Urgent Evoke

A crash course in changing the world.

Planning: Evocation Stratigies, Discussion, Outline ... What I'm up to, What Help I'm looking for

Subtitle: A Four Season Discovery in Sustainable Living

This is a continuation of my last blog post here: http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/next-step-tenative-evocation If you hadn't read it; this won't make as much sense.

So, wow. The last 24 hours has brought me tons of support, well wishing and hope. Very wonderful place here. So, this is a little more outlined, a little more formal of what I wrote yesterday- to give an idea of the outcome, steps and general just things that have to happen to make things work.

Cool thing is I've worked in Social non-profits for a little bit, and taken cla**** on policy, planning and proposals for non-profit work. Mostly social-work oriented, but this stuff is relatively familiar to me. In alot of fields, this doesn't necessarily happen quite as much as in social services.

First major point: I NEED A COUNTRY !

I mean, alot of the basics can be done; but a country and in term later a more developed location is essential to this. I have relatively LITTLE work with any country outside the US and I know very little to determine what would be a good fit to focus on.
On a personal note: I know alot of my professors (I think 3) have done work in Ethiopia, and might be totally on board for something like this. I don't know. But, if you have a country and you want to advocate and why you want it to be the country GO FOR IT! I am open. No place has been ruled out in Africa, so discuss!

What this design incorporates.

-Agriculture
-Anthropology
-Social Networks / Sociology
-Education
-Social Welfare
-Innovators
-business

Skills Needed (not all in one person!)

-Compassion
-Research
-Cultural Competence
-A Willing To Believe in the Improbable
-Holistic Understanding of Environment
-Willingness to ask hard questions
-Specialized plant knowledge

More Detailed List of What needs to be done:

Mission (non country specific):
Goals:
Values:
Area of Focus:
Reasonings for above


In depth knowledge and Research:

a) cultural
-beliefs
customs
farming methods
types of food availability
food preferences
social structure
cooking methods
language
needs being met
needs not being met

b) Climate (year round):

Water Supply
Resourses and Availability of those resources
- if a group went there, how would live there?
Expected Climate change next 20 (or so) years
Wildlife
Plants

c) Economic/Goverment
Currancy
Tranding/Market structure
Work Enviroment, Types of Work
Political Stability
Applicable Polocy

d) Social
child care
literacy rates
education
crime resolution
hobbies, crafts
learning methods
family unit structure
major social problems (child welfare for example)


Those things above create the framework for growth and structure for an applicable, knowledgeable and workable curriculum project with social support. It is the basis for design of major features. It is important to understand the structure of the community to: 1) transmit information in a way that is 1) easy to understand and 2) give oppertunities for them to use and transfer that information to others.

Then The PLAN

-
Resources / funding (home country & destination country)
- location, how one stays there, estimated cost, general knoweldge. the logistics part
- The curriculum... HUGE TIME INVESTMENT
Breaks into THREE Parts
For The agency:
Social
Cultural

For destination country:
ecological

Also must include
-teaching methods
-methods by example / class learning plans


ONE CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO ADVISE HOW TO LIVE UNTIL THEY HAVE BACKGROUND AND EXPERINCE THEMSELVES, AND ARE WILLING TO LISTEN. ACTIONS ARE LOUDER THAN WORDS.





Views: 28

Comment by Ayala Sherbow on March 10, 2010 at 3:50am
Crystal: I am so impressed with what you've done so far! A couple of things I think [for what they're worth]:
(1) In its initial/pilot stage a project like this might be more successful by piggybacking on another effort that already has some grassroots penetration on the community that you are targeting. Is there a grassroots NGO already serving a particular community? Can you partner with them to deliver your information and test run the idea with their clients, their community? They will already have the community partnerships and "buy-in" and local knowledge to give your efforts more chance of being heard and accepted and successful.
(2) Remember that literacy will be a huge hurdle in information dispersal -- so all the more reason to piggyback on a project that already has penetration in a community.
Once you narrow it down -- I can try to help you research possible on-the-ground partners.
Comment by Crystal Bellar on March 10, 2010 at 4:00am
Absolutely- My problem is right now getting to a country- then to a locale seems to be the most daunting part! Services, interactions, previous NGO interactions are all a part of the a****sment.

Literacy is a huge hurdle... and language barriers. Working within an oral tradition its important to learn the customs set up around the transfer of information.

Thank you for your comments and the reminders. They have been noted ! :D
Comment by Ayala Sherbow on March 10, 2010 at 4:03am
As this is your baby at the moment: where on the globe inspires you?
Comment by Crystal Bellar on March 10, 2010 at 4:24am
thats my problem. You plop me anywhere and I'm inspired. My cat inspires me. I could be inspired by a pet rock.

I think my biggest weakness right now is that its an entire continent and my education about it is US public school standard (which, by the way is entirely Euro-centric, and teaches very little!) I don't even know how to look up information- like where do I start? A google search on Africa? :p

I could make a list, put them in alphabetical order and count by 7's until I research them all lol.... but I figured I'd ask here; try to get someone with serious knoweldge and interest on board and work together. But, the random reading method is a method too!
Comment by Ayala Sherbow on March 10, 2010 at 4:34am
you make me laugh! i am sure there are others active on evoke that will have good insights too -- until then, i will give some thought on some non-random criteria you might use to narrow it down.
1) Why don't you limit yourself to countries that are English-speaking. i mean, since it's your baby right now -- make that part on you easier at least, right? Checking wikipedia herethat looks like we've just narrowed it down to 20 African nations.
(2) The next bit of research will take me more than 10 secs but i recommend looking at nations that are relatively free of civic turmoil. Somewhere with a relatively stable gov't at the moment.
(3) My next cut would be: which countries are not dealing with major drought or something else that would seriously interfere with agriculture.
That should cut your number of possibilities down some. What do you think?
Comment by Crystal Bellar on March 10, 2010 at 4:46am
You are a genius thats what I think.
Comment by Crystal Bellar on March 11, 2010 at 10:27pm
I can take it into concideration. Unfortunately the US cannot even take care of their own poverty prfoblems. It is such a shame. The project is aimed to be ongoing targeting a different nation every few years though. Maybe with sucess the program could be in more than one country at a time.

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