Dear all, Earlier on I wrote I always ask the sponsor to choose and introduce a talking stick.
While most do not find this an easy thing to do, most select something which I could not have thought of, and more often than not the words they introduce the talking stick with are something which, well, you would like to have in writing.................... No-one ever did, until last Saturday, and it is a beautiful example I would like to share with you. The background: we have some 15.000 Somalians in Denmark, fugitives from the war a decade ago. Ninety percent are unemployed. Being foreigners, muslim and black does not make it easier in Danish society to get a job. The question of the Open Space was: "Many thousands Somalians would like to have a job soon - how do we create that success ?" Participants: some hundred people. Somalians, employers, and others somehow connected to the issue. And now for the talking stick, introduced by a Somali woman - here are her words: I have chosen to bring along a key to our closing round. Every single Somalian who was on his way to Denmark, had a dream We all knew it would require hard work to realise that dream The dream was about getting a life with physical and social safety Among other things that means having a job to enable us to pay for a place to live, to have control over our lives, and have a sense of pride in ourselves and thereby be respected in society. This key represents our dream. But it is as if this key does not fit to the keyhole we found here in Denmark ........... However, Today we have created a new key. The key to our dream, to our future. From Today onwards we will use this key to turn into the right direction. We will turn it from left to right and will work hard to realise the dream Greetings from Denmark, Gerard Muller Open Space Institute Denmark Phone: (+45) 21269621 Mail: g...@openspace.dk * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
