Dear Celia. Interesting is the case you raise
Some questions. You say you've been eight months in Kenya and has
provided some OS, OS tell me all you've done in Kenya have been with the
same subject and with the results that you describe? If you've done OS
in Kenya with a different theme, it would be interesting to know what
happened in those cases.
How do you explain the behavior you describe your professional Kenyan
counterpart?
What cultural considerations into account when you had to call the OS?
In light of the experience Are there any other cultural considerations
that you think you should be aware of?
My impression is that not enough to have a good topic of interest to the
audience and that participation is voluntary to run the OS, it is
required to consider the cultural and contextual variables.
You indicate that Kenya is paid for attending a forum. Well, that gives
a signal of something different and need to consider. How should I call
in Kenya for assistance is voluntary and unpaid? or, is it possible that
participation is voluntary and paid at once?
Regarding the issue, it may be a topic of great interest but is also an
issue that will probably cause fear, which as you say, people avoid
talking to strangers.
In short, the cultural and contextual variables, I think are important
to take into account the experience of Open Space is full and satisfying.
a hug
Jorge Amigo
Thanks so much for your feedback. To answer your questions so far. v
1)Participation was voluntary, although the culture in Kenya is that
people expect to get a payment to attend forums, so some of them were
misinformed and may have come for the expected money. This is a
culture started by foreign aid and is now endemic. The first thing
people ask if there is a forum is 'how much money will I get' to
attend. While the money thing makes true motivation for attending
cloudy, there were some that did know there was no financial gain for
attending.
2)The theme was peace in the community and it was 2 days before the
elections in Kenya. The theme was relevant and something that a lot of
people were directly effected by from the post election violence in
the 2007 elections. So relevance was there but that does not mean it
is something that people are passionate about.
3)It was an open community forum, not within an intact system.c
4)I noticed also that people stayed in their small clusters of people
they knew. They did not mix or move around to work with other people.
Not sure what that was about or how normal that is.
5)Kenya has an education system where children are told what to think
and what to do. It is not a culture that naturally lends itself to
people making their own decisions and breaking out of the usual tribe.
6)Another observation is that people seem to finish their discussions
very quickly and merge sessions so that they cover all the topics in
one or 2 sessions, leaving the later sessions as a blank space where
there is nothing to discuss. It feels like there is a very superficial
discussion of topidocs rather then getting into the heart of it. In a
forum of 100 people, to cover all the topics in a couple of sessions
is a surprise to me.
Any further ideas would be much appreciated. I am a westerner working
in Kenya, so culturally I am still learning a lot. I know I am missing
something important. I think it is helpful to draw my attention to the
question of passion. It does feel like passion is missing, and also
the hunger to get to the bottom of things is missing.
Peace
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