Post on 16-Apr-2017
“Together, how will we begin to host and harvest conversations
that matter in service of Kenya’s future?”
Day three - BLOSSOM
Check in - welcoming new people
Teaching - Divergent Convergent and designing spaces for hosting
Pro Action Cafe on two projects: Mango girls secondary schools and Food Systems in Kenya
Check out and witnessing circle
3 days of nurturing seeds for Kenya
Art of Hosting Kenya 2013
Three days of nurturing seeds for Kenya, learning the Art of Hosting
and Harvesting conversations, and looking courageously into the future.
Thank you for the generous support and sponsorship from Caritas Austria.
Day one - ROOTS Why are we here and what do you remember?
Welcome - frame - check in
Teaching the different levels of Art of Hosting - signing up for practice Remembering our stories - when did you feel proud to be Kenyan?
What supports strong roots in Kenya and what do we dream of?
Being in conversation about Kenya and our work
Feeding forward from yesterday - Four Fold Practice
What practices sustain and nourish us, what are our learning edges? World Cafe: What time time is it in Kenya? What role can we play in
creating the future we want to see? Open Space - Check out
Day two - TRUNK
Day three - BLOSSOM Check in and feedforward - welcoming new people
Teaching: Divergence Convergence and Design
ProAction Cafe on two projects: Mango Girls Secondary School and Food Systems in urban growing centers in Kenya
Check out and witnessing circle
Everybody is a teacher, everybody is a student. Our roots are the same
How to involve community in solving their problems?
Check in
How to resolve conflict of land and water so we can move forward?
How to involve community in solving their problems?
Participatory leadership, what is
working, can we bring
back what we’ve lost?
Be better change makers.
What’s my path in this world?
Building bridges. I know
how to do this
Change the way that
education works. Involve
children in decision
making
How can we localise Art
of Hosting and make it
simple?
This is a personal
work journey
We are loosing our essence. Can we remember with the current pace of Africa?
Who are you and what inspired you to say yes to this invitation?
Consolata’s story was about the
presidential award she received in
2008 for the community work she
did with the NGO called Mango
Tree. The award was for helping
people to improve their lives and
empowering them to take care of
orphans in the community. The
Prime Minister wrote to Mango Tree
that this was a model that should be
replicated not only in Kenya but also
in other African countries.
THE GANG
WHAT DO YOU DREAM OF NOW FOR KENYA? CHARISMATIC LEADERS WHO LOOK AT NEEDS AND RESPOND WITH LOVE AND CARE. A MORE UNITED KENYA NOT TRIBAL DIVIDED. A LESS POLITICAL SOCIETY WHERE WE COME UP WITH OUR OWN SOLUTIONS - A SENSE OF PRIDE
Story telling
Consolata’s role model was her mother, a very inspiring woman full of faith
and a big heart for people. She believed in discovering the good in
everybody. Inspired by God she first became a nun and her motto was to
listen and talk to people, mobilize resources and to educate. Then she felt
she could do more outside the structure of the convent and studied Social
Ministry. After graduation, Mango Tree International hired her. She wants to
bring back African models of childcare, putting children in orphanages is not
good. The children are loosing their roots. It is much better that they are
kept in their community. “How did Africa deal with the poor and orphans in
the past?”. Finding African solutions to African problems.
How to involve community in solving their problems?
This is a personal
work journey
Hosting ourselves - The Four Fold Practice
WHAT IS THE EDGE OF LEARNING I AM STANDING ON RIGHT NOW?
DOING MORE OF WHAT I KNOW NOT LEARNING MORE
PRACTICING PATIENCE AND STOP POINTING FINGERS AT MYSELF
GETTING OUT OF MY HEAD
LETTING IT BE, JUST BE ME
GET MY PRIORITIES RIGHT AND ORGANISE MY TIME BETTER
THE WORLD VIEW IS SO DIFFICULT TO LET GO OF
WHERE DO I FIT IN KENYA OR EGYPT?
NOT BEING A PERFECTIONIST
FINDING MY NEXT LEVEL OF LEADERSHIP
HOW DO I CHOOSE?
WHAT NURTURES US WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH?
BEAUTY
CHI GONG
MOVEMENTS
MEDITATION
MY LIFE FORCE, MY ROCK, MY ANCHOR
JOY
LIGHT
GRATITUDE
PRAYER
GOING SLOW
TOUCHING THE SOIL
LEARNING TO BE OK
SEEING GOOD IN PEOPLE
World Café
We need to start from where we are
Linkage and bridges
Being fire-keepers
Ecosystem as a container to host us
No borders
Catalysts for change
Build love, peace and harmony
We are all connected
Women are magic
GOLD NUGGETS
Open Space
Power napping
Working in spaces/places where hope is lost
32
Open Space Technology (OST)Open Space Technology is a process designed to facilitate parallel working/dialogue sessions around a central theme of strategic importance. Participants create and manage their own agenda by convening and engaging around issues of concern to them. This dynamic process invites people to boldly speak to their passion and take the lead in stewarding its development toward the collective vision. The outcome of each conversation is reported back to the whole group to bring everyone up to speed with possibilities and opportunities for collaboration. It can be used for strategic direction-setting, envisioning the future, morale building, stakeholder consultation, and collaboration. OST may be less suited as an opening methodology, prior to the group getting more comfortable with working together and in participatory ways. ‘Discovered’ by Harrison Owen.
Pro Action Café (PC)!is process was developed to deepen the level of inquiry into speci"c projects, leading to wiser and more collectively informed actions. It is a relatively new methodology that combines the conversation clusters and rounds of World Café with the participant created agenda of Open Space Technology. Participants bring their speci"c projects to three rounds of deep and focused conversation to discuss the ‘quest’ behind the question, what might be missing and the next steps toward action. It is well-suited for the strategic prioritization and action planning stages, bringing the added bene"t of cross-pollinating projects with insights and ideas from di#erent departments within an organization, or di#erent viewpoints within a community. Its strength lies in the deep level of inquiry into a speci"c project, the opportunity to access a diverse range of perspectives to strengthen the outcome, and the resulting awareness of the scope of projects within the group. !is methodology was originally developed by Art of Hosting practitioners Rainer von Leoprechting and Ria Beck for use in policy making within the European Commission.
!e Weave – Dialogue-Based Methodologies
Conversations between people of conflicting interests
How can we make the AOH practice grow in Kenya?
How to hold space for cultural awesomeness?
Creating and maintaining healthy conversation between people of conflicting interests?
How do you hold a space when one individual’s mission is to destroy/destabilise?
31
!e Circle (TC)!e Circle is an ancient form of meeting used to invite people into shared leadership and participation through thoughtful speaking and deep listening. Participants sit in a circle and use agreements, practices and principles designed to care for the well-being of all. It is regularly used to open and close an engagement, and at times during the process. In opening the engagement, it brings focus to the purpose, invites each person into an equal role, brings the participants’ attention to the present moment and their intention to the well-being of the whole group. To close the engagement, the circle provides a way to ‘check out’ by allowing each person to speak to the center. !e question for inviting people into any opening circle stems from the simple query, ‘why are you here?’ It can be expanded in many ways to invite participants to share why they care about the purpose from a personal and/or professional level. Closing questions center around ‘what am I taking with me from our shared work?’
World Café (WC)!e World Cafe is a collective conversation with an overarching theme. Participants move between conversation clusters (café-style tables) in successive rounds (usually three), sharing ideas and insights. A “host” remains at each table to share key insights and questions with new participants in each round, and harvest the "nal results. O#en used early in a process, World Café creates the space for individual relationships of trust and transparency to form. Within a very short time, every person in the room will have had deep conversation with as many as twelve others. !ere are many times throughout an engagement where the bene"ts of dialogue in a ‘Café’ setting can bring clarity to the collective intelligence of the group. It can be useful at the earlier stages of the engagement, for example, to explore sustainability in the context of the participants’ personal and professional lives, to surface current strengths and challenges, or for a high level sustainability principles analysis. !is methodology is also suggested as appropriate for reconvening to assess progress on the strategic action plan. Co-founded by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs.
!e Weave – Dialogue-Based Methodologies
SESSIONS:
What’s happening in Kenya and what role can we play to contribute to the future we want to see?
What do I want to explore further in more depth ?
How to involve community in solving their problems?
ProAction Café
HARVESTTIME TO WALK AROUND AND TRAVEL BACK
AND SEE WHERE WE CAME FROM. TIME TO
SHARE HOW WE ARE FEELING NOW AFTER
THREE DAYS OF BEING WITH EACH OTHER
IN LEARNING, EXPLORING AND SHARING
OUR KNOWLEDGE, PASSION AND SKILLS.
32
Open Space Technology (OST)Open Space Technology is a process designed to facilitate parallel working/dialogue sessions around a central theme of strategic importance. Participants create and manage their own agenda by convening and engaging around issues of concern to them. This dynamic process invites people to boldly speak to their passion and take the lead in stewarding its development toward the collective vision. The outcome of each conversation is reported back to the whole group to bring everyone up to speed with possibilities and opportunities for collaboration. It can be used for strategic direction-setting, envisioning the future, morale building, stakeholder consultation, and collaboration. OST may be less suited as an opening methodology, prior to the group getting more comfortable with working together and in participatory ways. ‘Discovered’ by Harrison Owen.
Pro Action Café (PC)!is process was developed to deepen the level of inquiry into speci"c projects, leading to wiser and more collectively informed actions. It is a relatively new methodology that combines the conversation clusters and rounds of World Café with the participant created agenda of Open Space Technology. Participants bring their speci"c projects to three rounds of deep and focused conversation to discuss the ‘quest’ behind the question, what might be missing and the next steps toward action. It is well-suited for the strategic prioritization and action planning stages, bringing the added bene"t of cross-pollinating projects with insights and ideas from di#erent departments within an organization, or di#erent viewpoints within a community. Its strength lies in the deep level of inquiry into a speci"c project, the opportunity to access a diverse range of perspectives to strengthen the outcome, and the resulting awareness of the scope of projects within the group. !is methodology was originally developed by Art of Hosting practitioners Rainer von Leoprechting and Ria Beck for use in policy making within the European Commission.
!e Weave – Dialogue-Based Methodologies
“ANYONE WHO CREATES MAGIC
IS MY FRIEND.”
“BEHIND THOSE CHILDISH EYES
THERE IS A SHARP MIND.”
“YOU HAVE TAKEN ENCHANTED
PATH AND YOUR PASSION
CALLS FOR THAT.”
Witnessing circle, offering and receiving gifts and checking out:
“IT HAS BEEN THE TRUTH I
HAVE BEEN SPEA
KING.”
“AFRICAN MAMA WITH A
BIG HEART.”
“I don’t know where I’m going but the journey is wonderful”. “I don’t know where you’re going either but the people who will meet you we’ll be blessed to have you.”
“You are an inquisitive catalyst
for change.
You have a permanent smile and beautifu
l
eyes. You are deeply connecte
d to your
roots, you are humble and caring.
Kenya
needs a lot of you.”
“NOW YOU HAVE SOME MATES
TO ORGANISE THE NEXT ART
OF HOSTING. YOU ARE SO
RESILIENT AND HAVE A BIG
HEART.”
“I am in love with you. You are a beam of light and an inspiration to your students.”
“YOU ARE A FIRE CRACKER,
ENERGETIC FREE SPIRIT. YOU
B R I N G S U R P R I S E S A N D
UNPREDICTABILITY, HEALTHY
CRAZINESS. A LIVING WILD
WOMAN.”
“You are a young energy, don’t be afraid of yourself.”
“You are like Mercury, so resilient.
Great things were started by few
people.”
“You are an amazing woman with a bright future for Kenya. You are always looking for the goodness within people.”
“You are a down to earth person, a fire carrier. You have a good smile.”
Work like this, feels forme so light and rightIt is a miracle!
It was a joy to be hereI could be myselfI will never be the same
Thank you It was very naturalI am very glad to experience Art of Hosting life
Unique is that I willremember the importance of reflectionYou get a deeper levelThe real needs that needs To be done
You made me feelMyself again. We wereAuthentic and true
It’s been a journey. IWill use it to enrich myWork
I really don’t knowWhere I am going, but itis filled with richness
There was a place forSilence, to reflect, to be.It made me fall in lovewith Kenya again.
CONTACT DETAILS:
Contact details for AoH Kenya:
Judith Stemerdink-Herret Tel +254 788 516 866aohinkenya@gmail.com
Contact details hosting team:
Linda Joy Mitchell www.lindajoymitchell.org.uk linda@lindajoymitchell.org.uk
Silas Lusiasslusias@gmail.com
Art of Hosting international webpage:www.artofhosting.org www.artofhosting.ning.com