SD Network News
Looking Back, Looking Forward: SDIA Recent Meeting Highlights
“Over the years, SD has broadened my view of the world and given me an international perspective of humanity. SD has a small capacity but I have seen it make a big difference.”
“Pat ourselves on the back for just how much we achieve with an almost exclusively, volunteer network.”
“We need to build capacity, strengthen initiatives, and continue on our current path but do it better.”
The evening Meal at Loudwater Farm — July 3rd
From July 3–5 SDIA held its annual Members Meeting and AGM at beautiful and peaceful Loudwater Farm in the UK. We are immensely grateful to Subud Britain, and particularly Annabella Ashby, Haskel Adamson and the team of volunteers for their caring hospitality at this idyllic and convenient meeting place. Loudwater Farm is truly a jewel among Subud properties and should be valued, cherished and developed!
On Saturday, representatives of eight SD national organisations, two project members and a number of other participants came together to explore what we have achieved and where we should be heading in the lead-up to World Congress 2010. We held a workshop called “Looking Back, Looking Forward” on SDIA’s three key goals 1) to support SDIA’s members (75 projects and SD nationals); 2) to strengthen our International Network and 3) to strengthen links with others. The workshop was facilitated by Solihin Garrard of Makesfive™ who wrote an article on the process.
With great support from the SDIA team, willing volunteers and brothers and sisters prepared to be real participants in pursuing Subud’s humanitarian wing, all we had to do was provide a framework for results to happen.
Looking back on the past four years of our work as network, members felt that we have grown in our awareness of SD as an intercultural network; “What makes us different is the inter-cultural aspect of our SD work — we are learning to know each other and the opportunities and constraints we face. This is different from imposing a western model of development on our partners”. Yet we still have a long way to go – recommendations for future action focused on building our capacities and drawing on expertise in the area of communications, project management, fundraising and intercultural awareness. World Congress in Christchurch, NZ was seen as an important opportunity to join outreach and youth involvement with capacity building for SDIA members and the general public.
In the evenings, Lailah Armstrong gave a presentation on ICDP’s activities in 2008, Michael van der Matten spoke about the progress of the Bina Cita Utama (BCU) school in Kalimantan, Lawrence Fryer gave an update on the state of SD projects in India, and Virginia Thomas, Heloise Jackson, Jorge Guerin and Arnaud Delune showed photos and talked about the situation of SD projects in the DR Congo. Polly Skerratt, Chair of SD Britain, also presented a professionally-made video about SD Britain.
On Sunday, we held our Annual General Meeting (AGM). Lusana Blond and Raphael Bate were both elected by members to the SDIA Board. We reviewed the actions that have been taken since our last AGM, and also discussed the proposal of WSA for SDIA to be governed by a WSA policy on the UN. Michael van de Matten and Sabariah van Beek, both early UN pioneers who had worked with Variandra Vittachi and Ed Kerner on the process of registering SDIA, explained the original intention to register SDIA as the social and humanitarian organisation of Subud. Members felt that it was a sign of growth that WSA might seek its own accreditation at the UN, but in the meantime SDIA retains responsibility for its UN accreditation and its policies should reflect this. The SDIA Members meeting was followed by a two-day SDIA Board meeting.
SDIA would like to thank outgoing Board members Paloma de la Vina and Laura Lesley for their service to SDIA and our members. Paloma goes on to take up her new role as Zone 3 representative and Laura Lesley will stay on as an advisor to SDIA.
A full report on the meeting is forthcoming and will be posted on our website.
Want to Get More Involved?
We are looking for candidates to stand for SDIA chairperson and Directors on the Board who will be appointed during Congress. We would like to spread the search as widely as possible, but of course the candidates should have some knowledge and experience of Susila Dharma and development work. Full details are being sent to all SD National organizations. If you would like to become involved in the international aspects of our work or if you know someone who would be suitable, please contact your own national Susila Dharma organisation or committee and ask them for the details. Nominations need to be made through them as they are our voting members. You can also send your questions and recommendations to info@susiladharma.org
And at the Zone 3 Meeting in Spain…
Sharifin giving a presentation
SDIA board and staff members were present at the Zone 3 meeting which took place at the beautiful monastery of Poïo near Santiago de Compostela at the end of May. Despite a busy program, SDIA managed to organize several workshops and presentations over the course of the week. Our Chair, Sharifin Gardiner, with the help of Daisy MacDonald, facilitated a well-attended and lively discussion on possible answers to the current crises facing the world, with a strong focus on environmental solutions. Solen Lees Gratiet facilitated a workshop on the Volunteers Without Tears initiative, which set out the current state of affairs and explored ways forward for volunteering within the SD Network. Although relatively few, the workshop attendees participated actively and provided some useful feedback and ideas. Solen also gave a presentation on a rights-based approach to development within Susila Dharma and on the course she attended in March on Human Rights Law and Advocacy, followed by a discussion on how SDIA can use its United Nations accreditation to forward the network’s human rights work. Our Enterprise Sponsorship Program (ESP) was introduced by Laura Lesley from the SDIA board, and since then two new enterprises have joined up (see below for details).
Member News
A New Social Enterprise — Savings and Loans Cooperative in DR Congo
Albert, the founder of the Albadi School project and Enterprise Chair for Subud DR Congo sent us this news about the new microcredit program he helped start in April:
MEC Savings and Loan Co-op
The Mutual Savings and Loans Co-op (Mutuelle d’Épargne et de Crédit), MEC has been operating since April 22, 2009. MEC’s main activity is to collect and secure its members’ savings and give them access to low interest loans. This rural local bank was created by the people and for the people.
We thought it best to start this micro-finance institution just after our training, which is not the case for so many schemes that have to wait for external funding before taking off. We had to convince people that we were serious; and happily, the Albadi School experience is a living testimony to our neighbours. MEC is being monitored by the Congo Decentralised Financing System Institutions Regrouping (RIFIDEC). This association provides basic and advanced training workshops and meetings for exchanges between micro-finance practitioners.
The cooperative provides two services: savings accounts and loans with an interest rate of 6 percent. We have devised a mobile cashier system for collecting the savings. We feel optimistic in spite of some difficulties that are inherent in the beginning of every enterprise.
- Printing the forms is a tremendous cost to us because we have no proper computer printer or photocopier. We have no safe, either.
- With the commissions we get, we can pay the rent, the electric bill and our transportation expenses; but we have not yet been able to pay our staff any salary.
- As we have not yet received any long-term deposit, giving loans is posing problems for our planning.
- We already have 755 members and 675 are participating in the mutual savings fund.
- Subud members are joining very slowly and Chairman Pokoti has opened an account for Subud DRC.
MEC Savings and Loan Co-op
I could not get the Subud members’ agreement to start this project. Most of them wanted to see what we will achieve and now I have faith that they will respond positively. We need around USD $5,000 as a working capital fund and to purchase a safe and office equipment. We are very optimistic and would welcome any help.
Thank you all,
Albert DILUAMBANZILA M. Ngimbi
Software brings literacy fast: testing Yodigo in India
By Oliver Zielke
Oliver Zielke and two students testing the Yodigo software.
A question that Daniel Cheifetz repeatedly asked me and others in various Subud and enterprise-related discussions always started with: “What would it take to accomplish your idea”? He was not simply being a Chicago businessman, but also compelling us to put aside our fears and tendency to be risk aversive, and to instead start fulfilling our personal potential (following the philosopher Hillel’s famous question regarding living one’s truth: “If not now, when?”) by first creating a simple plan, and then, like learning how to walk, taking the first step.
It was this question I asked myself one morning while living in India at the beginning of this year: “What would it take to find out if Yodigo worked?” Yodigo (the word means “I speak” in Spanish) is computer software originally created by Gabriel Cheifetz to assist my organization, Web Networks, to support indigenous languages. Its promise is to deliver literacy fast using incentives and an entertaining and interactive experience for students.
The answer to my question turned out to be, in terms of money, not very much, given the cost of goods and services in India. After watching learners use Yodigo in diverse settings in India, Vietnam and Cambodia, I also witnessed how the software did in fact work. But what really made this project happen was something I now appreciate with awe: the Subud community and its capacity for grace, for freely giving gigantic healing gifts to the world and to individuals—namely, for me, the business mentoring I have received from members, this revolutionary software itself, the many Subud members who donated to the Yodigo project, Susila Dharma’s agile support as an organization and administratively, and most crucially of all, Susila Dharma India’s chair, Arul Samy. Samy is also the head of the Centre for Culture and Development (CCD), the SDIA-supported organization that challenged me to contribute to helping the poor rural children in India. Samy is a living saint, who raised the bar for my understanding of activism, yet he is a single star in this vast breadth of sky which is our association’s greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts potential to deliver social change. If not now, when?—indeed.
Excerpt from Oliver’s Journal in India:
One boy, Pandian, seems to really “get” the Yodigo lessons, and I sit with him for a while, and witness that extraordinary process of a child actually learning, in real-time, here, in front of me—mouthing out words, whole sentences, intently finding spelling errors and missing prepositions, moving through multiple stories.
Read more from Oliver's journal here.
East Coast Fundraiser & Youth Event at Amanecer Goes Ahead!
The first annual Volunteers without Tears Volunteer camp at Amanecer in Colombia was a huge success. Volunteers rebuilt part of Fundación Amanecer’s school for local and disadvantaged children, followed by a week of activities with the schoolchildren. The camp drew 20 participants from as far as Australia and as close as Amanecer itself. The camp helped bring the residents of Amanecer together, motivated youth to take an active role in Subud, and even helped inspire some to get opened. By all accounts, the camp was extremely fruitful and a great kick-off for the new VWT volunteer camp program!
Thatching the roof of the new school building
But the Camp, which was co-sponsored by SDIA and the Subud Youth Association (SYA), came within a hair of being cancelled when an expected grant fell through.
Three weeks before the camp was scheduled to begin, Alexandra Woodward, the twenty-one year-old organizer of the event, suddenly found that the project was short $5,200. SDIA came up with the part of the money needed for construction materials, but without another $3,000, the Summer Camp would have had to be cancelled. Simone Waddell of Subud Philadelphia, and Suzanne Renna of Subud Boston talked with Alexandra and went back to their respective groups, determined come up with the money. Members of Subud Boston formed a telephone chain asking for support.
In just over a week, through the efforts of Subud Boston members and support from Subud USA, donations had come in from individual American members that totalled $2,700. These donations were funnelled through Subud Boston, Subud USA, and SDIA. At the same time, Subud Philadelphia and Subud France contributed a combined total of $1,500. With $4,240 altogether, the fundraising efforts surpassed Alex’s goal and so the Youth Volunteer Summer Camp will start with a small "nest egg" next year.
Alexandra’s report on this summer’s Volunteer Youth Summer Camp will appear in the next edition of the SDIA Network eNews
ICDP trainees in Angola
International Child Development Programme (ICDP)
ICDP’s June 2009 newsletter provides a comprehensive glance around the world, focussing on their work training children’s caregivers. Read about how Subud members are helping to promote and deliver ICDP training in Australia, Colombia, Paraguay, Portugal and Mexico. See http://icdp.info and the ICDP Annual Report 2008.
Subud Japan’s New SD Committee
We are glad to announce that Subud Japan, which has been a very active supporter of many SD projects for some years, has formed a Susila Dharma committee. They are working on a new section for their Subud Japan website. Ichiro Nakamura is the contact person and can be reached at ichiro@dream.big.or.jp if you want to learn more about what the SD committee in Japan is up to.
SD Britain aims for Sustainability
Hamid Kennedy
Should Susila Dharma be supporting charitable Projects that require ongoing support for operations from outside their own communities? Hamid Kennedy has produced a thought-provoking article for members of SD Britain about how SD Britain is working to target its grant allocation. The SD Britain Board of Trustees is moving towards funding sustainable activities instead of providing on-going support to education and health projects.
…SDB is also keen to ensure that any assistance we provide should help to bring about ‘sustainable’ or long term development. At the moment governments and INGOs tend to measure success by measuring the number of children and citizens who have access to education and health services. They tend not to ask whether access to these services can be sustained, whether the balance of their support is appropriate, or what the cost of funding one area above another is.
Susila Dharma in Our Everyday Life: from SD USA
Liza Ramey, the chair of SD USA sent us a brief update on center fundraising, new board members and a new type of position for SD USA: “Board Associate”. At their recent national Congress in Colorado, SD USA ran a workshop called Sharing Our Acts of Caring: Susila Dharma in Our Everyday Life to highlight all the wonderful humanitarian acts that Subud members may be doing but which may not fall within an SD project or fundraising for SD.
Many of us are doing Susila Dharma in our daily lives. We feel it’s important for members to connect to that, make it real and remove some of the mystery that is perceived of the Susila Dharma board and work.
You can read the full articles and about SD USA at http://susiladharmausa.org.
Watch for Culture and SD Video at Congress: from SD Chile
Susilowati Davanzo from Chile sent an overview of the activities of Susila Dharma Chile in the area of children’s values education using theatre and puppetry over the last few years.
The play Vacuna Valórica is partly acted by children from a high risk school and partly by puppets in a shadow theatre. It is a story of a princess who tries to search for wisdom and meets an old sage who guides her. The idea is that kids can hear some good advice once in a lifetime. They don’t often hear advice about simple human values in their families as they come from drug dealers, prisoners, robbers, etc. This last work was done with help from the Chilean-Indonesian Cultural Organisation together with Conace (the Government anti-Drugs office) and the Cultural Corporation of La Florida. After the Project ended, we went to the Chilean Ministry of Education, and it was finally approved as material for discussions regarding Human Values at Schools (second cycle 11-13 years old principally). It is in DVD format AVI and last less than an hour.
This video will be at the Subud World Congress for those who are interested. Read Susilowati’s complete report.
International Links
Prevention of Child Abuse is a Priority!
SDIA signed on again for the World Day for Prevention of Abuse and Violence against Children, which is November 19, 2009. Please consider what you can do in your local community to observe this important public education opportunity to make prevention of child abuse a priority. This event is coordinated by an Association of NGOs based in Switzerland called the Women’s World Summit Foundation.
Social Forum of the Human Rights Council, 31 Aug– 2 Sept 2009
The Human Rights Council has scheduled its 2009 Social Forum from 31 August to 2 September 2009 in Room XX at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The Social Forum is an inclusive platform for all stakeholders and provides a unique space for open and interactive dialogue between civil society, representatives of UN Member States, the UN human rights machinery, UN entities, grass-roots organisations and intergovernmental organisations. The 2009 Social Forum is to focus on: a) Negative impacts of economic and financial crises on efforts to combat poverty, b) National anti-poverty programmes: best practices of States in implementing social security programmes from a human rights perspective, c) International assistance and cooperation in combating poverty.
The registration deadline is 14 August 2009. More information about this event may be obtained here.
SDIA has used up its UN budget for 2009 sending members to other UN meetings in Geneva so we are unable to provide financial assistance. Since this is an important meeting, we can facilitate the participation of volunteers who are interested in attending and able to cover their own costs to attend. Please contact solen@susiladharma.org for more details.
Partnerships and Reforms for Human Rights Protection: Conference in UK
The Association of Human Rights Protection (AHRI) has scheduled its 10th annual conference on 18- 19 September 2009 in Nottingham, Great Britain. More information, including the programme and names of speakers, is available here.
Cities and the Right to Shelter: UN World Habitat Day is Oct 5
Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka writes:
We hope you will mobilise your communities and partners to join us in celebrating this year’s World Habitat Day on October 5. In a tradition dating back to 1985, the United Nations celebrates World Habitat Day on the first Monday in October each year to reflect on the state of human settlements and the basic right to adequate shelter for all. It is also intended to alert the world to its collective responsibility for the future of the human habitat. For this year’s celebrations, the United Nations chose the theme Planning Our Urban Future to raise awareness of the need to improve urban planning to deal with new major challenges.
Find more information here. You can also make a nomination from the website for the Scroll of Honour!
Opportunities
Free Environmental Training
EarthCorps is now accepting international applications for their environmental service learning program. EarthCorps offers a 6-month service learning program in Seattle, Washington, USA that brings together emerging environmental leaders to learn the fundamentals of: Environmental Service, Community Building and Leadership.
Earthcorps charges no tuition or fees for its services and in fact supplies insurance, individual homestay families, food, gear, a monthly stipend to all international participants and support in acquiring US J-1 Trainee visas. EarthCorps has the following minimum criteria to be considered for the program:
18–25 years of age; Conversational English; No Criminal Record; 4 year college degree in the environmental field and 1 year of relevant work experience OR 5 years of work experience in the environmental field. http://www.earthcorps.org/index.php
From The Office
We now have four Enterprise Sponsors!
Thank you to the two new entrepreneurs who have joined up with the Enterprise Sponsorship Programme (ESP) as a way to support the work of Susila Dharma.
Makesfive™
Makesfive Ltd™ enables organisations to realise their potential by helping them achieve their objectives in more effective ways. Our clients especially like our commitment to work alongside them, treat them as individuals, help find solutions that work for them and revisit them to review progress achieved. Makesfive was set up by Solihin Garrard in 1999, after four years as a self-employed consultant, and before that 15 years as a teacher and project manager in education in the UK.
Markets Intelligence™
Toronto region-based Markets Intelligence™ (MI) gathers strategic reviews/perspectives on global mining - particularly gold mining activity. The focus is on the top 100 largest through smaller producers & explorers. These independent, critical evaluations come from global capital markets, i.e. institutional investors & investment dealer-based analysts. Increasingly MI addresses critical Corporate Social Responsibility issues within global mining. Hence the interest in joining/being recognized by SDIA’s ESP.
Markets Intelligence™ is a company created by Luke Penseney (Canada)
Read more about the ESP program and all our ESP sponsors
Hadrian Holloway
SDIA Welcomes a Summer Volunteer!
We are please to announce that Hadrian Holloway will be working on a 6 week summer volunteer placement with SDIA in Vancouver Canada. Hadrian is an student of anthropology at Durham University, UK.
You can contact Hadrian at hadrian@susiladharma.org
Do You Want to be Published?
We are documenting experiences about SD development to share with the general public and to do this we need to hear your ‘voices’ and experiences. We are looking for well written articles (500-1000 words) on development issues to feature in a number of different SDIA publications. We are interested in considering thought-provoking articles, accessible to the lay reader, with content and lessons learned relevant to the mandate of Susila Dharma. If you feel others could benefit from your reflections on the value of your experiences working in the field of international co-operation, please contact Rosanna Hille to go over your idea. Thanks! rosanna@susiladharma.org
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our Chairman, Sharifin Gardiner on July 22 from all of us on the SDIA team!
The SDIA Network eNews is published once a month from information sent in to the office.
We welcome news items. Deadline for submissions is the middle of each month.