The Davos 2008 question

News from the KaosPilots

Hi there, Matti, it is so great to hear all the connections behind the scenes!

I had Frederik visiting us in the selfHUB last week. He was a delegate at Imagine 2005. We had an interesting chat about transforming the German school system and I told him about the course on sustainability education in schools that I am excited about to start in January.

Speaking of Ursel, I have just discovered this piece by her on the KaosPilot Netherlands website:

“Something about last week and the coming one:

Our first marketing client assignment: exciting! Especially if it is about a topic I am personally really passionate about: How can a company bring about organisational change, especially when this change includes a buy-in into a rather different paradigm? And: how can this company sell their services if the service itself cannot be completely defined upfront but will develop with the process?
We are working for DeLimes, who do consultancy within the Rhinelandic economic philosophy, rather then the widespread Anglo-Saxon model. For me the rhinelandic philosophy goes much more along with human values, it gives space to personal development and offers a possibility for people to love what they are doing. Wouldn´t it be nice if you would wake up exited about going to work every day? If you would look at your job as doing something useful, something that fits into the bigger picture? Something that you not only like, but that also contributes to a world you want to live in? Most people choose their profession for this reason, but just as many forget during their daily work. It does not have to be this way!
It makes me proud to be able to play my small part in this vision. Doing this as a taks from school and learning at the same time is even more thrilling!

Cheers
Ursel”

Enjoy the Holidays and looking forward to see some of you again at Imagine 2008 in January!
FRAUKE

News from Stiftung Welt:Klasse

Hi imaginers,

as promised at our conference in February I’d like to give you some news about me and Stiftung Welt:Klasse project which I presented. It’s not a annoying obligation to do this: I’m happy to tell you, that the idea of Stiftung Welt:Klasse has become reality within the last year and we have really great feedback from the high school students which participated so far at our program in China and Thailand!! I’m happy that we’ve got sponsors, media reports and first awards…. but the most important is that the first students which went abroad came back with a lot of enthusiasm and positive energy!! It’s this feedback which motivates me enormously to go on with the project…

And also Imagine 2007 has it’s concrete impact on Stiftung Welt:Klasse: Ursel did a great job during summer to get started a partnership with a school in Bielefeld!! Thu Phong did amazing work preparing the 12 high school students for China! And finally Eva did the same for the students starting to Thailand

For detailed information you can have a look on www.stiftung-weltklasse.de (for the moment just in German)…  Or just contact me That’s it for the moment…

I wish you all merry christmas and an great and inspiring year 2008!!!

Best,
Matti

Imagine 2008 - Delegate application

We are looking once again for inspiring delegates.

The online application will be available from Monday at: www.aiesec.de/imagine

More details about the conference are available here: imagine_2008_-_delegates.pdf

Resolving the Past – Creating the Future

In October, I have been invited by Young SIETAR to host a World Café at their global meeting. This year’s meeting took place in the youth hostel Ravensbrück situated in the former women’s concentration camp near Berlin.

Inspired by the Peace Café at the European World Café Gathering in Dresden, Allison and me designed a World Café “Resolving the Past – Creating the Future” to debrief the group visit to the former concentration camp site.

The questions that we used were linked to the theme of the conference “Redefining Interculturalism: Past Approaches, Current Needs, Future Directions”:

1. Past – remembering: What purpose does remembering serve?
2. Present – responsibility: What responsibility do I have to address the inequality of my society? And how do I take action?
3. Future – forgiveness: How does forgiveness allow me to move forward?

In the harvest we asked “What is the big question that you avoided asking in this conversation?

Participants captured those questions on post-it notes:
• What can I personally do to address and really act against inequalities in my surroundings?
• Why is there forgiveness with conditions?
• What exactly changes as soon as you forgive (in behaviour, emotions, etc.)?
• What is the power and danger of memorials?
• Are there things you can forgive yourself?
• What did you have to forgive?
• How “majorities” talk about “minorities”, if they are really minority in the world? How to forget or forgive this?
• How to reformulate forgiveness?
• Where am I victim and where am I a victimizer?
• Can we talk about something else, please?
• How do you forgive without God?
• Forgive me for asking, but…?
• With all of this (questions, trainings, etc.) are we (individually) really willing to change (learn, evolve, grow, shift paradigm) or are we trying to feel good and convince ourselves we are good people doing something good?
• When will we be brave enough to face/say what we need to?
• Is there a difference between forgiving people and forgiving “situations”?
• The questions were not answered in such a short time – where are the boundaries of my capacity to forgive?
• Is everything forgivable?
• Is it ever collective? Or always individual?
• How do you forgive?
• How are owning and learning connected in order to move forward?
• How will all the knowledge of this meeting lead me in the future?
• Collective just running from responsibility?
• Why do we pretend to communicate knowing that it is not possible because, thank God, we are different?
• How can we make sure that this event has lasting effects and benefits?
• Why “42” again?
• Do victims who don’t forgive become perpetrators one day?
• Why are we stuck in the same paradigm?
• Will forgiveness and remembering really help?
• Can Palestinians learn from Holocaust remembrance culture?
• understand – accept – feel => forgive?
• Where do we get the love from to embrace our stories, the present, and to forgive?
• Can I influence the process of forgiving cognitively?
• Have I done anything for which I am not yet forgiven?

Personally, this visit to a former concentration camp has been the most moving and touching visit for me. I have visited sites like that before, but when the guide asked the question “How is this history connected to your family” and told stories of how the local people of Ravensbrück where relating their family stories to the site, I realized that I had not asked the question to my grandparents – especially not to my grandfather who was fighting cancer in the last stage, aged 85. I had to leave the presentation room – crying. I have been told war stories by my grandfather but never dared to question things that were told me. What made him a victim (entering the army aged 17, his father being killed by the Russians, his mother committing suicide afterwards, him being a refugee in his own country – moving to Hamburg after the war)? And what made him a victimiser? Was he a bystander not taking responsibility for what was happening in the country?
I was crying that day because dialogue was impossible and my questions were never formulated while he was still alive - which is extremely frustrating for a dialogue facilitator. Exactly, a week later my grandfather died…

Where are the LOHAS practicioners in our community?

Yesterday, our blog received quite some external interest from the LOHAS blog.

What are LOHAS? LOHAS=Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability

What is our contribution as the Imagine Community to the LOHAS movement?

Blog Action Day tomorrow

What would you impart in a final, farewell lecture?

Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has terminal cancer and expects to live for just a few more months. He gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium.

His lecture touched upon lessons learned throughout his life. He gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. It was incredibly inspiring.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from the lecture:

“Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things.”

“It is not about how you achieve your dreams, it’s about to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.”

“Wait long enough and people will almost always surprise and impress you.”

“You value an experience, if you get what you don’t want.”

Full transcript

Full video

Conversations for Change

Through the online Presencing classroom, I have “met” Deborah Goldblatt who is the initiator and director of the Youth Dialogue Project. I have just watched the 16min video about this inspiring project and would like to share it with you:

IMAGINE Community Events # 1

# Oct. 12-14: Stratagem – Sustainability simulation
# Oct. 17-20: Art of Hosting integral
# Oct. 19: CSR UN-Ltd.
# Nov. 09-11: Workshop “Beruf-Berufung”
# Nov. 18-24: Sustainability Winter School
# Dec. 01-08: Pioneers of Change Global Journey, Brasil
# Jan. 11-13: Imagine 2008

# Every Monday: We Are What We Do: 50 actions in 50 weeks

======================
More info in the IMAGINE community