Gathering of the Americas
July 2008
Susila Dharma Conference Report
Prepared bythe SDIA Office team
for Susila Dharma International Association
(download this report as a PDF file with photographs)
I. Introduction
The great hall at Amanecer
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SDIA and SD Colombia together put on a rich and diverse programme with something for everyone:
- A Capacity Building Workshop for project leaders to help strengthen their skills at increasing the impact on society and governance, project planning and design, financial management, auditing and managing volunteers;
- A Susila Dharma Day, to share with all Subud members an overview of the socio-economic and political context in which our projects are working, and to share personal stories of how our projects got started. What circumstances lead some of us to start social projects?
- A host of workshops for both SD project leaders and interested Subud members, including the Governance and Development Workshops and Subud Educator’s Workshops sponsored by the Guerrand Hermes Foundation for Peace (GHFP);
- The SDIA AGM
- SDIA Board Meeting
- Informal discussions, network meetings, problem solving and presentations by project leaders
- Great food, dancing and more...
This report can only highlight key moments of the SD Program. For fuller details on proceedings, see AGM Minutes and individual Workshop Reports.
II. Pre-Conference Capacity Building
In the pre-conference Capacity Building Programme, SDIA and SD Colombia focused on a number of themes and issues relevant to projects in Colombia and the Americas in general, including sustainability, planning and the logical framework approach, financial management and auditing, and effectively managing volunteers.
Pedro and Uraida Vacacela of Inka Samana
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Project Planning and the Logical Framework
Prof. Juan Fernando (Bogota) facilitated the workshop
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The participants broke into four groups and selected and worked through one project each, to begin applying the skills they were learning. One group reviewed Amanecer’s Semillitas project, and came out with a radically different understanding of the community problems that needed to be addressed. Other projects reviewed were Usaha Mulia Abadi’s Nutrition Project, the Centro Communitario Nuevo, Amanecer’s Community Sewing Workshop, and a Telecentre for an isolated community in Chile.
Clearly, the most difficult step for project leaders and those who would like to start projects is problem analysis. Many projects are started without doing this analysis, and years later project leaders find themselves providing services never having found solutions to the underlying social and community problems that they intended to address.
On Day 2 of project planning the project and solutions analysis of four projects were reviewed, and the logical framework which leads the project proposal was applied. While some participants had already learned about the logical framework method of project planning many expressed that doing this training in a Subud setting helped them to take a step back from their daily activities, to reflect on how to re-orient their project to improve results, and to learn from others how they are addressing similar challenges in their own work.
Financial Management and Auditing
Learning from each other in small groups.
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The main focus of the presentation was to bring understanding to the project leaders about what an audit is and why it is necessary. An audit will not only add value to the information provided to the donors, but will also bring improvement of the projects operations. The purpose is always to identify the main risk and necessary controls to mitigate them. An audit is not a police control, but a contribution to the improvement of an organization and so it is a positive input which benefits both projects and donors.
Sabrina Castillo (SD Netherlands) explains
auditing social projects.
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Managing Volunteers
An important part of the Capacity Building Program was a workshop on Volunteering and Managing Volunteers for project leaders. Rasjidah Flores of Mexico who works for International Cultural Youth Exchange presented a workshop for project leaders on volunteering and how to create a better experience forthe project and for the volunteer him/herself. The training focused on preparing projects to host volunteers and develop specific and useful activities in the organization.
Rasjidah first asked if any project leaders had past experiences with volunteers. It was clear that many SD projects have had bad experiences. Project leaders talked about how hard it is when volunteers come and talk down to management and staff, criticize or try to change the project, or do not respect local culture and ways of doing things.
Rasjidah explained that from the volunteer’s point of view what they are often seeking is meaningful involvement. Projects often do not adequately answer key questions for themselves before engaging volunteers, such as: What does a project need to be able to host volunteers? What can we offer? Why should someone volunteer with us? Project leaders need to go through the following steps in order to ensure a good experience for both sides:
- Identification of needs (why do we want volunteers in our project?)
- Identification of meaningful tasks
- Appoint a contact person
- Develop a guide for volunteers
- Understand how to take care of volunteers.
Rashida Flores (Mexico) — workshops on volunteering.
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- Hold an introductory day
- Get to know the volunteer’s skills and abilities
- Foster the volunteer’s initiative (be open to new ideas or projects)
- Conduct a helpful evaluation (identification of benefits, what can be improved?)
- Keep the volunteer involved in the organization.
(See Annex 2 for Solen’s full report)
III. Susila Dharma Day!
SD Day –sharing stories on starting SD projects
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Then representatives from the Americas spoke — projects, Subud and SD Nationals from Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Suriname and USA — each talking about the social, economic and political conditions in their countries, how each is unique and this context requires Subud members to show their SD in different and appropriate ways. Then the whole assembly broke into groups, and project leaders from each country shared their personal stories of SD, how they got started and what motivated them. Other members of the group also shared their experiences, for example former drug addicts, youth and members who volunteer and contribute to their communities in a great variety of ways. The afternoon was given over to parallel workshops, described below.
IV. Sdia Annual General Meeting
A rainbow at the end of the SDIA Annual Meeting.
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Members considered those decisions an important process of consensus-building and a testament to our sense of ourselves as a Network. They are also important to help members of the Network learn how to attract donors in a professional way and they represent a good framework for creating awareness, growth and reaching common standards.
One of SDIA’s roles is to help people understand why they should support their own national SD organizations and projects in each country. Communication channels to and from SDIA are very important to both projects and nationals. It is also seen as important for nationals to encourage and support projects in a positive way to help them to report and become transparent. Four times a year SDIA circulates the Grant Matrix to show who is giving and receiving funds within the SD Network. It is too difficult to report every transaction to members individually, so we ask all people to refer to the Grant Matrix. This document is also posted on the website.
Uraida Vacacela (right) was elected to
the Board of SDIA.
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The Enterprise Sponsorship Program (ESP) was explained and logo passed around. People were urged to take the courage to approach enterprises outside Subud to support SD related projects. One observer was able to get 500 Spanish textbooks donated by the company she works for.
It was recommended that people share the testing in their countries between helpers and national committee to help them find this courage to talk people outside Subud. This has made a big difference in the USA. France also has this experience to show through testing the importance of SD for Subud members. The testing during the Susila Dharma Day helped one participant to feel the inner reality and to feel connected to SD work. She felt so happy when she came into this room. SD is the result of the evolution of our latihan; SD is started by people who feel the need to help others; helpers can support us to develop inner courage for our work.
It was further recommended to develop a workshop on project promotion and ‘selling’ what we do. It was recommended that at future network meetings, SDIA provide participants who are interested with training about how to promote the Enterprise Support Package and projects achievements.
After much discussion, the Board election was held: Lawrence Fryer and Mardijah Simpson were re-elected for a full three year term and Lusana Blond and Paloma de la Viña were given a one-year extension to their terms. Uraida Vacacela from Ecuador was the only new Board member elected for a full three-year term.
The importance of sound Project Management and Auditing was emphasised. Based on the discussions between network members at Amanecer, SDIA policy should reflect that Auditing is not a form of control but a means to create transparency and to fulfil responsibilities to donors, populations and staff. The preferred method within SDIA is to build understanding and capacity around the purpose and need for an audit. SDIA has no means to impose or fund audits as this goes against the Network’s guiding principles. SDIA’s intention is to provide support to project management and placing auditing within that framework.
Augusto Ruiz (Colombia) spoke
on food security issues.
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Augusto Ruiz (Colombia) proposed that we support ‘protein banks’, use techniques that are earth friendly, grow organic and use ancestral practices that use companion planting, involve female heads of households; look for local solutions before looking outside the community/country; don’t support multinationals; help preserve local food sources. Augusto invited people to work with him in a food security network and has proposed the creation of an indigenous seed and protein bank at Amanecer.
Lively discussion continued for another hour on examples and options related to food security and the situation at Amanecer specifically. SD Netherlands is willing to consider a proposal from Fundacion Amanecer provided it comes from the whole group working together. (For more information, see 2008 SDIA AGM Minutes)
V. Workshops
Governance and Development Workshop
Bardolf Paul (Indonesia) led the Governance and
Development workshop.
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Bardolf explained the proposed framework for analyzing each project’s impact on governance through increasing people “voice” in decision making and “access” to services. He also had a chance to share with Latin American project leaders the significant impact on local governance that his own project, YTS, has had in terms of changing the way that government in Central Kalimantan engages in planning with communities themselves.
Project leaders also engaged in a discussion on how development projects can increase their impact on governance. It was clear that there was a cultural tension that emerged between North American and Latin American project leaders. Whereas North Americans tended to feel that it was both positive and important to engage in trying to influence governance and government through project activities, many Latin American project leaders were concerned about a negative or corrupting influence when entering into dialogue with government institutions at any level.
Participants hear and discuss the research results.
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The outcomes of this workshop will contribute to the final report for this ISC initiated project to the Guerrand Hermes Foundation for Peace. Follow-up will involve possibly two public conferences in Colombia and Kalimantan on Governance and Development in 2009. SDIA has prepared a Governance and Development Report for the WSA Forum. http://library.susiladharma.org/sdia_research/govDevReport-2008-12.shtml
Subud Educators’ Workshop
Ryan Roberge (Canada) with Fernando Fatah (Mexico)
who led the Educators Workshop.
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Rationale:
- There are several educational projects in the Americas led and operated by Subud members whose basis and impact are unknown to the Americas and WSA membership.
- There is no systematized body of knowledge that allows us to improve practices of Subud members working in the field of education.
- There is no formal space that allows the Americas membership to create networks and facilitate cooperation.
Workshop Goals:
- To build a space which allows Subud members of the Americas to share experiences about how they take latihan and Subud awareness into teaching, school management, research or project development practices.
- To promote mutual support, cooperation, networking and intra- and cross-disciplinary communication among Subud members related with the education field.
- To lay the foundations of an Educational Knowledge Management System that improve the practices used by WSA to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge in the educational field.SDIA has published a separate more detailed report on the Education Workshop that can be found on the website http://susiladharma.org.
Forgiveness
Facilitator Lusijah Marx, Quest Centre for Integrated Healing, USA
“I have been very interested in research related to forgiveness. After seeing the film The Power of Forgiveness, I arranged to show it at Quest Center in Portland. I followed up first with a workshop and later with three different 6 to 8 week groups that I have led on this topic. I believe forgiveness is very relevant to the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of people. Many people with health issues suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and those with HIV/AIDS and cancer may have resentment about what life has dealt them or how they have been treated. I have worked with several people to do forgiveness work who have a terminal diagnosis and want to address these issues while they still can. I have had people draw pictures at the beginning and the end of group to show what has transpired. It has been meaningful and powerful for people who have explored this dimension.” (See Annex 1 for full report)
Intra-Family Violence
Facilitator Monica Ramirez, Family Counsellor in Armenia, Colombia
Intra-family violence is that violence which takes place within the family, where the aggressor shares or used to share the same home, and which includes, among other aspects, rape, physical, psychological or sexual abuse.
It is a problem that is hidden among us until, eventually, we become accustomed to it. It is a difficulty which, although taking place in a “private” setting, nonetheless has repercussions throughout the society. In addition, it must be remembered that the family is the primary social group in a society.
Conflict and power form part of the interaction between human beings. Conflicts are inevitable and can give rise to a positive or negative effect depending on how we live them. By contrast, violence is a relationship that generates damage and is detrimental to the persons involved.
The workshop covered causes and types of violence, impact of family violence in society and steps participants could take to support those suffering from family violence.
Development of Health in the Andean Culture — Asociación Vivir
Presenter Dr. Eliana Garzón — Asociación Vivir, Ecuador
Pedro Vacacela and Eliana Garzon presented their
projects in Ecuador.
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Indigenous Education — Inka Samana
Presenters Pedro and Uraida Vacacela, of Ecuador
Inka Samana Pacha “un sueno intercultural hecho realidad.” This trilingual school (Quechua, Spanish and English) is located in the indigenous community of Saraguro in Ecuador. Based on his own negative school experience, Pedro was motivated to create an education system based on his indigenous Andean culture and values as an alternative to the European system that was available to him. Together with his wife Uraida, and the community of parents and teachers, they have achieved this goal over the last 20 years. The school curriculum is accepted by the national Education Authorities and universities and is available to any Indigenous community in Ecuador who want it. The curriculum addresses creativity, freedom, responsibility, security, intercultural awareness and self-esteem, as well as practical skills like food production and enterprises. One example that Pedro gave is that in his culture, intelligence is measured by a person’s capacity to be happy. Both Pedro and Uraida are in the process of earning their PhD’s in Education from Salamanca University in Spain.
VI. Conclusion
Heidi Hitchcock was the
SD Canada delegate.
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“Meeting and talking with SD nationals, I learned a little bit about how Susila Dharma operates in other countries. We discussed the structure of the organization, how Board members are selected, how budgets are decided upon and how decisions are made about projects being supported, in each of our countries.
“I listened to presentations from project leaders, and gained a real appreciation and understanding of the work they do, as well as the challenges they face. It is truly incredible and inspiring to hear their stories and it makes me want to connect with more people involved in SD projects around the world.
“I think the single most important thing that I learned from this gathering is that providing support to those in need is a complex process that deserves careful and ongoing attention. Wanting to help is good, but it is not enough. In providing support, we have a responsibility to ensure that what we are doing is really benefiting in a sustainable way, rather than creating a dependent relationship.
“I also learned that in order to offer support effectively, the need must be clearly defined, and must come from the community being supported. It does not work to go into a situation and create and impose solutions. Ideas for improvement must be generated, owned and implemented by those directly involved in order to work.”
Annexes
1. Forgiveness Workshop — Lusijah Marx
My interest in exploring forgiveness came from seeing the movie The Power of Forgiveness in which our Subud sister Alexandra Asseily is featured as one of the main people in the film. She created the Garden of Forgiveness in Beirut. Alexandra is from London and Beirut and she followed her inner guidance to create this incredible project. I saw the movie last November and felt impacted by the power of the images, stories, and research presented in the film. I thought of my own work as a psychologist and nurse practitioner and how much anger, past abuse and hurts, violence, resentment impact the health of people I see — physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I decided to make this area a focus for my practice.
Forgiveness has recently been studied extensively in psychology. For years, it was considered to be “part of religion” and therefore not researched. In 1995 several psychologists began to look at the steps that support people who have experienced great injustice, such as the Northern Irish families who had their children murdered. I read twelve books by the leading researchers in the United States, and with the elements they stated as important, I began to lead workshops, and by now I have led 4 different 8-week long groups on Forgiveness. I have found the work is powerful and that people involved also learn to be more “forgiving” in the here and now. Forgiveness work has been shown to help addicts stay in recovery. (In fact these principles are part of 12 step recovery programs.) Persons who carry resentment and anger have many health issues such as high blood pressure and heart disease. Most health conditions are worsened by stress, and anger and resentment which are major stressors.
In my group work, I had several addicts in recovery, 2 people who were diagnosed with terminal illnesses and had many unresolved issues. (One, died part way through the group work, but had been able to make peace with himself and various other people from his life before his death.) There were a number of persons who were living with cancer and AIDS, several with post traumatic stress disorder, and some Subud members. It has been gratifying to see that people can in a short time address deep, often old, long-standing wounds and change themselves.
I initially spoke of the forgiveness process and how it impacted persons in the forgiveness groups I have led. The first workshop started over an hour late, and what I had planned to present in 90 minutes was shortened to 45 minutes. About 30 persons attended, mostly from Colombia. Many expressed a desire for me to present a workshop to teach them more about forgiveness. I was told by several persons that Colombia, which has murder as a leading cause of death, has great need for forgiveness work. I was asked by different people if I would lead another workshop, and not talk about work I do with other people, but directly teach the steps needed for forgiveness. A workshop was scheduled for the last weekend of our gathering. Meanwhile I had dreams that I knew were helping me resolve how to take a process that normally I do in 8 weeks with lots of journaling and homework and condense it to 2 hours which would include time for translation with people who really needed and wanted this process.
I had with me the peace testing questions from the document What is my Responsibility for Peace in the World? Steps towards a Subud Peace Process. I shared these questions with others and did testing around the questions. Doing peace/forgiveness testing with various women from Colombia who had suffered much trauma was very meaningful to me. It helped prepare me to lead the forgiveness workshop with more than 50 persons, 40 of whom were from South America and primarily Spanish speaking. I defined the meaning and importance of forgiveness and helped persons identify the extent of their willingness to forgive at this time. We looked at the 4 stages of forgiveness, beginning with the decision to find the compassion and willingness to forgive and defining clearly what it is that each person needs to forgive. As people did short journaling exercises or worked in pairs, there were many tears and much involvement. We ended with steps to continue forgiving and the value of sharing the Peace Testing questions with others. A list of 50 people was generated who wanted copies of these questions. David McCormick of Subud Colombia translated these questions into Spanish, and following the gathering the list was emailed to all the people on the list. Doing the Forgiveness work with people at the Amanecer gathering was very meaningful to me, and many people said it was of great benefit to them personally. It was also exciting to be with other project leaders and learn about the positive work going on in South and Central America. I truly enjoyed the entire time I was there and I am proud to be an SD project.
2. Volunteering Workshop — reported by Solen Lees Gratiet
Rasjidah Flores from Mexico gave an excellent workshop on volunteering. Rasjidah works for ICYE (International Cultural Youth Exchange), an international exchange organisation which works with social and environmental projects, and so was well-qualified to talk to us on this subject.
The objectives of the workshop were to explore
- What project leaders need to do in order to receive volunteers in their organisations?
- What SDIA can do in order to facilitate the relationship between a project and Subud volunteers?
Participants talked about their own experiences, some problematic, others positive.
One problem identified was that volunteers arrive and projects don’t always know what to do with them. And sometimes negotiation is difficult in that the volunteer refuses to do certain things. One participant voiced the fact that volunteers often have other objectives (such as tourism), and there was the example of a volunteer in artistic project who took the design of a beneficiary and used it in her own exhibition in the USA. Someone stated that retired volunteers have experience, maturity and a sense of responsibility.
Rasjidah went on to outline that voluntary service is an exchange between an individual and a community or organisation. The volunteer offers his/her time and energy whereas the community offers an opportunity to experiment and to learn and develop on a personal level. The link between the two is the volunteer organisation.
The role of the volunteer organisation is manifold. The organisation has to make sure the volunteer is doing his/her work, and to do so it has to invest time in him/her.
It is important to design, alongside the project, the “mission” of the volunteer. If this is not done beforehand, it can lead to problems, such as the situation where the volunteer arrives and the project leader doesn’t let him/her do anything (for whatever reason, for example fear of lack of experience)
What do we need to do to receive volunteers? Three main areas were identified:
- Identification of needs
- Recruitment
- Handbook for volunteers
Identifying the needs of project. Think about your organization or a specific project and identify how volunteers can be involved. The response is often something like “help with children”, “fundraising”, “administrative work”. But this doesn’t mean much. What exactly will be the role of the volunteer? This is the most difficult thing to organise. What exactly do you need the volunteer to do? Can you offer the volunteer meaningful tasks?
The project and the volunteer organisation must recognise the work the volunteers do — volunteers should be given meaningful tasks to do and trusted to get on with them, as sometimes volunteers discover their talents at the same time as the projects do!
It is also important for the volunteer organisation to keep in touch with the volunteer once s/he is in his/her placement to make sure s/he is fulfilling his/her role, and to help deal with any problems that may arise.
One piece of advice Rasjidah gave was to not try to fill the volunteer with lots of information, but rather to work on their mentality. This is something that will stay with them whereas the technical knowledge might disappear very quickly. Valuable people need to be given a chance and to be trusted — they can make mistakes and that’s how they will learn.
The recruitment process is very important to get right, as is the induction and training of selected volunteers. Once the needs are identified, we can decide who can fit the bill and who can’t.
During recruitment we need to look at:
- Who? What is the target group? What skills are needed, what kind of time commitment? How many volunteers? (Many hands make light work, but too many cooks spoil the broth!)
- How? Are we going to do the recruitment ourselves or use other people?
- Which resources can we use? — i.e. material, institutions, events (specifically to recruit volunteers), communication media.
It is important to bear in mind the social context when we are recruiting, as there are times when volunteering is in vogue and others when it is not.
We looked at the importance of a volunteer handbook or manual, one of the main tasks to be accomplished before the arrival of a volunteer in order to prepare the terrain.
One of the first questions ICYE asks a project is “do you have a volunteer manual?” and if the answer is “no”, then the project is not considered as being ready to host volunteers, and is given help to create one. This is a key question.
Small group discussion followed on what a manual should contain, before we came back into the main group for feedback.
According to Rasjidah, the manual should provide the following information:
- Basic information about the project/organisation,
- The community context,
- An explanation of the role of the volunteer and the role of other people involved in the project — what is expected of the volunteer and what can s/he expect of others?
- A clear explanation of the tasks of the volunteer,
- How the volunteer’s contributions relate to the objectives of the organisation
- The answers to common questions — “how do I ...?”,
- Key documents (agenda, minutes, reports, statutes, development plan, address book etc.),
- Photos and testimonies, personal accounts.
Rasjidah summed up the process for the volunteer organisation after the selection of the volunteers:
- Induction and training sessions
- Support (eg for communication between the volunteers and the project)
- Supervision of role and tasks
- Evaluation
- Recognition of work
- Keep in touch
Questions and answers:
It was suggested that it is useful to have one manual for national volunteers and one for international volunteers, as some information in the international handbook might be irrelevant for national volunteers.
Rosanna Hille outlined the important of outside kejiwaan help, for example if the volunteer has a problem with the project leader(s) or other project members s/he needs to be able to go outside the project for support.
Finally Rasjidah reminded us that volunteers can change other lives but you as a volunteer host can change their lives too. She urged us to always bear in mind that we are dealing with volunteers, who are there because they want to be!