supreme court verdict.

-----------------

[1] Fakeer has a denotative meaning of a beggar in Sindhi and Urdu but its used in connotation of “a person very close to God and must be given respect”. The transgender are widely called Fakeers in Sindh to as they are historically perceived respectful.

[2] A religious leader of Muslims who leads in offering Namaz

Credits:

Research by: Noshaba Hassan (my wife) - DTCE-UNDP

Written by: Hassan Nasir and Noshaba Hassan

2009-07-03T19:03:00.006+08:00

To all SEAPCP CO bloggers...great job, keep on blogging...to the members of our CO network still not yet registered into this blog, please do so immediately... otherwise you will miss out on the latest developments of our CO network members!

Paul you win first prize for being hardworking blogger...and also for doing a lot of follow up work with regards to our collective plan to spread the CO spirit across the Asian region!! I hope Makoto can join up with you in India sometime later!!

SEAPCP is presently preparing for the next big event that is the COMMUNITY VIDEO consultation workshop to be held in Malaysia in conjunction with the KOMAS freedom film festival! Check out our website for the film festival www.freedomfilmfest.komas.org SEAPCP is also trying to raise more funds so that we can hold a regional community video training workshop possibly early next year!

Saylar is exploring to conduct local CO workshop among the refugee settlements for local leaders. We are still working out details together with HREIB! Our Cambodian friends are all set to spread this CO spirit to their local communities and are presently working out a plan to do local echo workshops there.

Over to the far east, in Hokkaido Japan, our Ainu and other Japanese friends are intensely preparing for their CO workshop which will be held in a few weeks time! Wish them luck! PERMAS malaysia led by 'MAMA" Julie will be conducting a local CO workshop for new recruits in August!!!

okay gang keep the CO spirit alive and burning for the empowerment of the grassroots people!!

Jo Hann

LET THE PHOTOS SPEAK!

2009-06-23T23:46:00.026+08:00

SEAPCP CO COURSE 2009, KUALA LUMPUR
Take a look! different positions, different actions...organisers take to the stage and dance the C.O. dance!

SEAPCP ADVANCE CO COURSE FINISHES WITH A BANG

2009-06-11T01:17:00.009+08:00

10 days, 17 participants, 9 countries, lots of stories and strong voices of hope and determination! This is how i am describing the SEAPCP ADVANCE COMMUNITY ORGANISING COURSE 2009 which successfully concluded on July 8th 2009!

In one voice, all 17 advance graduates of the C.O. Course voiced their commitment and rejuvenated vigour to spread the C.O. perspective to their respective country contexts. Echo workshops have been planned and graduates intend to further strengthen their local communities to initiate organising processes in their respective countries.

In the coming months, big things will happen as these eager graduates take up the challenge to put themselves to the test to strongly mobilse their local communities to be organised in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Timor Leste, Mongolia, India, Japan!

Stay tuned to this blog as we share with you stories of what exciting things had happened during the 10 days of the course held in Malaysia!

Jo Hann Tan
SEAPCP course director

Tan Jo Hann community organiser councillor

2009-04-21T01:56:00.001+08:00

Barack Obama the community organiser!

2009-04-05T15:38:00.004+08:00

photo credits to fanpix.net
Obama's Community Roots
By David Moberg

This article appeared in the April 16, 2007 edition of The Nation.
April 3, 2007

In 1985, freshly graduated from Columbia University and working for a New York business consultant, Barack Obama decided to become a community organizer. Though he liked the idea, he didn't understand what the job involved, and his inquiries turned up few opportunities.

Then he got a call from Jerry Kellman, an organizer working on Chicago's far South Side for a community group based in the churches of the region, an expanse of white, black and Latino blue-collar neighborhoods that were reeling from the steel-mill closings. Kellman was looking for an organizer for the new Developing Communities Project (DCP), which would focus on black city neighborhoods.

Obama, only 24, struck board members as "awesome" and "extremely impressive," and they quickly hired him, at $13,000 a year, plus $2,000 for a car--a beat-up blue Honda Civic, which Obama drove for the next three years organizing more than twenty congregations to change their neighborhoods.

Despite some meaningful victories, the work of Obama--and hundreds of other organizers--did not transform the South Side or restore lost industries. But it did change the young man who became the junior senator from Illinois in 2004, and it provides clues to his worldview as he bids for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"I can't say we didn't make mistakes, that I knew what I was doing," Obama recalled three years ago to a boisterous convention of the still-active DCP. "Sometimes I called a meeting, and nobody showed up. Sometimes preachers said, 'Why should I listen to you?' Sometimes we tried to hold politicians accountable, and they didn't show up. I couldn't tell whether I got more out of it than this neighborhood."

But, he continued, "I grew up to be a man, right here, in this area. It's as a consequence of working with this organization and this community that I found my calling. There was something more than making money and getting a fancy degree. The measure of my life would be public service."

After a transient youth and an earnest search for identity, Obama also found a home--a community with which he continued relationships, a church and a political identity. He honed his talent for listening, learned pragmatic strategy, practiced bringing varied people together and developed a faith in ordinary citizens that still influences his campaign message. He discovered the importance of personal storytelling in politics (and wrote short stories that refined his style).

Later, as a politician, he worked closely with community groups (though not as ardently as another community organizer turned politician, the late Senator Paul Wellstone). As a presidential candidate, he frequently refers to his community organizing, asking supporters to treat his campaign as a social movement in which he is just "an imperfect vessel of your hopes and dreams."

Obama worked as an organizer at a time when Harold Washington's election as mayor stirred his hopes and dreams, as well as those of blacks and progressives in the city. Interviews with people who worked with him during that time elicited few complaints--virtually everyone described him in glowing terms, including dedicated, hard-working, dependable, intelligent, inspiring, a good listener, confident but self-effacing. They expressed admiration for him as an organizer who trained strong community leaders while keeping himself in the background and as a strategist who could turn general problems into specific, winnable issues. Loretta Augustine-Herron, a member of the DCP board that hired him, remembers him as someone who always followed the high road. "You've got to do it right," she recalls him insisting. "Be open with the issues. Include the community instead of going behind the community's back--and he would include people we didn't like sometimes. You've got to bring people together. If you exclude people, you're only weakening yourself. If you meet behind doors and make decisions for them, they'll never take ownership of the issue."

Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing, as translated through the Gamaliel Foundation, one of several networks of faith-based organizing. Often by confronting officials with insistent citizens--rather than exploiting personal connections, as traditional black Democrats proposed--Obama and DCP protected community interests regarding landfills and helped win employment training services, playgrounds, after-school programs, school reforms and other public amenities.

One day a resident at Altgeld Gardens, a geographically isolated public housing project surrounded by waste sites, brought a notice about planned removal of asbestos from the project manager's office. Obama organized the community to find out if there was asbestos in their apartments. They persisted as officials lied and delayed, then took a bus--with far fewer people than Obama had anticipated--to challenge authorities downtown. Ultimately, the city was forced to test all the apartments and eventually begin cleaning them up.

In his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama writes that the bus trip changed him in a fundamental way, "because it hints at what might be possible and therefore spurs you on.... That bus ride kept me going, I think. Maybe it still does."

A recent Los Angeles Times report contended that Obama overstated his own importance, ignoring others who were working on environmental issues; but in the book he's extremely modest about his role and accomplishments, much as he was as an organizer when he refused fellow organizers' suggestions that he embellish the group's achievements. "There was no campaign without Barack," Kellman says. "He was there to get people to organize when they wouldn't organize at all." Hazel Johnson, a longtime Altgeld Gardens environmental activist, says, "Yeah, he's a good organizer. I've got to give it to him."

But Obama grew restless and eventually went to Harvard Law School. "He said you can only go so far in organizing. You help people get some solutions, but it's never as big as wiping away problems," says Michael Evans, a DCP organizer after Obama left. "It wasn't end-all. He wanted to be part of the end-all, to get things done." But Obama kept his ties to DCP and worked out of its office when he ran a drive that registered 150,000 new voters in 1992 and became the springboard for his own grassroots campaign for Illinois State Senate.

Obama's politics of transcendent unity, which has appealed to many voters, has its roots in his work as a "bridge builder," in the words of the Rev. Anthony Van Zanten, overcoming the gulf within DCP between Catholic and Protestant churches. But this vision of harmony also reflects Obama's distaste for conflict. "Personality-wise, Barack did not like direct confrontation," Kellman says. "He was a very nice young man, very polite. It was a stretch for him to do Alinsky techniques. He was more comfortable in dialogue with people. But challenging power was not an issue for him. Lack of civility was."

Obama's organizing history may give few clues about what policies he would pursue as President, but Obama the presidential candidate still shows his roots--a faith in ordinary citizens, a quest for common ground and a pragmatic inclination toward defining issues in winnable ways. Even when Obama was an organizer, Augustine-Herron told him he would be the nation's first black President. Now the Rev. Alvin Love, whom Obama recruited to DCP, looks at his candidacy and says, "Everything I see reflects that community organizing experience. I see the consensus-building, his connection to people and listening to their needs and trying to find common ground. I think at his heart Barack is a community organizer. I think what he's doing now is that. It's just a larger community to be organized."

Important quote for the month!

2009-04-04T23:56:00.002+08:00

"The community organizer...must constantly examine life, including his own, to get some idea of what it is all about, and he must challenge and test his own findings. Irreverence, essential to questioning, is a requisite. Curiosity becomes compulsive. His most frequent word
is 'why'?"
- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 1971

SAUL ALINSKY

2009-03-29T11:42:00.006+08:00

Editor's note: Hi I stumbled upon this article about Saul Alinsky, the renown Community organiser, many said he sort of "developed" Community organising, read about him and his work! share your comments!

Few know it today, but Chicago was the birthplace of a powerful grassroots social movement that changed political activism in this country. "Community Organizing" was pioneered in Chicago's old stockyards neighborhood by the soberly realistic, unabashedly radical Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky's hard-nosed politics were shaped by the rough and tumble world of late 1930's Chicago. Back then, the city, still in the grips of the Great Depression, was controlled by the Kelly-Nash political machine and by Frank Nitti - heir to Al Capone's Mafia empire. In 1938, with a freshly minted graduate degree in criminology from University of Chicago, Alinsky went to work for sociologist Clifford Shaw at the Institute for Juvenile Research. He was assigned to research the causes of juvenile delinquency in Chicago's tough "Back-of-the-Yards" neighborhood. In order to study gang behavior from the inside, Alinsky ingratiated himself with Al Capone's crowd, and came to realize that criminal behavior was a symptom of poverty and powerlessness.

The Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood, setting of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, was an immense slum in the shadows of Chicago's giant Union Stockyards, one of the largest factory complexes ever created. Its inhabitants were poor; they had no rights and no job security. In the course of one year, wages were cut three times. As Alinsky watched and decided that he could no longer stand by as a silent observer. He believed that widespread poverty left America open to the influence of demagogues and that the only antidote was active, widespread participation in the political process. Alinsky envisioned an "organization of organizations," comprised of all sectors of the community - youth committees, small businesses, labor unions and, most influential of all, the Catholic Church.

He consulted with Herb March, a union leader organizing stockyard workers for the CIO - the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He teamed up with Joe Meegan, a powerful organizer with strong links to the Catholic Church, through whom he was able to convince a powerful Bishop Bernard Sheil to join the fight against unfair labor practices. Alinsky also recruited leaders of previously hostile ethnic groups: Serbs and Croatians, Czechs and Slovaks, Poles and Lithuanians - always appealing to their mutual self-interests. Finally, on July 14, 1939, Alinsky and Meegan convened the first Back-of-the-Yards Council meeting, chaired by Bishop Sheil. The event was revolutionary in American history because it was the first time an entire community was organized. The union, the community and the Church became one and the same. More...

Income versus involvement !!

2009-03-07T14:02:00.005+08:00

Thank you all for blogging in! its really so refreshing to hear so many voices. I will take this opportunity to share this subject on community organising that I myself am struggling with right now. Hope you can throw some light onto this!

Building second line organisers, or developing new local organisers...I find that it so difficult and this will probably become worse in this global economic crisis, where everyone will be placing importance to work and income $$$$!!!, for fear of losing their jobs and cash for their family needs! For instance instead of attending a community meeting they might just take on some extra work!

What do you say, what shall we do????

SEAPCP ADVANCE CO COURSE

2009-03-04T22:41:00.005+08:00

The SEAPCP ADVANCE CO COURSE 2009 is already set in motion! This year its going to be organised in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, and Pusat KOMAS will be the local host!

So far, 90% of all the 21 participants have excitedly agreed to be part of this event. The selected participants were selected from a total of 42 participants who attended in SEAPCP CO course of 2007 and 2008.
To all those who have responded to SEAPCP, we wish you congratulations for having made it to this next level of CO course. This course will be designed a little differently from the past. Just to give you a peek into the programme.... participants will have to form small teams to conduct sessions with different groups of people in Malaysia, especially grassroots members from the indigenous people's communities, urban poor and plantation workers!

So you will have to master your facilitation skills and use of creative media because most of you might encounter language problems as well!

BUT of course we will guide you through this challenge which will be organised on the 3rd day of the course! That will leave us with the rest of the 7 days to review, evaluate, and explore different points of community organising that needs to be improved.

Well just a short note to keep you all excited! keep on blogging you guys,...its not that difficult! just register your email to google and become a blogger!

take care
Jo Hann

A Good Son

2009-02-27T15:46:00.003+08:00

Hey COs, I just found this very interesting story! And thought of sharing with you as it reflects a man’s creativity! I don’t want to give interpretation to story but don’t want to even remove the interpretation given by original contributor (Aisha Najam) at the end!

But I would really want your comments about story and how it relates, if it does, to CO process!

Thanks

Hassan

+++++++++++++++++++++++

A Good Son

An old man lived alone in Minnesota. He wanted to spade his potato garden, but it was very hard work.

His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation.

Dear Son, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year.

I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison.

Love, Dad
.........

Shortly, the old man received this telegram:

"For Heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!"

At 4a.m. the next morning, a dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns.

Confused, the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened, and asked him what to do next.

His son's reply was: "Go ahead and plant your potatoes, Dad. It's the best I could do for you from here."

********

- Moral Of the Story

NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE IN THE WORLD, IF YOU HAVE DECIDED TO DO SOMETHING DEEP FROM YOUR HEART, YOU CAN DO IT.

IT IS THE THOUGHT THAT MATTERS NOT WHERE YOU ARE OR WHERE THE PERSON IS.

Angel CO arrives!

2009-02-24T15:07:00.002+08:00

Hello COs, hope you all would be fine. Guess what a junior CO has just arrived in this world! Yes, Allah has blessed our family with a son on February 15, 2009 at 1 PM. Well, everyone says he looks like me! No matter what, but he’s really dear to my wife and myself.

I know many of you would ask what name we have named him! But we are trying to organize the names suggested by all our family members; if you guys want to suggest any names please do. Meanwhile, our new little CO angel has high jaundice (medically speaking high level of bilirubin) and he is kept under photo therapy at hospital. Please say a lot of prayers for him to get well soon.

Hope he would bring lots of luck in our CO work around the world and in SEAPCP as well.

COMMUNITY ORGANISING LATINO STYLE!

2009-02-21T17:07:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone! I read this article in the internet and reminded so much of our organisers' work in this part of the world in ASIA! So it looks like community organising is not such an "alien" thing because the world world is probably practicing it to uplift poor communities to be empowered! take a read and share your comments!

Jo Hann Tan, Blog Editor

Ohio and Michigan's Oldest and Largest Latino/Hispanic Newspaper since 1989

Community Organizing: Si o Si
Commentary by Ramón Pérez, ramon1_98@yahoo.com

Community Organizing has been talked about for many years throughout the Latino community but very few understand what it means or what it would look like in action. And just as important, if not more important, the benefits for the Latino community. There are various definitions as well as what community organizing looks like on the ground running, so I will attempt to draw you a picture of direct action community organizing.

Winning real, immediate, concrete improvements in people’s lives and their community is the best model of community organizing. Regardless if the improvements include increased access to health care, increased enrollment into head-start, high school drop-out prevention support services, parent involvement in schools, increased employment opportunities, law enforcement protection and relationship building, or better street lighting. A direct action organization uses united action to win improvements for large numbers of people. This model of organizing is much different than what we mostly see used in our community.

For example, most people are helped individually with their problems, which is what social services do best. Nothing wrong with that approach but too many clients usually continue the cycle of dependency on an organization to get them through the day which then usually becomes weeks, months, and years.

Another word, most efforts to help the Latino community are geared towards helping a hungry family for the day instead of helping those families learn to fish and take care of themselves. There are just too many examples of how we ourselves or let other community organizations keep our gente dependent on their services. Where is the dignity in that?

A Community Organizer will go into the community, talk to Latino residents, and follow a proven recipe for getting results. First talk, but most importantly, listen to the resident. Ask the resident what concerns them the most about their family, community, city and county government.

Get them to agree to attend a neighborhood meeting so they can see that there are many more just like themselves that are experiencing the same problems. The plan is to get 50, 75, 100 plus residents together to discuss, and decide their top 5 issues they want to work on.

This is a very short version but I hope you get the gist. The problem is powerlessness. Latino families are being left out when decisions are being made about them. One by one, their voices have not been heard.

Now, imagine Latinos coming together to agree that they need to find funding and hire a community organizer to start building a collective, grassroots voice. The answer is in the development of active and involved Latino residents and making them into local community leaders. They take charge of their lives and community. That’s dignity!

I’m ready; all we need is for some Latinos/as to create a sponsoring committee so we can get the job done. If not in Toledo, please someone or group step forward.

2009-02-18T00:52:00.002+08:00

SEAPCP ADVANCE COMMUNITY ORGANISING COURSE 2009

The year of the OX is bringing good fortune to us! SEAPCP will be organsing an advanced community organising course 2009 for selected graduates of the introductory courses conducted in 2007 and 2008!

The theme will be centered on "COMMUNITY ORGANISING IN TODAY'S GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS". It will explore how community organisers can respond to the serious impact of global recession on grassroots communities.

This year the host country will be Malaysia, the home ground of Course Director and Facilitator, Jo Hann Tan. We will show case the community organising processes in real situations in Malaysia among the urban poor, plantation workers, and indigenous peoples in Malaysia.

This course will explore topics beyond introductory themes and will hopefully bring the participants to a deeper understanding and practise of organising in their respective countries. This course will bring together about 21 selected participants from 9 Asian countries for 10 days in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.

Selected participants are requested to respond to their invitations within the next 2 weeks! As for those who were not selected, do not worry SEAPCP will be holding in-country CO courses in the near future to overcome language differences faced in regional courses where there is a mix of cultures and nationalities from all over Asia!

Jo Hann Tan
Course Director, Malaysia

2009 YEAR OF THE OX!

2009-01-28T22:09:00.006+08:00

CHECK OUT THIS WRITE UP ABOUT THOSE BORN IN THE YEAR OF THE OX, ARE YOU ONE OF THEM?

THE YEAR OF THE OX

1/26/2009 - 2/13/2010 (Earth)

According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2009 is the Year of the Ox. The Ox, or the Buffalo sign symbolizes prosperity through fortitude and hard work. Those born under the influence of the Ox or Buffalo are fortunate to be stable and persevering. The typical Ox is a tolerant person with strong character. Not many people could equal the resolution and fearlessness that the Ox exhibits when deciding to accomplish a task. Ox people work hard without complaints at work or at home. They know that they will succeed through hard work and sustained efforts, and do not believe in get-rich-quick schemes.

Ox Years: 2/19/1901 - 2/7/1902 (Metal), 2/6/1913 - 1/25/1914 (Water), 1/25/1925 - 2/12/1926 (Wood), 2/11/1937 - 1/30/1938 (Fire), 1/29/1949 - 2/16/1950 (Earth), 2/15/1961 - 2/4/1962 (Metal), 2/3/1973 - 1/22/1974 (Water), 2/20/1985 - 2/8/1986 (Wood), 2/7/1997 - 1/27/1998 (Fire), 1/26/2009 - 2/13/2010 (Earth)

Famous Ox People: Barack Obama, Catherine Freeman, Heather Locklear, Jane Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Margaret Thatcher, Meg Ryan, Meryl Streep, Princess Diana, Vivien Leigh and George Clooney.

The Sign of the Ox

Invariably solid and dependable, Ox people are excellent organizers. Oxen are systematic in their approach to every task they undertake. They are not easily influenced by other's ideas. Loyalty is a part of their make-up, but if deceived they will not forget. Oxen do not appear to be imaginative though they are capable of good ideas. Although not demonstrative or the most exciting people romantically, they are entirely dependable, and make devoted parents. Oxen are renowned for their patience, but it has its limits - once roused, their temper is a sight to behold.

People born under the sign of the Ox or Buffalo usually have strong codes and work ethics. This can lead to a tendency to be a workaholic, and they should make an effort to relax more. Ox people are usually strong and robust, and according to ancient wisdom, they should be blessed with long lives.

The Ox home is his castle where he finds relaxation and peace from the everyday hustle and bustle of his career or responsibilities. He also enjoys spending much time in planting gardens and trees. He generally prefers to decorate his home comfortably with nature colors.

Able, ethical and aware, co-workers of the Ox can depend on their eyes for details. Because they are so well-organized, they are better-suited for specialized positions and prefer to work in large companies. They work best when they work alone since they can be unhappy when participating in a large group.

excerpt from: www.springsgreetingcards.com

2009-01-21T20:35:00.002+08:00

What does 2009 the lunar year of the cow, mean for community organising work?? Does it mean more hard work, because of the global economic slow down? the food crisis? and more wars and conflicts between nations, peoples, and communities of people?

Or does this global scenario mean more opportunities for us to organise our communities and to unite the people to overcome difficulties? As for me in Malaysia, things are predicted to become a bit gloomy and workers are anticipated to be retrenched, and price of food and other items will rise in price!

My feeling is that whatever the situations hold for us, community organising will always prevail because these are the times when people need to take control of the little resources they have and make the best out of it! And to do they they have to be organised, in body heart, mind and spirit! What do you think organisers???

PUTTING IT RIGHT IN THE CONTEXT: THE CULTURAL SENSITIVITY

2009-01-12T00:01:00.003+08:00

Dear CO Friends,

After coming back from the CO course 2008, I have lots of sharing about CO Course with my colleagues and friends। They all were too excited to know the SEAPCP approach towards community organizing and tools/creative media that SEAPCP has developed over the time through their experience. I shared the books with them as well and they all had their mouths wide open….wow…॥great books! I shared with them how we can apply SEAPCP approach of community organizing in our situation to make our communities more self reliant, then NGO dependent. We decided to organize a formal training for this purpose. This is where my tough task started.

Well, some of you might know this, that Pakistani society is very much conservative; due to cultural and religious norms, intermingling of sex, specially shaking hands and hugging between men and women is very uncommon, even most men do not hug their closely related female relatives, except for their sisters, mothers and the most immediate relatives। This is especially very true in the context of people who we deal with as community level because for our elites there are no boundaries; they do everything and anything they want to……! As a matter of fact, many of the activities that we did in the CO course, and otherwise the ones mentioned in Jo Hann’s book (the yellow one), require inter-mingling.

As I sit down to plan two-days training course on CO Course, I was kept on thinking for hours and hours which activities to pick keeping in mind our the cultural context of Pakistan। I had lots of apprehensions on different activities. But I know, you my creative friends out there, can really help me out, please help me pick the right activities which I can easily use in the CO training.

HOW TO SUSTAIN OURSELVES AS ORGANISERS?

2009-01-11T15:10:00.005+08:00

A few days ago a friend asked me "do you have a retirement plan?" That question made me think hard....it's true many organisers like us who have already been involved in community organising for some time do not usually know how to answer this question!

Yes, we have strong "commitment and passion", we ourselves had decided to be an organiser and nobody had forced us! BUT we still find ourselves keep having to worry about the "day to day" living, especially those of us who have families... "What about money for the house rental? Paying telephone bills & putting food on the table? Children's school fees, books, and many other needs to keep us alive?"

Please share your thoughts, stories, experiences, and feelings! Come on and blog freely on this subject!

"Mr Project" from Laos

2009-01-11T14:53:00.003+08:00

Dear Friends,
I am (you gave me the name) "Mr. Project", he he, until now it's true that Jo Hann reminded us during the course that I (from CIDSE) look like or act like a shopper to travel to rural communities and select definite criteria to set up the activities and yet we still can't get the communities based on those criteria!!! It's quite a different situation in Laos if compare to your country contexts. We can't work independently. Every time NGO's work at any levels, we should cooperate with the government, and every time when we say something, we should b careful...!!

It's true that we try to analyse the root cause of the issues as the central and NGO network and for example to provide information on land issues (concession). We recognised that the root cause is not only the transnational corporations investing to plan industrial trees in large scale but also the weak (corruption) government officials or the policy makers. We try to persuade local villagers to recognise their basic rights on communal or private properties particularly the land tenure right.

I still travel to rural communities to discuss and interview the village chiefs or local authorities in different districts and provinces to start the projects (Rural Community Land Project and Law Dissemination Project) as I had presented during the CO course in Bali. We hope to get Memorandum of Understanding MOU with them in April!

Story of Agung from Bali

2009-01-11T14:21:00.003+08:00

Sorry I did not active on email when I was in Poland to joined COP 14 UNFCCC. My finger was freezing on -2 C so I couldn't put it on my computer in last whole month. Now, my body is trying to adapt with 32 C in Bali....(I think a good time to swim in Sanur Beach,,.does anyone want to join me?)

Two days ago myself and Bali Collaboration on Climate Change team went to Lembongan Island. We have a research program on climate change impacts in small island. We started to organize young peoples become local researchers. We need to explain about our program and climate change issue..We were confusing to find an effective method when we heard some elders and teachers said that young peoples in Lembongan island are lazy with lack of motivation to learn something...

So, we used monologue (role play), pictures, games and other creative media to explained climate change issue (which is very technical and high level) into grass root level, and the result was a dynamic meeting!

It was very great experiences to using popular communications on CO process that I have learned from SEAPCP...

Thank you,
Agung Wardana

welcome community organisers!

2009-01-08T21:16:00.005+08:00

Hey everybody! Wow, we have already 8 organisers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan signing is an members of our SEAPCP COMMUNITY ORGANISING blog!! Great! Old and new friends...let us get to know each other through the blog...especially what we have been doing in our respective areas of organising work! This is fantastic...!

Now to the rest of our friends especially the graduates of the SEAPCP CO Course 2007 and 2008, sign up and be part of this dynamic blog to share your stories and experiences in community organising!!!

Blog Editor: Jo Hann Tan, Malaysia

2009-01-06T19:31:00.005+08:00

Take a read everybody, this story from Hem Nareth of Cambodia YRDP! She really sounds excited to share her story with all of us! BUT Nareth please blog in so I don't have to process your letter to all! Write directly into the blog! Friends please comment on Nareth's story!
Blog Editor: Jo Hann

Dear everybody, Do you know? I shared the CO to my colleagues at YRDP on 29-31 of Dec 08. Do you know what is the result? It was quite great result, Because:

1. Some of them who are not ever think about the sustainability by our own, but now they start thinking and support how to sustain our project / program by our own.

2. Before they thought that they choose the right entry point for our project or program, but now they have found out that we better try to find out the entry point again.

3. The important point is that , now in the meeting not only me who talking about CO concept and new strategies, but now they understand and support me to fingh for a better solutions always! I'm so happy.

To those happy , I would love to thank Uncle Sivutha, and Sothun who help me a lot in plaining, designing to share all of this CO concept that we learnt from Indonesia.

* In another sharing with other 10 different NGOs who working in empowerment women in Cambodia, I did sharing to them on 2nd of Jan 09. Do you know what? they said that this CO is quite really interesting and also very good in helping them in their work.They said that, before they work only them being the outside COer, they work very hard and not empower the inside people to be inside COer , that this point made them rethinking about their strategies to make sustainable by empower local people to be COer. IT's quite effective and sustainble.

Another, thing that they said, before they thought that thier project why not so actively involve from the people because of they don't have gift for people. but now they start understand that because not so involve not about that, it about our wrong strategies which didn't involve people to understand and analys issues / problems by them selves. So now they start to thinking about how to engage people to understand and analyze the problems by themself.

Do u know what! ? they invited me to facilitate this CO concept again, they want to learn in detail. I never ever see their passion to learn like this, I work as network with them 1year and a half already, just only this time, i can see they really interested in this CO concept.

Oh, my god , how powerful of CO! ok, now is enought for sharing the sucess!, but now pls take a look my challengess when I did sharing:

Challenges:

1. As Johan said, how u choose the right game to let them act and reflection. Especially Island game, when ur participants are not so active and creative, pls becareful! it will not work!

2. Becareful how u can make them can analyse problems by themself?

3. Participants confussing what are the steps of CO?? or what kind of perspective of COer should focus? And also what is cycle of analysis!

4. Entry points is should focus on economic or ...?

2009-01-05T16:30:00.008+08:00

Alone, the task is heavy...

But when people get organised, miracles happen!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

2009-01-05T16:01:00.001+08:00

Welcome to all community organisers! This blog is hosted by the Southeast Asia Popular Communications Programme (SEAPCP). We are a network of community organising movements and organisations in the SEA region with key contacts in different parts of Asia, Pacific and the rest of the world!

A lot has been happening in the world of community organising and this blog is meant to provide a platform and space for organisers to share their stories and experiences (not forgetting photos, graphics and even resource materials!)

Take a look at these shots and get excited to actively use this blog with your peers in community organising. More power to you and to all community organisers all over the globe! Community Organisers of the world, UNITE!