Professional life sailing smoothly (if one can say this about this finishing hectic first semester), family healthwise on track, plans for the future unwinding progressively, it is time for some holidays!
Next big step is to be able to submit the PhD proposal until about September; I want to start in February 2010. Besides turning 50 in 9 days time...
So, here we go, holidays! France, Germany, Czech Republic, Cape Town, Brazil. Rest and work, a good combination.
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Friday, 29 May 2009
facilitation
My kids used to tell me that they used to have a lot of problems to explain to their colleagues what exactly their mother did and do. What's to be a facilitator? I just recall another story: a person working for the German Development Bank looked at my business card and said: "oh, I would never hire you with this title: social development facilitator? What's that? I would hire an economist, for instance".
I think a facilitator has one major role: to link. To marry. What? People, processes, procedures, instructions, orientations. Funders with funded. Plan and budget. Data producers and data users. Writers and readers. Central and decentralized level.
In facilitation events, the facilitator has to be very good in three things:
1. To do a thorough preparation, getting ready to promote varying moments of opening up, and consensus making, opening up, and consensus making...
2. To calculate well the time. The time needed for people to read, to listen, to reflect, to talk, to share. Start on time, finish on time. No pressure. Fun. And mission accomplished in the end.
3. To link and marry, as I said. How? Paying attention to the people. Listening. Connecting. Deconstructing individual discourses to cook a collective understanding. Relating the local and the global.
So, that was my quick recipe for good facilitation.
One more picture of our group last week.
Até!
I think a facilitator has one major role: to link. To marry. What? People, processes, procedures, instructions, orientations. Funders with funded. Plan and budget. Data producers and data users. Writers and readers. Central and decentralized level.
In facilitation events, the facilitator has to be very good in three things:
1. To do a thorough preparation, getting ready to promote varying moments of opening up, and consensus making, opening up, and consensus making...
2. To calculate well the time. The time needed for people to read, to listen, to reflect, to talk, to share. Start on time, finish on time. No pressure. Fun. And mission accomplished in the end.
3. To link and marry, as I said. How? Paying attention to the people. Listening. Connecting. Deconstructing individual discourses to cook a collective understanding. Relating the local and the global.
So, that was my quick recipe for good facilitation.
One more picture of our group last week.
Até!
Sunday, 24 May 2009
maio esvaneceu-se
De repente, visito o blog da família e vejo que o Anand escreveu no seu blog que Maio quase se foi sem post. percebo a mesma coisa! Como pode ser que um mês passou assim tão rápido?!?
Escrevo de Maputo. Montes de trabalho passaram por baixo da ponte desde o último post. Minha mãezinha Marilinha fez seus 70. O Peter já comemora seus anos de novo na próxima semana, e meus 50 estão a virar a esquina. Esta coisa toda dos números redondos na idade é cheia de significados nesta nossa cultura decimal.
Vou abrir um blog novo, agora destinado ao trabalho. Este vai ficar reservado para a - pouca e irregular - atualização da vida em geral. Muita viagem ainda pela frente no ano de 2009. E muita mudança no ano de 2010. Será que um dia sossega - quer dizer, antes da morte? Assim, como disse o Anand, mais tempo para ver os amigos e engajar-se em longas conversas moles pelo fim de semana? Sei não...
Foi uma semana onde realisamos um trabalho incrível: educação, educação, educação. Conto mais quando sossegar...
Não vou resistir e vou colocar a foto da minha equipa de trabalho desta semana, com jornadas diárias das 7 às 21 horas. São literalmente 3 gerações. Valéria, Ana Alécia e Zenete. A foto traz sorriso de dever cumprido pois foi tirada já no último dia do trabalho.
Até.
Escrevo de Maputo. Montes de trabalho passaram por baixo da ponte desde o último post. Minha mãezinha Marilinha fez seus 70. O Peter já comemora seus anos de novo na próxima semana, e meus 50 estão a virar a esquina. Esta coisa toda dos números redondos na idade é cheia de significados nesta nossa cultura decimal.
Vou abrir um blog novo, agora destinado ao trabalho. Este vai ficar reservado para a - pouca e irregular - atualização da vida em geral. Muita viagem ainda pela frente no ano de 2009. E muita mudança no ano de 2010. Será que um dia sossega - quer dizer, antes da morte? Assim, como disse o Anand, mais tempo para ver os amigos e engajar-se em longas conversas moles pelo fim de semana? Sei não...
Foi uma semana onde realisamos um trabalho incrível: educação, educação, educação. Conto mais quando sossegar...
Não vou resistir e vou colocar a foto da minha equipa de trabalho desta semana, com jornadas diárias das 7 às 21 horas. São literalmente 3 gerações. Valéria, Ana Alécia e Zenete. A foto traz sorriso de dever cumprido pois foi tirada já no último dia do trabalho.
Até.
Saturday, 25 April 2009
a perfect day to write a report
It seems that the South Africa's election results are consolidated now. I feel good about the ANC having "fallen short" of the 2/3 majority in Parliament. I get scared every time a party has so great majority, because then any crazy changes in the Constitution - made so so progressive in times of dreaming democracy - can take place, decided by "representatives" of the "people".
Of course, my beloved country Brazil has managed to overcome such problem (the ruling party not having a 2/3 majority) buying votes (PARLIAMENTARIANS!!) with public money, but in South Africa this practice is not so well accepted yet, since the parties are sort of enemies, and floor crossing is not well regarded.
It's such a rainy day, that it is not bad that I have to spend my whole day writing a report. Although report writing is a very brain enlightening activity, it is not very healthy - sitting in front of the computer for hours.
I read today on the news that the worst of the "global downturn" is over. Funny. I always had the impression that the whole big crisis was mostly an excuse to sack as many people as possible from formal job posts, inflating the unemployed people's numbers, to have salaries brought down, before hiring those people again, or at least some of them, as soon as they're needed again. With public money subsidizing it all. As my granny used to say, if you have to steal something, do not go for a bread, go for a huge fraud. No, it's not true, my granny does not know what a fraud is, do you granny?
And Mom turning 70 next Sunday!!! Unbelievable! A picture of her new TV show. It's a weekly show, and she recorded her Workers' Day special last Tuesday, about the intellectual workers. It will air next Saturday, May 1.
Of course, my beloved country Brazil has managed to overcome such problem (the ruling party not having a 2/3 majority) buying votes (PARLIAMENTARIANS!!) with public money, but in South Africa this practice is not so well accepted yet, since the parties are sort of enemies, and floor crossing is not well regarded.
It's such a rainy day, that it is not bad that I have to spend my whole day writing a report. Although report writing is a very brain enlightening activity, it is not very healthy - sitting in front of the computer for hours.
I read today on the news that the worst of the "global downturn" is over. Funny. I always had the impression that the whole big crisis was mostly an excuse to sack as many people as possible from formal job posts, inflating the unemployed people's numbers, to have salaries brought down, before hiring those people again, or at least some of them, as soon as they're needed again. With public money subsidizing it all. As my granny used to say, if you have to steal something, do not go for a bread, go for a huge fraud. No, it's not true, my granny does not know what a fraud is, do you granny?
And Mom turning 70 next Sunday!!! Unbelievable! A picture of her new TV show. It's a weekly show, and she recorded her Workers' Day special last Tuesday, about the intellectual workers. It will air next Saturday, May 1.
Thursday, 16 April 2009
winter, elections and philosophy
The weather has changed in Cape Town. Since yesterday, Autumn started showing its face, with a cool wind sweeping the False Bay. Today the sky is no longer blue and the mountains are barely visible on the other side of the bay. The view from where I write remains the same amazing view that delighted me often when I wrote my Master's dissertation back in 2004-05. I have mixed feelings in respect to South Africa and Cape Town. It's indeed beautiful, one of the most beautiful places in the world, or at least of the places I've visited. But South Africa resembles so much my native country Brazil in all its inequalities, violence, macho and conservative regulations that I have this mixed feelings about preferring my own country's social illnesses. Not sure though.
I realized that when I went to the old University of Cape Town this week, to discuss the possibility of engaging myself in a doctorate program, and found myself saying that "no", I was not intending to take the step towards being a citizen of South Africa. After all, why not?
Thinking that has so much to do with reflecting on what democracy truly is. Democracy - the rule by the people - can end up not being FOR the people, in the social concept of what people are. My rights end up when yours start. Everybody's rights. Social versus individual rights.
All this conversation about rights is a complicated one. I'm tackling this issue just now, while I write my evaluation report for Oxfam, a wonderful organization, whose values I can share: a fairer world; end of poverty and injustice; human rights.
South Africans will vote in national elections on the 22nd of April, the day Pedro Álvaro Cabral is said to have arrived and "discovered" Brazil, as such, 509 years ago. The Portuguese influenced a lot of the culture here in Africa as well. Angola, Guiné Bissau, Mozambique, and for some time many other natural harbors, such as Zanzibar and the Cape itself.
South Africans will elect Jacob Zuma on the 22nd. I do not know what South Africans think about it, but I find it a real waste of money to hold elections if the results are so certain and known. I guess the country needs a certain separation between the State and the ruling party to make it worthy to hold elections. The same applies in Mozambique, Tanzania and ... well, many other places. THE party controls everything (or tries hard to control everything): the judiciary, the electoral commission, the press, the tax authorities, the trade unions, the women's movement, the youth whatever name one gives it. In South Africa, it's not so much the case, but it's getting more and more the case.
Well, philosophically speaking, yes, of course, we must have regular elections. YES. What does that mean though? Amartya Sen proposes development as CHOICE. Without a choice, what are we voting for? What sort of human rights can one hold when there are no choices? One world, a global world, whose world?
I realized that when I went to the old University of Cape Town this week, to discuss the possibility of engaging myself in a doctorate program, and found myself saying that "no", I was not intending to take the step towards being a citizen of South Africa. After all, why not?
Thinking that has so much to do with reflecting on what democracy truly is. Democracy - the rule by the people - can end up not being FOR the people, in the social concept of what people are. My rights end up when yours start. Everybody's rights. Social versus individual rights.
All this conversation about rights is a complicated one. I'm tackling this issue just now, while I write my evaluation report for Oxfam, a wonderful organization, whose values I can share: a fairer world; end of poverty and injustice; human rights.
South Africans will vote in national elections on the 22nd of April, the day Pedro Álvaro Cabral is said to have arrived and "discovered" Brazil, as such, 509 years ago. The Portuguese influenced a lot of the culture here in Africa as well. Angola, Guiné Bissau, Mozambique, and for some time many other natural harbors, such as Zanzibar and the Cape itself.
South Africans will elect Jacob Zuma on the 22nd. I do not know what South Africans think about it, but I find it a real waste of money to hold elections if the results are so certain and known. I guess the country needs a certain separation between the State and the ruling party to make it worthy to hold elections. The same applies in Mozambique, Tanzania and ... well, many other places. THE party controls everything (or tries hard to control everything): the judiciary, the electoral commission, the press, the tax authorities, the trade unions, the women's movement, the youth whatever name one gives it. In South Africa, it's not so much the case, but it's getting more and more the case.
Well, philosophically speaking, yes, of course, we must have regular elections. YES. What does that mean though? Amartya Sen proposes development as CHOICE. Without a choice, what are we voting for? What sort of human rights can one hold when there are no choices? One world, a global world, whose world?
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