Down to Business

Katowice is a tough town. There used to be 6 working coal mines here, steel mills, shipping. They're down to 3 working mines, lots of the steel mills are closed. The place feels like Pittsburgh, with a Soviet city planner set loose. Older buildings are grimy, or overly serious, "soviet style". Unemployment is low - lots of students, people are still making it. But its a gritty, tough place.

Bona Fides is a Good Government group, and they've had some success in the five or so years they've been at it. Led by an energetic Katowice enthusiast, Grzegorz, they have a staff of 8 or so (part timers, shared staff, etc.) and they're all young, smart, ambitious and energetic. For two or three years they've been struggling to get a community organizing project started. Twice they reached out to do one-on-ones in target areas. Once another community engagement, community planning process came in on top of the organizing work and they held back to let it work. Another time the area was just too far from the office, the part time staffers couldn't sustain the effort along with all the watchdog stuff they were already committed to.

Bona Fides was supposed to be represented at this meeting in Szczecin by the Director and the lead organizer, Dagmara. Something came up, and another staffer, Martyna came in his place. Dagamara and Martyna charged right in to the Training of Trainers and Introduction to Organing sessions. They connected with the two young women from Romania who've been at it a little longer than them. They stayed up late at night, trading stories, hearing about the reality in other places - Bosnia, Ukraine, Slovakia.

It worked - they got more and more serious about making it happen, this time.

Chuck Hirt and I were scheduled to visit Katowice after the training. We met with Grzegorz on Sunday. Although he was coming down with a flu bug, he sat with us and planned out the two day staff meeting. "If we can get the whole staff really committed, I think we can make it work." But he said Martyna had been the most skeptical of a community organizing approach. He was concerned there would continue to be tensions.

On Monday we met at their offices - upstairs in a dingy building, seven or eight desks to a room, one room heated at a time - the typical NGO/community office. First, the two staff reported on what they'd learned, what they'd seen, what they brought home. (They reported in Polish. Chuck and I stood by, and I interjected some questions; "what surprised you? Who did you connect with? What inspired you?") Martyna was clear - all her questions had been answered,, she could see that it could be done. "If they can do it in Romania, we can do it here!"

Then I led them through a tough back-and-forth. What happened the last two times? You have lots of visibility, lots of access, lots of process wins with open government reforms. WHY do you want to organise? What can you get out of it? What will make it different this time? Grzegorz and the team said it ten different ways. What they had was access and influence - they lacked power. When an issue came up that they couldn't win they walked away. (He took us by the empty hole in the ground where the historic train station in the City Centre was demolished over feeble protest.) At one point he excused himself to take a media call. Sheepishly he reported it was a reporter looking for comment on wines and culinary trends. He knew it - he was becoming a fixed figure, as public character, and the peoples' voice was no stronger than before. "We keep winning process reforms like the right to propose legislation by initiative, but there are no citizens that are ready to take advantage of them."

Before we went to lunch, we agreed they'd settle for once and all the answer to the big questions: are we doing a community organizing project, who's the lead organizer, where will we work, will we stay with it and WHY!"

As you see from the picture, Chuck and I sat together. We talked about the food (great!) the weather (cold, a bit of snow) and our kids. The staff rattled away in Polish at the other end of the table.

When we started back up, they had an 18 month budget, one person entirely committed to the work, others contributing time, and a turf targeted.

The rest of the time was spent on details. How many one-on-ones? What commitments do we need in writing from management? What do we do when the city or the press or somebody tries to get to the community process through Bona Fides? Where do we get advice? But the whole tone had changed - not whether but when; not why it fsiled but how to do it right this time. By the end, we had hammered out a six month plan, with solid next steps.

It won't be easy, but they've settled the obstacles they couldn't overcome before - dedicated specific staff for enough time and no interference from other priorities. They'll have plenty of problems, but I expect great things from Dagmara, the lead organizer and the rest of the team - Ewa, Agata, Katarzyna and Martyna. Tough times don't last - tough people do!

OK, this is going to sound weird, but...

All of a sudden there are bees everywhere!

At the start of the ECON planning and structure sessions, I was asked to reflect on the State of ECON from my semi-long distance point of view. I had to be honest, and I started off with a laundry list of problems, issues, lacks and needs. But then I brought The Bee.

Geraldine Jensen started a nationwide movement of women fighting for better endforcement of child support. From nothing (she literally collected change from the couch cushions to take out the ad inviting others to join her in Toledo) she built a 30,000 member giant organization, led almost entirely by volunteers, that literally turned tghe numbers around The statistics went from a 20% collection rate to 80%, with lots of better rules and structural changes. They took as their mascot the humble bumble bee - there's no aerodynamic explanation, no physics to explain how the ungainly misshapen thing could ever fly - but it flies anyway! We can do it! they said, and despite the odds, the system and the power and the lack of money, training or "experts" on their side, they did it!

I suggested that the evidence is that ECON is a true Bumble Bee organization. There they are, in the most unlikely countries, with decades of dictatorship, distrust and corruption, with no foundations with local money, with awkward rules and little tradition of civic engagement...and here are teams from nine countries, smart ambitious dedicated young people, passionate elders who've transcended their history and lots and lots of experimentation, creativity and guts, making something happen.

After the language barrier was passed...(see previous post)...the metaphor caught on, and on we went forward with planning.

So as Kajo and Chuck and I are leaving Szczecin, we stopped for souvenirs. There was a stack of cups with this bee motif (see picture). And when Chuck and I were headed to lunch after Mass at the cathedral in Katowice, we passed by this doorway with a big BEE over the lintel (see other picture). We stopped into the Mariacka Church, one of Katowice's oldest, and the nature windows, in addition to spiders and peacocks and turtles...had BEES!

It's a little spooky, don't you think?

Ochiul Dracului - the Devil's Eye

Nicoleta Chirita of Romania (newly elected to the ECON leadership team, and pictured above trying to convince Tara from Paris to attend the community meeting)) tells us, in the Money for Organizing session on Friday morning, that in Romanian they say money is the Devil's Eye - pronounced "ok-yool drahkyoolooey...and that's why they don't talk about it!

We struggled with the context in these countries - no real base of local foundations, little or no government funding except for projects, big international donors whose rules constrict or mis-fit the patient process of reaching out, building consensus, engaging leaders, developing plans, taking on the issues that people choose rather than the hot issue of the day...real organizing is tough to fund. Add to that distrust of everything, built up over decades of totalitarian rule...

So we struggled and found ways. Ismet and Jasmina are two young organizers from Bosnia. (He's the "guard standing behind the Lady Mayor in the role-play picture; she's the dark haired woman in the Circle of Power exercise.) They are getting great (and free!) help from Jesuit Volunteer Corps folks from Germany - they stay for a year, and by month three or four can handle the language well enough to really contribute. Peter, the teacher, writer and organizing leader from Germany (another new ECON leader) has an idea that the health conversion foundation model could be used in Germany - he says that when non-profit hospitals go to for-profit now they ask for subsidies from public sources - and that ain't right! Iryna and Olga from Ukraine point out that in the network of ECON there's lots of great success - folks who've gotten support from USAID, their local community foundations, Mott and Rockefeller and German Marshall Fund and others - maybe they could learn from each other how to tell the story of organizing more successfully. Could the network, and some of us who know and support their work, convene the funders who DO fund organizing here and together strategise how to organize more money for organizing? (Sound familiar?)

Folks were delighted to hear about the resources of the Alliance for Justice and the RECO website - Resources for Evaluating Community Organizing. They heard the story of NCRP's series of studies to document the effectiveness of advocacy and organizing, and they're thinking about documenting their own stories - organizing in Central and Eastern Europe works - and we can prove it! The structural obstacles are being addressed too - in Bosnia charitable gifts are taxed, creating a dis-incentive, so the NGO sector is trying to get this changed.

Ismet works with young people (he's pretty young, to me...). As we discussed the cultural taboos related to money in all these countries, I told the story of our daughter, Schuyler's high school project. In most familes and between young people and adults, it's really hard to talk about sex. The result (just like not talking about money in organizing) is that misinformation leads to bad choices and problems that could be avoided just get worse. Sky made a film called "Let's Talk About Sex" to help get the conversation started! Ismet is seriously considering a short video that shows folks whispering and gossiping and avoiding the ever-so-sensitive topic of money in their organization. Any investors out there?

The lesson here is that money is power...if you don't have your own, somebody else's is gonna get you! Raising money isn't what you do instead of organizing - raising money IS organizing. ECON is on the road to open, honest and constructive discussion and effective local and common action on money - and it's going to be very instructive!

On Language

So a brief note on language. Many organizers are familiar with the challenges of working in more than one language. Last year I experienced doing training with a translator - and that taught a lot about being clear, understanding the cultural nuances, etc.

This meeting of 40+ people is being conducted in English, as the common tongue, and most people are proficient enough - and that's humbling. Some folks are proficient in more than their "home" language plus English. Kajo, my teacher and co-trainer, says he can speak and read in Slovak, Czech, English, Russian, and understand Ukrainian, Polish, Serb/Croat language and get along in Hungarian as well as cursing and getting directions in Chechen language. Nicholeta Chirita from Rumania is fluent in her home language of Rumanian, as well as English and French and she's getting better in Russian.

I've rediscovered the German I used to speak and read fluently (40 years ago I read Kafka and Nietsche and Hesse and at least thought I understood). I could follow along in Peter's Alinsky book and when the organizer from Leipzig and I were assigned to problem solve the question of funding for the work here, she spoke German and I spoke English and we actually communicated (I think).

At the end of this morning I gave a twenty minute reflection on my sense of the State of the ECON Network. I told what I thought was a catchy story - the story of the Bumble Bee, which science says can't fly - aerodynamically it's a disaster. The bee doesn't know this, though, and it flies nevertheless. A third of the people chuckled knowingly at my witty analogy. A third turned to their neighbor and asked in Polish or Rumanian or German or French or ..."what did he say?" and a third just smiled politely.

Once again I learned the lesson that I need to speak simply, clearly and without confusing my audience.

I ended with an observation, and advice in the old common language, Latin. On the twin sundials in the courtyard of the palace here in Szczecin, you'll read, "Vita Brevis, Carpe Diem". Thus my advice to ECON - Life is Short, Seize the Day!

I attach a picture of yesterday's walk-around town, which was followed by more excellent soup (zurek, the sour rye and vegetable ambrosia) and pierogi. But more on food later.

Done! (But not really)

That's it for the two day intensive Training-of-Trainers series. The meeting goes on, and I'll be doing one-on-ones and meetings with country teams, and one more formal training session on the role of the consultant organiser. Wow, what an experience!

First and foremost I've treasured the chance to invent a new training and carry it out with my respected colleague from Slovakia, Kajo Zboril. He's a lively, wise trainer, but a little quiet, deliberate, and calm - my opposite! We planned, talked, performed and debriefed and corrected and adapted and revised - we got better as we went along, he helped me see possibilities and options in the design - in the end, we developed a very good working team-ship. We agreed our ambition is to do lots more training together.

The design - I wrote a curriculum for a two day training in organizing - ten sessions. We set up the room with two "fronts" - titled "DO" and "Reflect". Essentially the design was for teams (the group was divided into three teams) to prepare and lead the whole group through one of the sessions, then to break, turn the whole room around, and reflect on that session. We de-briefed in terms of Macro design (how did this session fit into the larger design) Micro design (did the plan for this 90 minute session work) and Technique (how did the trainers perform) then we addressed how the participants might adapt this to their own work. The "fix" came when Kajo and I decided that the teams that were not preparing to lead a session should design a real-life adaptation for their home country.

Best line (or one of many) came in the role play of the meeting with the mayor of an imaginary city. Young organizer Radu from Romania was playing the leader who "pins" the mayor. When the mayor started to complain about the difficulties of the city budget, he said, "Madame Mayor, WE are the city budget!" I'm gonna steal that one!

The ending was a session Charlene Sinclair and I did in Detroit many years ago for the first time...there it was called "Message to Martin". In this version we set two chairs in the center of the circle. A person came in, set a paper with the name of someone who is not here on the chair opposite, and said words to that person. I said, to start off, to Martin Luther King, "Thanks for your inspiration and example, all those years ago. We're still at it, and I want to introduce you to these brothers and sisters who are in it together!" (Of course I barely got through this - you know I'm sentimental...) Next, Kajo posted the name of his son, Adam, who's eight. He said, "here I am, away from home again. If you were here you'd know why - I work with these great people, we learn together, we have important things to do - it's for you, for our future, and I know you'll understand." Next, the woman from Paris, Tara - she works with immigrant and disconnected youth and minority and excluded communities. She posted up the name of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. "Thanks, Mr. President for bringing us together and getting us mad and gicving us reason to organise. I want to let you know - we're coming for you, and you're going down!" Her colleague, Reda, posted "Europeans". "Don't be afraid of change, it's happening, we can do this." And on it went.

At dinner I heard the story from the Rumanian group. They are working in neighborhoods, and with people who resist doorknocking and outreach because they remember when putting your name on a petition could mean risking your livelihood or your life. Building trust within shattered communities is always a challenge - it seems especially hard here, and in oither recently totalitarian countries. They're making slow progress, but it's the young, bright and ambitious people (like most of the organizers here), who never lived with that chilling fear, who are rebuilding the skills of public life.

The Germans who work with Paul Cromwell are especially interesting. They are struggling in a socety that's bureaucratic, has all the forms of public life but where anti-immigrant feeling is rising, negative politics are taking hold, and the danger of crushing apathy is one of the big obstacles. What a diverse team - elders, working people, men and women, a Somali-German woman (who told of her visit to the Somali immigrant community in Columbus, OH). One of their number is a professor named Peter Szynka who gave me a copy of his book on Saul Alinsky - I'm struggling through the German, but it's fun to see my favorite quotes in a strange language. Can anybody get this one: „Macht Euch keine Sorgen. Wir werden diesen Sturm der Anerkennung überstehen und man wird uns bald wieder hassen wie zuvor.“ I believe it's a real contribution to the Alinsky literature - focusing on the scientific, intellectual and academic traditions and forebears to his theory and practice. Translators out there? Publishers?

I'm meeting with the Ukrainian team later - they're smart, ambitious and have planted groups in six places. I predict real power will grow there.

A few pictures above, and more news later. (I didn't get a picture of the mound of joy from the Columbus Restaurant on the riverfront bastion by the castle - pillows of happiness, filled with cheese, potato or meat, topped with bacon, a sprig of fresh herb....more of that when I write the food blog.)

Day two...less fruit!

Day one of training for trainers starts with an exercise that involves juggling (or trying to juggle) tangerines - I can explain later - and the room was jumping! The whole place smelled lkike oranges all day, and a nutritious leson learned by all!

And we practiced holding the Mayor accountable, as well. These pictures will pique your interest for a longer post, later.

Ready, set...

Today's the day - Forty folks from nine countries all focused on community organising! Yesterday we prepared - that's me and Kajo, studying our curriculum and Chuck helping me collect training tools. Then more walking around - this is a VERY catholic country! I saw churches full at three o'clock mass, and bells all day. Collected some great spire pictures.

AND I found the Scouts Memorial. Rep. Marcy Kaptur has told us the story of the heroic stand of the scouts in Poland, actively resisting both the Nazis and the Russians, and of the continuing role this organisation plays in civil society in Poland. Yesterday we found the plaque that commemorates the founding of Polish scouting here in Szczecin! Pictures later.

Ok, to breakfast and then to work! (More also later on the joyous reunions with various folks we met last year, and their stories of success!)

I'm here! (there?)

In Szczecin, where the training starts on Monday morning. Met up with Kajo Zboril, who will co-present with me, and Chuck Hirt and Paul Cromwell - the Team Leaders of ECON. Kajo and Chuck drove in - started at 4:30 AM!

We walked around a bit - see photos - and had supper and debriefed the meetings that have happened since we last spoke - Me and Marcy Kaptur and Amb. Sedgewick (US to Slovakia)in DC and Chuck and Kajo and Amb Sedgewick (in Bratislava) and Chuck and Kajo and Slovakia staff of Open Society Foundations; and so on. Lots of possibilities!

Then got down to serious prep. Kajo and I went through two day training plan. He'll co-lead, so we were careful to make space for each of us to put our own stamp on the training. Maybe I'll share it when we're done (if it works!)

From today's train trip from Warsaw to here - I think I'll collect pictures of the spires - the various designs of the tops of churches - it's a fascinating study of culture, architecture, politics, planning....see the St. Jakub Cathedral picture attached, for a start.

More soon - let me hear from you!

Landed!

Up for 36 hours, asleep for three, out to wonderful Russian style restauurant with Warsaw friends. Random thoughts:

Jet lag makes me stupid. Lights in the room wouldn't turn on when I awaoke at 4:45 pm to Warsaw foggy drizzly full-on darkness. I stumbled around with my camping headlamp on, cleaning up to go out...and at the desk they told me there's a slot inside the door where you put your room "key" card that powers the lights. I asked Kasia - Director of the Associaltion of Local Leaders, the national government accountability group that's hosting and the Poland partner in ECON - I asked her to watch me carefully so I don't walk in front of a tram. I hope a night's sleep helps.

These young women - and one young man - who I ate with were key organizers of last February's visit, they're still at it, determined and creative young people. How can I NOT want to help!

Two kinds of herring, two kinds of pierogi, potato blinis with red caviar, lordy lordy can these people cook!

Poland public life is dominated by the story of the catastrophic loss of most of the top officials last year, and the story of why, how, what could have been done, Russia's fault in it, etc etc. It's like a sore tooth they can't stop touching. We have no idea how powerful that was and is.

More soon. Now, to sleep, I hope!

Setting Off

Last day in the Needmor office. Getting packed, getting Nedmor work done - just signed $750,000 in grant checks! Thoughts as I set off:

First, what do I want to learn this time? Certainly I want to test my training skills further - I loved that part last year, and this year's main task is training trainers, so that's even more intense. Next, the whole question of adapting organizing to local political and cultural contexts. We'll have teams from nine countries at this event: Bosnia, France, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine (plus me from the US). Each has its own political context - in some, the legacy of postwar parliamentary democracy and labor-based leftist politics and Green Party activism puts community organizing in a set of boxes that they'll have to deal very carefully with. In others, the legacy of Soviet domination and regimented public life means the skills of participation are almost non-existent - the very idea of participation is a strange one. How much flexibility in "our way" of doing organizing is right; how much are the bones, the core principles, the basic steps immutably and fundadmentally important? We'll see.

This year will be different in some key ways. First, I'm by myself - Lindsay traveled so well with me last time - at the end of a training day she'd join us for dinner, we'd recount the highs and lows, she'd tell of her travels to museums and galleries and various sites. She's traveling to warmer US climes with her sister this time, so that'll be different.

On the other hand, I know the Europeans so much better. Many folks at this meeting will have been through the workshops last year. I've stayed in touch with the leadership of ECON, talked and schemed and tried to help them buld awareness here of what they've got. Paul Cromwell and Kajo Zboril visited, along with Nicoleta Chirita last year to attend the Mott gathering and visit NY and DC and I went along. Chuck Hirt and Mate Varga from Hungary visited just last month, and we met up with Cris Doby, they stayed with us in Toledo and we got lots of scheming time. So these aren't all strangers to me, like last year. And the places will be a bit familiar. I've visited the three main venues already - Szczecin, Katowice and Warsaw. I've got favorite restaurants, favorite walking spots and places I wabnted to see but didn't get to, so that will be a different feeling.

So I'll take pictures, try to reflect here on the blog and mostly I'll try to raise some hell and deepen these wonderful relationships and have fun while I learn. Let me know your reactions, ideas and questions. We'll have fun together!

(I'm asttaching a couple of pictures of the ECON visits to the US this year.)

Here we go again!

So I'm off to Poland next week - flying January 13 and 14th. Plan is to to Training of Trainers for the European Community Organizing Network - ECON - then visit a couple of local groups around Poland, then a couple of free days i Warsaw and back home on the 28th. I hope you, my loyal Blog Folowers, are still out there, and that I can still remember how this works. More soon!