Gentle Action Blog » Gentle Action

Listening

F. David Peat — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:53:11 +0000

Rye Barcott was a US Marine who became interested in what fuelled terrorism and inter-ethnic violence. He decided that the way to find out would be to travel to Africa and on his way to Rwanda the young man found himself in Kibera, a very large slum near to Nairobi. The young man learned Swahili and began talking to the young people and listening to what they had to say. It was at this point that Tabitha Festo, a nurse, pointed out that he had been talking to young people but had not listened to her. She told him that she had a plan to sell collard greens but needed a little money to get started. Barcott gave her the equivalent of $26.
A year later he returned and visited Tabitha’s shack and received a great surprise. Tabitha had used the money she made from the sale of collard greens to buy medical equipment and turn her home into a clinic. Ten years later the Tabitha Medical Clinic comprises 13 rooms with doctors and clinicians, X-ray and pharmacy and HIV counseling service with over 40,000 patients visiting each year. All this from $26 and someone who was willing to listen.

Barcott’s story can be found in his “It Happened on the Way to War” published 2011.

Unsweet Charity

F. David Peat — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:33:09 +0000

Keith Waterhouse is the British writer of popular novel who died earlier this year. His 1992 “Unsweet Charity” makes an interesting point about the whole notion of charity. The fictional small town of Badgers Heath has an obsession with charities and good causes. Walk outside on any day and there will be people on stilts, or clown outfits, shaking cans and asking for donations to all manner of causes. The highlight of the year is their Bonfire night but this year the Bonfire Committee are approached with a new plan, a week long Bananaskin Week in which all the various energies of the community will be focused on a vast fund raising effort. But when it is proposed that rather than donating the money to a number of different charities, but rather to one “Children of the Brazilian Forest” , Eric one of the members has doubts. He doesn’t know anything about that particular charity or how much money will be wasted on administration. His colleague Barlow however replies that Eric is not really seeing the whole point of the enterprise.
Eric is willing to admit that, even if money is spent on administration, at least some of the money gets through and without it people would starve. But now Barlow points out that all this has nothing at all to do with charity. The whole point is not the starving children but that putting money in the tin can “makes us feel good”. After all, if people really cared about starving children they’d be down there in Africa or South America trying to help directly. But there is an easier way, simply write a cheque and then the world is off our back, and what’s more it gives is a rosy glow into the bargain. That’s why it’s better to give than to receive.
A very cynical point of view perhaps. But what about those Christmas cards we are receiving this time of the year with a very prominent message on the back that “the profits from this card are going to the following charities…” or “the sender of this card supports the following charity”? Christmas cards are a business like any other business and attaching them to a charity is, in a sense, a successful marketing approach and may indeed give the sender a rosy feeling into the bargan.

Maxims

F. David Peat — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:42:58 +0000

The world is a highly complex and interconnected place yet so often we have the tendency to reduce the multifaceted web of our lives to a few simple maxims. A couple of decades ago the phrase “paper or plastic” would run thought people’s heads as they approached the check out of a supermarket. Each of us had to make a decision on something that would effect the planet, but which was the correct choice. It took some time for the penny to drop for the answer was “neither” – just bring reusable shopping bags with you when you go to the supermarket.
A maxim which has become fashionable today is “eat locally”. On the face of it this is the ideal solution. It reduces your carbon footprint and supports local economies – or at least that what it is supposed to do. But is it always that simple? As it turns out Canadians who eat their lamb locally have a larger carbon footprint than those who buy lamb from South America. Certainly there is a footprint involved in flying the lamb several thousand miles, then shipping it to the supermarket. But on the other hand Canadian sheep must be kept in heated enclosures over the winter months with considerably outweighs the footprint involved shipping the meat from South America.
Again if we only eat locally this means we will not be buying produce from Third World countries whose economies depend on exports – the alternative is yet another round of aid programs.
Admittedly these are rather extreme and simplified arguments and am I guilty of the same thinking that produces Maxims in the first place? I think my point is that the issues we face are highly complex and really do need thinking through. In most cases this “thinking through” may be too demanding or require a high level of expertise. Nevertheless I think we must always be willing to question those who appear to have “all the answers” and search around for new and more creative solutions.

Sustainable City of the Future

F. David Peat — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 15:43:15 +0000

The Pari Center has jointed centers in Berlin, London, Lisbon, Tromso and Stockholm for an E.U. sponsored study of the sustainable city of the future. For more information go to www.paricenter.com/library/papers/unigrowcity.php

SHAPE program

F. David Peat — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 08:17:40 +0000

From Bob Wright
Mark J. Gordon has given away 3.5 Million thru his foundation. He’s seeking to create the next generation of non-profit givers by reaching students while they are still in HS. The SHAPE program is currently offered in 41 high schools: 39 in south Florida and 2 in Vermont. Currently 1600 students are participating but they hope to take the program nationwide next year.

http://www.shapestudents.org/

No Agenda Clubs

F. David Peat — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:32:53 +0000

Dear fellows of Gentle Action;
I’ve just finished reading the book Gentle Action, and I feel so happy! I’ve also been browsing through your web-site, the blogs, cases, and discussions. This all looks very promising and meaningful. I really feel you’ve discovered something essential for our time.

What really struck me in the book was the passage related to indigenous tribes and their talking-sticks: “Non-natives often wonder how decisions are made within an indigenous community. In a talking circle a pipe or feather may be passed around, allowing each person to speak in turn. The topics discussed are not so much plans or proposals but people’s feelings, memories, ancient stories. At first sight this appears puzzling until one realizes that a field of meaning is being created which is owned by the whole group, rather than by the particular individuals who speak.”
This made me think of our No Agenda Clubs, where we meet in small groups with no predefined agenda, or goals of any kind. It’s really about creating a common field of meaning, or trust – looking for the small and subtle, through open and spontaneous dialogue, without any hierarchies or structures. In the book the word TRUST is mentioned repeatedly, in many contexts. In our club discussions, the three key words that always seem to emerge are RESPECT, TRUST, and PRESENCE.
So, I felt the need to build links between Gentle Action and No Agenda, in my mind to learn – and then I got this idea of sharing this story with you.
The arrangement is very obvious, there’s nothing new in that: we meet once a month in a nice place for breakfast, or afternoon coffee – and unhurried discussion. The setting varies, essential words are nice and unhurried. Average group size is 15-20 people. Usually there’s no fee, or the fee is minimal to cover the cost related to the venue and breakfast. This has been going on for years, with several groups with different backgrounds and lifespans. The very first club started in 2003, and is still up and running.
As the name implies, we don’t have a fixed program or goal, we don’t ever graduate or get ready, we just explore and flow together. Some members stay on the group for years, some attend for a few times and move on. Sometimes the flow is almost stopped, and we practice the skill of being slow; sometimes we discuss furiously some topic that has made us excited and curious.
The most common question I get when I tell about No Agenda is this: Why is agenda forbidden? How can you achieve anything without agenda?
The term No Agenda is just a provocation, not to be taken literally. We say no to predefined, fixed agendas that are decided by one person, or too few. We say no to mechanical thinking, staying on the predefined agenda even if the world outside is changing, and we should self-reflect and reframe our thinking. We say no to knowing what the other person’s problem is before we have stopped to listen to him or her.
We say yes to spontaneous, creative and playful courses of dialogue that lead to surprising paths of joyful innovation. No Agenda Club is really a Dynamic Agenda Club, or Surprise Agenda Club. It’s about setting spontaneous goals, and achieving them effortlessly. I’d like to say it’s about Gentle Action in dialogue; creative suspension in terms of unhurried discussions with no deadlines – also creative acceleration since there’s space for spontaneous breakthroughs if a point of focus is discovered by the group; building a common field of trust by practicing subtle talk and conscious listening; focusing on presence and respect, and ignoring each others’ organizational or social prestige – we actually have this motto: “everyone’s a leader” since we all have the full power and responsibility of how we lead our lives.
It’s all about taking some distance from doing and practicing being. Every meeting is an oasis of surrendering to who you really are. This surrender opens all channels, and interaction becomes easy, natural, respectful, joyful – and very effective. It’s very much about trust: small words of appreciation, moments of genuine listening, gestures of compassion that make all the difference.
This was a spontaneous free-flow writing experience to me, resulting in a No Agenda -style summary of how I see links between Gentle Action and No Agenda. If you got curious about the story of No Agenda Clubs, there’s more to read on my blog http://noagendaclub.blogspot.com/ – the birth story and insights from various meetings that have taken place recently.
I wish you all spacious moments and Gentle Actions on your path!
Pekka Pirhonen
Coach, development consultant
noagendaclub@gmail.com

Malnutrition

F. David Peat — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:52:16 +0000

Traditionally the way to treat malnutrition amongst impoverished Vietnamese children was for experts from outside to diagnose these children and then supply them with imported foods. This remained successful until outside aid ended and then the children returned to their old habits and became under nourished again.

Then a new approach was tried and that was to identify what healthy children were eating and why they were healthy. Once this had been properly understood then it could be applied to children with malnutrition. In other words the knowledge and the solitions did not come from outside but from the intelligence of the village itself.

Gentle Action on Youtube

F. David Peat — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 10:35:59 +0000

Ryan Polly has made an interesting video on Gentle Action. You can see it at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpWZA_aN4iA

Improving social attitudes

F. David Peat — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:31:27 +0000

In Colombian a professor called Antanas Mockus obtained some remarkable results in Bogotá, improving attitudes of car drivers, saving water for the city, reducing alcohol consumption of drivers, and so on..

In one example, he hired 420 mimes and put them on street corners.They gave out 350,000 “thumbs-up” and “thumbs-down” cards. The cards were meant to approve or disapprove of other citizens’ behavior; it was a device that many people actively – and peacefully – used in the streets and helped to improve the attitudes of car drivers.

He l also launched a “Night for Women” and asked the city’s men to stay home in the evening and care for the children; 700,000 women went out on the first of three nights that Mockus dedicated to them. And this in macho society !!!

Mockus said: “The distribution of knowledge is the key contemporary task. Knowledge empowers people. If people know the rules, and are sensitized by art, humor, and creativity, they are much more likely to accept change.”

For more info see http://www.scribd.com/doc/4891823/Bogota-Mayor-Antanas-Mockus-turned-city-into-a-social-experiment#

The Sewing Machine Project.

F. David Peat — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:17:03 +0000

Margaret Janowski from Wisconsin read an article about a woman who make her livelyhood by sewing but had lost her machine in a tsunami is South East Asia and how it had taken her several year to save for another machine. Janowski who was a keen artist and sewer began to collect donated machine and ship them to Sri Lanka.
Then when to Hurricane Katrina hit she rented a van and drove to New Orleans with donated sewing machines to give to the Mardi Gras Indiana so they could sew their new costumes. This grew to the point where she had collected over six hundred machines donated to help people start sewing related businesses. Her organization “The Sewing Machine Project” has also sent machines to help people become self sustaining in a woman’s collective in Mexico. When the earthquake in Haiti hit, she partnered with Family Outreach International to take a hundred machines, fabric and other supplies to help women rebuild their lives. Recently, when the Gulf of Mexcio oil spill happened, she partnered with residents of Houma, LA to start SeaHope partners – delivering machines which are being used to recycle sails into bags, providing jobs and training and funds to help the Gulf. They have now started offering small business support in broken communities in the US as well as abroad. All of this grew organically from small donations and Margaret herself can hardly believe what has happened as others have joined in with each crisis responded to and it keeps evolving beyond her imagination.