| In
this Newsletter: |
|
1.
[1village] Yahoo Group
2. New Board Members Selected for OVF
3. Joy Tang director of 'San Jose Ojishe House' Entertains
Guests from Around the world in September
4. Promoting
Bottom Up Economics
5. A Day on the Farm
6. Internet Bookmobile Project in Ghana
7. Networked Improvement Communities
8. Tamera
EcoVillage in Portugal
9.
Open Content Movement
10. Collaboration with Tamera
EcoVillage in Portugal
11. AIDS 2004 Conference Special
Report
12. Take Action Against Environmental and Social Degradation
13. Learning from Prem Kumar's
Success
14.
Concentrating Solar Technologies
15. Eradicating Poverty through Profit Conference
16. Global Learn Day Activities |
OVF Updates
1. Open invitation
to Join [1village] Yahoo Group
If
you are interested in any of the topics discussed here,
please do sign up for the [1village] yahoo group. [1village]
yahoo group is an open forum with a purpose: planning for
sustainable future, integrating health, education, community,
shared stories, economic opportunity, and much more, brought
about by appropriate use of computers in villages in accordance
with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's
ICT4D
(Information and Communication Technology
for Development) program. What's inspiring us to do what we
do is a vision of a sustainable future that we believe can
be realized through the power of our thinking and our courage
and perseverance to make it a practical part of our everyday
lives. Learning doesn't end when you get out of college it
continues for a life time. It has been a process of self-learning
and mutual-teaching with the many people who have converged
in our lives that has made oneVillage Foundation what it is today. We thank
you all! Go here
to join the 1Village Yahoo Group.
2. New Board Members
Selected for OVF
On August 20th
oneVillage Foundation Board Chair Joy Tang selected two new
board members to replace vacancies in the three person board.
New board members include Erich Kohler of Switzerland and
Professor Akinsola Akiwowo of Alexander, Virginia. Meetings
are quarterly and the next meeting was scheduled for October
30th, but has been postponed as one of the board members
Professor Akiwowo had an accident and will be recovering. The
appointment of corporate officers will be discussed at that
meeting.
3. Joy Tang director
of 'San Jose Ojishe House' Entertains Guests from Around the
world in September
Joy has long taken pride in
the hospitality she offers to others in need of a place to
stay. One the things that she still holds dear from her
travels to Nigeria is the Yoruba concept of Ojishe. The idea
of Ojishe House is to make visitors/friends feel at home in a
space of togetherness, trust and love. During September she
extended her home to Ilya Eric Lee of Taiwan's prestigious
Academia Sinca and then Dr. Raoul Weiler who is president of
the Brussels's chapter of the Club of Rome.
Joy first met Eric when he
was only 12 years old. He was a student when Joy taught English
classes in Taipei. Eric recently did an internet search on
Joy and then emailed her. He had a chance to meet again for
the first time in 20 years in Taiwan earlier this year. He
then was able to get some time to make a visit here to the
Bay area on business relating to his work at Academy Sinica,
a Taiwanese government funded research institute. He has been
involved in Academia Sinica's Open Source Foundry,
which serves to bring together the Far East open source community
to better develop and integrate open source technologies.
Eric Lee is now organizing the ICOS Open Source Conference
in Taiwan for December. Part of his visit involved exploring
the possibility of promoting the World Vista health care infomatics
system in Taiwan, a system which we see as having great potential
to deliver health care solutions in non-affluent nations as
well, particularly in relation to addressing the AIDS pandemic.
We first met Dr. Raoul Weiler
in the spring. He has since traveled to the Bay Area to promote
his upcoming conference for the Digital World Conference in
May of next year. His most recent trip, in which he stayed
at Joy's house, involved the discussion of what role OVF would
play in organizing the conference. OVF is one of the networked
NGOs that he is working with to prepare for this conference.
We briefed him on our work and how we seek to promote village
level economic development as an alternative to current approaches
which focus on urban areas. We agreed to work on a paper titled
tentatively Village Economy which will explain in detail our
work that would be posted on the Digital World website and
to discus further how our approach might be discussed at the
conference. Dr. Weiler has also offered his support to be
on our International Advisory Board. Please take a look of
his bio.
Read more
about the story of Ojishe.
4. Promoting Bottom
Up Economics the Living Directory Way
Because
of our common interests in promoting the upcoming
Digital World
Conference
(a
focus of which will be the Village Economy theme mentioned
in the above paragraph) in May 2005, Sergio Lub of Living
Directory has generously offered us his directory's services.
We plan to develop an online Affinity Group within the Living
Directory in preparation for the World Resources Institute’s
Eradicating Poverty Conference (more about conference
below in the newsletter). The Living
Directory is
an online directory for many progressive groups. It is one
example of how innovative social networking tools are empowering
people to better serve each other and humanity. Our strategy
is to use the virtual part of the conference, which will take
place in a series of pre-conference events and online discussions
to communicate and promote the oneVillage “Village
Economy” concept to conference participants.
We see this as a way to connect the grassroots with important
decision-makers who are often cut off from the everyday challenges
of the people they are seeking to serve (those who actually
live in the bottom up economy). If you are interested in assisting
us in this process, send an email to [email protected].
We’ll keep you posted on our progress.
5. A Day on "The
Farm" (UCSC's Agro-Ecology Center): Promoting Sustainability
in Education
Farmers not only in the US but
all over the world want to go organic and they need help. Our
recent field trip to the
UC Santa Cruz Agro-Ecology Center
helped
us to see the achievements, the shortcomings and the potentials
of this innovative project. While we visited the Farm, we
were given a tour by Joy Mismo who is from South Africa. She
told us that she will be one of last who will be able to participate
in UCSC's organic farming program scholarship for Africans,
because it is being discontinued for lack of funds. That could
be a loss to many young Africans who have a desire to learn
about sustainable agriculture and apply that knowledge towards
building a sustainable and prosperous Africa. Organic gardening
and lessons on permaculture have recently been introduced
to over 12,000 schools in South Africa. According to South
African Education Minister Naledi Pandor, "Learners have
become familiar with permaculture, an organic system of farming
and gardening that combines people and plants in a way that
produces more energy than it uses. In addition, many schools
now use their projects to implement active learning. They
grow their own food, harvest, conserve and manage water, recycle
waste, generate income for the school, run outreach projects
and much more." For more information go to the Organic
Consumers article.
To build on the
progress that has been made both here and in places like South
Africa in relation to sustainability education programs, we
are developing a fellowship and cultural exchange program that will train
people from non-affluent nations in the US through the development
of a prototype sustainable design and development center.
This (Unity) center will focus on a comprehensive education
in all areas of sustainable development. People will learn
as they participate and immerse themselves in the building
and design process of creating sustainable environments. Africans
and others will go to the US to learn about cutting edge approaches
to sustainability, while Americans will go to Africa to assist
in the process of building centers to promote sustainable
and integrated ICT solutions in rural Africa as well as learn
about African culture, customs and way of life.
Here are some photos of the Field Trip and a
blog entry on the field trip.
6. Anywhere Books
and the Internet Bookmobile Project in Ghana
In 2003, Richard Koman and Brad deGraf founded Anywhere
Books, a spin-off of the Internet Archive. They received
a grant from the World Bank's InfoDev group partnering with
the National Library of Uganda to create the Uganda Digital
Bookmobile. The project includes scanning stations and a
printing system at the National Library in Kampala. The
Bookmobile itself focuses on a relatively small geographic
area about an hour from Kampala. OVF has been working with
Anywhere Books to expand their bookmobile programs into Ghana.
We are looking at how we can integrate the bookmobile with our
Catch IT Young Program, which has reached out to various
school districts with the support of community members,
teachers, IT professionals and civil governments and the
students and teachers. They are eager to learn, but they
scarcely have the resources to do so. Joy in her most recent
trip to Ghana (April 2004), attended a “Holistic ICT for
community development” forum at the University of Education,
Winneba, Ghana, where she emphasized the co-development of
learning and teaching programs from the US and the local
communities.
CatchITYoung
has been embraced by the Ministry of Communication in Ghana.
For more about Anywhere Books go here.
Joy Tang and Richard Koman
were recently Interviewed by Wired Magazine about Anywhere
Books. Katie Dean of Wired Magazine interviewed Joy Tang on
September 14th. Joy identified how ICT tools (in this case
the bookmobile) can be used towards human capacity building
and network readiness. Art and science collaboration is one
way in which we have demonstrated how youth leadership can
be used creativelyto inspire a flourishing youth movement
in Africa. The Anywhere Books Bookmobile is an access point
to knowledge in further empowering the youth there. Our vision
and dream is to work with Anywhere Books to develop this program
in Ghana and eventually to other parts of Africa.
For more read the Article.
Collaboration
and Alliance Building
7. Doug Engelbart
and Networked Improvement Communities (Silicon Valley NIC)
On the USA front, OVF has sought to cultivate and build relationships
to create a Silicon Valley network that is more conscious
of how to use information and communications technologies
(ICT) to improve the state of humanity. The oneVillage Foundation
has invested several years of work and research into effective
approaches and processes to address world urgent issues. From
this we have developed a large body of information and associated
networks. We believe that if properly mobilized and accessed
that knowledge base has powerful relevance in developing a
concrete process of realizing a "global sustainability
network" that can be rapidly replicated and linked to
other similar efforts throughout the world. There are many
who believe that the rapid replication of sustainable technologies
is vital not only to the continuation of civilization but
to humanity itself. Our focus is on developing "living
laboratories" where we can test out the validity and
feasibility of this integrated approach we have been working
on in relation to promoting practical approaches to "ecoliving."
Related to this effort at developing an effective interdisciplinary
approach to promote whole systems thinking, has been a series
of meetings that we have participated in as part of an attempt
to develop a Silicon Valley Networked Improvement
Community or
NIC.
At a post-conference
meeting at the venue of the Hypertext Conference 2004 (UC
Santa Cruz), we had a chance to meet up with some leading
programmers involved in the Hypertext Movement. They are
working with Doug Engelbart (a Silicon Valley inventor who was
a key force in developing computer interface technologies that
most of us now take for granted like the mouse for more about
his work and vision
see the wired article by Ken Jordan) to develop the
hypertext idea. His organization The
Bootstrap
Alliance
has developed an augmentation
model that not only improves the way information is exchanged
but also facilitates the development of social networks that
effectively use that information to increase collective IQ.
What emerged from these meetings
was the realization that augmented networks or NICs are not
only about technology or theoretical approaches, but also
about people coming together to discover themselves, exploring
the obstacles that keep them from collaborating towards effective
collective action. Before any group can come together to co-create
effective holistic solutions to the world’s problems,
the group must first empower its members and create a culture
of trust where people feel productive working together as
a team. Many of the most talented innovators in Silicon Valley
have gone unrecognized, because they have not been part of
process that teaches them how to effectively work together
in non-hierarchal groups. The challenge is to link grassroots
technologists and “cultural creatives” together
to co-create effective holistic solutions to the world’s
problems, weaving together an infrastructure that enables
people to more fully realize their potential or collective
IQ, as Dr. Engelbart refers to it
For more
about NICs and augmented human development see our "NIC
ecoliving module"
here.
8. Open Content
Movement
We were recently introduced to
the idea of Open Content. Joy Tang joined Anil Srivastava of
AcrossWorld Technologies, Rob Stephenson of OpenCourse.org and
Kathy Long in attending the African Virtual University-World Bank-Hewlett
Foundation video conference on Aug. 25th.The Hewlett
foundation has been doing some interesting work. The Hewlett
Foundation provided funding enabling
MIT
to open source its educational curriculum by way of the internet.
The open content movement is promoting ways to enable people
to access free and open sources information. The African
Virtual University (AVU) is adopting
the open content method to increase information access for
Africans. We are exploring the possibility of incorporating Open
Content into our sustainable design and development education
curriculum. We look forward to your feedback relating to the
development of this interdisciplinary program. The preliminary steps
include looking at how we could enable content collection from both
the university and community levels. This would be the key
area that the parties (WB, Industry, Foundation and NGOs)
would have to address these issues to make any such program
a real alternative to existing top-down educational systems.
See more about the Conference at the OpenCourse.org website.
9. Collaboration
with Tamera EcoVillage in Portugal
The Tamara ecovillage
is located in Portugal. Their “healing biotopes” project resonates with our goal to
"Strengthen communities to support the healing of people" and
to
"build social immune systems." Many of the people
at Tamara have been living in intentional communities for
30 years or more, so we respect that wisdom
and hope to share in the process of spreading it
out to the world. Libby Hubbard recently traveled to Tamara and she presented
a letter from Jeff Buderer on behalf of the oneVillage Foundation
and addressed to the Tamara community. The people of Tamara responded
requesting a link exchange and they have added a link
to our site which we have reciprocated by adding
their site to our resources page (read more about their Solar Power Village
in the Ecology and Sustainability section of this newsletter).
For more about the Healing Biotope Project go here.
10. AIDS 2004
Conference Special Report
Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima of Students Without
Borders and Ingrid Kloet of Planet Poz New Mexico were both
participants in the AIDS2004 Yahoo Group. The AIDS2004 Yahoo
Group was actually part of pre conference preparations for the
XV International Conference on AIDS held in Bangkok, Thailand
between July 11-16. In addition, Dabesaki participated in the
Bangkok Youth Force and the Bangkok Youth Groups, which were
the major international groupings working to ensure the
effective participation of youth at the conference and to
promote youth issues and visibility. These groups feel that
the needs of the youth in are not being addressed in the AIDS
relief community. A major goal is to increase the level of
participation among the youth at the AIDS conferences and
through organizations involved in AIDS related work such as
UNAIDS.
Dabesaki reports several breakthroughs
including a dinner with leaders responsible for coming up
with solution to the AIDS crisis. He spoke at the dinner on
behalf of the emerging Global Youth HIV/AIDS Coalition in
which he discussed how to increase participation of the youth
and to ensure their concerns were being heard. Those attending
included: Dr. Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director, Senator
Mechai Viravaidya, Community Programme Co-chair, Don De Gagne,
Community Programme Co-Chair, Zackie of Treatment Access Campaign,
Alice W., Chair of ICW, Richard, Executive Director, ICASO
and a few others from the office of the UN Secretary General,
UNAIDS and the Thai Government. He also facilitated a workshop
session on "The Role of Youth in the third decade of
HIV/AIDS. Dabesaki was part of the work group that developed
the framework for the Global Youth Network and also spoke
at the Youth Press conference held during the day before the
closing ceremony.
Dabesaki's
report
contains an overview of the entire participation of youth
at the conference, while Ingrid's report
is more of a first-hand account.
The Global Youth
AIDS Coalition is forming on the momentum of the
AIDS 2004 Conference. The Global Youth AIDS Coalition is seeking
input and support from young leaders in the fight against
HIV/AIDS worldwide. They are currently embarking in a discussion
with any youth and/or adult allies interested in contributing
to the formation of a Global Youth AIDS Coalition. This coalition
was proposed by youth worldwide, including the youth attendees
of the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok and XIV
International AIDS Conference in Barcelona. Goals:
1. Identify the needs of youth
2. Set forth goals and objectives
3. Brainstorm on funding and organizational issues
4. Create working groups with thematic focuses
5. Identify key leaders and their skills
Help participate in the e-consultation. Full details about
the coalition can be found here.
Ecology and Sustainability
11. The
Time is Now to Take Action Against Environmental and Social
Degradation
Recently the
Threshold
Foundation
put out the word that
it was seeking innovative ideas on how to raise awareness of
the "extinction crisis" and was offering a $50,000 grant to
develop this idea into an effective process of of braking what
they refer to the taboo about discussing species extinction in
American society. We along with others in our network
including Janet Feldman, Franz Nahrada and Andrius
Kulikauskas, recently submitted a Letter of Inquiry to
Threshold in relation to the grant. Species extinction through
is only the tip of the iceberg. The health of the planet is
declining at a rapid rate due to our increasing consumption of
natural resources according to World Wildlife Fund’s
(WWF)
Living Planet Report
2004
. Humans are now
consuming 20 percent more natural resources than the Earth
can produce. As a result, other species are being crowded
out of existence. "We are spending nature's capital faster
than it can regenerate," said Dr. Claude Martin, director
general of WWF International. "We are running up an ecological
debt which we won't be able to pay off unless governments
restore the balance between our consumption of natural resources
and the Earth's ability to renew them." What emerged
among us is the realization that the unprecedented human induced
extinction of species is happening parallel to the extinction
of indigenous cultures all over the world. One part of the
solution that we proposed in a letter of inquiry to the Threshold
Foundation is to develop a workshop, outreach and community
building program that teaches people how to build local economies
that are sustainable and address local needs rather than external
ones.
Go here
to find out more.
12. Seeking
out Best Practices: Learning from Prem Kumar's Success in
Empowering Villages in India
We welcome Chris Macrae into our network! On the
oneVillage Discussion group Chris has made us aware of Prem
Kumar who has spent the last 25 years building up a 20 person
organization (plus a wider field force) that serves 150000
people across 150 villages. Chris says, “Its one of
the most interesting models of grassroots organization that
I have encountered…” He notes Prem’s ability
to unite cultures, a key prerequisite to any truly authentic
community development model succeeding. Chris is starting
a blog “both on what areas Prem would be happy to be
seen as a benchmark example of and what his region wants to
develop next.”
For more about Prem and
other best practices see Chris'
Blog.
13. Concentrating
Solar Technologies show Promise as an Emerging Renewable Energy
Technology for Socially Conscious Investors as well as a Catalyst
for Village Level Development
Recently we came across several technologies we feel are compelling
and relate to the development of self-reliant Community
Development Centers (CDCs or Unity Centers) in underserved
communities. First was a revisit of
Stirling Energy
Systems
(SES) technology
and the news that they are seeking investors for a large scale
1000 megawatt (MW) power generation project (enough electricity
to power a small city) - in what would be if it was completed,
the largest solar plant in the world. SES is a development
stage energy company that is one of the pioneers of concentrating
solar energy systems. Their technology uses mirrors to reflect
the sun's energy to a central point in the solar array. This
point as you would imagine gets very hot, enough to melt some
metals. However SES uses its solar dish systems to power what
is called an external combustion (Stirling) engine, which
unlike the internal combustion engines that power cars and
trucks relies on external heat to move the pistons and provide
physical motion that can produce electricity or heat. They
claim that once these systems are being mass produced that
they can deliver power that is significantly cheaper than
existing solar PV technologies.
Concentrated solar also came
up in our email discussion with the Tamera Community. Kate
Bunney is one of the people at Tamera involved with the development
of the Solar Power
Village
. She is a fundraiser
for the Institute that sustains Tamera and specifically for
their Middle East Peace Village Project.
The Solar Power Village is not conceived as a stand alone
system, but as an integral part of a durable and effective
social living model. The Solar Power Village is being developed
in co-operation with the inventor Jurgen Kleinwachter of Bomin
Solar Research GMBH. It consists of an set of solar collectors
that collect solar radiation and then focus it on a tank that
contains oil. As the oil heats up, it causes a Stirling engine
to move. The Stirling provides motion that can be used as
a power source in a community to mill grain, pump water or
produce electricity or heat. Tamera will be the site where
this design will be first implemented - after its test period.
Kate adds that “we believe it would have highly positive effects
for hot climate 'majority countries'." In the coming
months we will be exploring this technology and what prospects
it has towards improving the viability of renewable and sustainable
technologies for the grassroots in both affluent and non-affluent
societies. We'll keep your posted.
Read more
about Solar Power Village and
Concentrated Solar.
oneVillage
Networked Meetings and Conferences
14. Eradicating
Poverty through Profit Conference and Virtual Pre-conference
Events
The World Resource
Institute is organizing the Eradicating Poverty through Profit
conference, an event that addresses social enterprises, bottom
up economy - "doing good and doing well." Several
prominent publications have recently explored the idea of
the Bottom Up economy including Wired, BusinessWeek, The Economist
and The Financial Times. Go here for more. The WRI
Conference preliminary program is
here, complete with newly confirmed speakers and topics. In
preparation for the December 12-14 conference in SF, there
will be a series of virtual conference events. The first
virtual conference began on the 25th of October and there are
online meetings scheduled for the 8th and 15th of this month.
The virtual conference will be highly moderated and make
possible the participation of NGOs, community groups,
entrepreneurs and small/medium-sized enterprises, and
university experts from developing countries. To participate
you need to become a member of the online communities of Skoll
Foundation's Social Edge and Global Knowledge for Development.
Check
here
for details.
15. Global Learn Day
Activities, November 21st
Janet Feldman director of
KAIPPG International
says she is "helping
to coordinate the Africa region, and one big theme this year
will be the use of radio in Africa to address a variety of
themes, like nutrition, HIV/AIDS, and environmental education.
The use of ICTs, youth and women, a focus on health and education,
the arts, all of these are important and would make for great
topics of discussion!"
In years past, there were
a lot of project presentations, and a focus on the Internet
so people (who were tuning in via website) could see websites
and visuals while the person spoke about their work. There
has also been the option of calling in by phone--which is
great in terms of dialoguing with colleagues but expensive--and
now there is an option of free download of a program which
makes chatting via the Internet easier, and free. The organizers
(Janet and creator John Hibbs) would like to see more "roundtable"
discussion, by which they mean less "show" in some
cases and more "tell"! Discussions with colleagues
about issues, projects, challenges are encouraged!
Here are the speakers scheduled
so far:
- Sylvie Siyam on the use
of radio for rural women
- Francis Anyona will discuss
two ICTs-related projects a group of us are working on with
the Commonwealth of Learning (as well as his own work with
Ikonzo Musanda Self-Help Group in W. Kenya)
- Neema Mgana, co-founder
and director of ARYI (African Regional Youth Initiative)
will talk about their extensive work with youth
- Jennifer Staple of Unite
for Sight has indicated that a volunteer might be able to
speak about their eye-health programs in Africa
- Ed Cherlin of oneVillage
Foundation, "the Simputer Evangelist", will speak
about open-source issues, the Simputer, and related issues
(perhaps a Star Trek story or two, haha?!)
- Rick Nelson of SolaRoof
will speak about that project and sustainable development
- Victor Odongo of St. Anne's
Home in W. Kenya will talk about their work (helping orphans)
and perhaps some of his creative work (music, films)
- August Kowero, the National
ICTs Coordinator in Tanzania, will speak about the Tanzanian
program.
If you are interested in joining
please let John ([email protected])
or Janet Feldman know ( [email protected]).
For more about the conference go here.
About
us:
The one Village Foundation
seeks to assist people in Africa in overcoming the AIDS pandemic
by addressing immediate needs such as in the construction
of treatment centers and orphanages, while also providing
a proactive and whole systems platform to promote sustainable
development in Africa…and beyond. We seek to promote
social enterprise solutions that integrate ICT, with sustainable
development in both developing and developed regions of the
world. We are dedicated to increasing collaboration and access
to ICT in under-served communities all over the world as part
of a process of building local problem-solving capabilities,
and increasing the level of economic opportunity for all who
share our commitment to socially conscious and sustainable
economic development.
What
you can do:
We have totally
committed ourselves to bring this vision to life, so it can
be shared. Now we ask for your support. We invite you to join
us in building the infrastructure needed to create Unity Center
prototypes in Ghana, Nigeria,
Kenya, and South Africa. Your contribution in any of the following
areas will enable us to create social enterprises that are
strong enough to overcome inertia and doubt, and to demonstrate
the capacity of empowered youth at a level that cannot be
ignored. oneVillage Foundation has several projects in
development
. The core goal is
to support the development of Unity Centers in Africa as well
as one coordinating and training center here in the US as
part of a process to promote an integrated and whole systems
approach to sustainable development. We invite you to consider
both our overall approach and these specific projects, and
to join us in addressing the world’s most urgent issues:
1. Make a donation
to the oneVillage Foundation.
2. Send us comments, news or relevant events.
3. Subscribe to this monthly newsletter by sending an email
to: [email protected]
and write subscribe in the subject line.
4. volunteer!
Write, email or call us at the oneVillage Foundation:
102 Ballatore Court
San Jose CA 95134
Voice: 408.435.0775
Fax: 408-351-8887
[email protected]
http://www.onevillagefoundation.org
http://www.onevillage.biz
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