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Proceedings

 

With the hope to encourage, develop, support, strengthen systematic and purposeful leadership development for the local, national, and regional Ecumenical Movement, the School for Ecumenical Leadership Formation (SELF) was jointly organized by WSCF-AP and CCA Youth Desk from 15th July to 19th August 2001 in Chiangmai, Thailand. There were a total of 23 participants from 13 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

 

The Objectives:

·       Sharpen their awareness and analysis of Asian society and challenge to the churches through sharing of experiences, exposure, studies and reflections

·       Study the biblical-theological perspectives on Ecumenism and on issues and ideologies related to Asia and global society

·       Trace the history of Ecumenical Movement in the national Asian and global levels, identifying convergence, challenges and possibilities

·       Search alternative approach to communicate and advocate Ecumenical witness among students and youth in the concrete life of the peoples

·       Strengthen each other in their Ecumenical journey and aspirations

 

The Training Modules:

1          Orientation and Community Building

aims to introduce participants and inculcate a sense of being part of the group; to understand the background and the organizers and to start building community.

2          Defining Our Times

aims to have more critical understanding about the reality of Asian plurality and the dynamic and complexity of such context.

3          Reading the Signs of the Times

is an intensive study module to clarify current theological positions dealing with the context of Asia. The participants will have acquired a strong theoretical as well as theological base. It also aims to challenge participants to “doing theology” in context.

 

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4          The Ecumenical Movement

aims to understand and challenge the prevalent practices and ideology in the Ecumenical Movement in Asia and worldwide as well. Participants are also expected to be aware of the different trends of movement in Asia.

5          Communicating the Ecumenical Vision to the Youth

aims to set guiding for promoting Ecumenical vision to the students and youth and experiment the different forms of building and strengthening the community organizing in order to "act locally".

6          Reflexive Learning

aims to wrap up this extended training by reflections on what the participants have learned and to suggest ways to moving forward in challenging the Ecumenical Movement, be it local, regional and global.

Through the Thai culture and traditional melody, the Opening Worship started with a silent prayer followed by symbolic actions performed by the Church of Christ in Thailand (CCT) Youth and Thailand Student Christian Movement (SCM) to show solidarity and unity. The worship order was observed beautifully with Ecumenical liturgy.

Rev. Surakit Karnmonrat, CCT Youth Director gave the reflection based on Isaiah 40: 3-5 and Luke 4: 18-19. He challenged all students and youths to present the gospel of salvation, mission and hope in the era of cybernetics along with the Ecumenical process of learning, sharing and visioning to seek the will of God within and outside the Church.

On behalf of CCA and WSCF-AP, the participants of SELF were welcomed by Rev. Dr. Boonratna Boayen, Moderator of CCT and Mr. Prasan Chaitip of SCM Thailand.

 

Community Building Games

The participants first got to introduce themselves by demonstrating a symbol that represents their names. Everyone has to demonstrate the symbol after each participant so that the names can be well remembered. The second

 

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game had the participants grouping themselves according to a list of similarities that includes age, month of birth, number of siblings and favorite food. Participants went on to play the next game which is a test of teamworking.

   

Introduction to CCA-WSCF AP and Program Flow

As the program is co-organized by WSCF AP and CCA Youth, a brief introduction was given on the nature of work of WSCF AP and CCA Youth. The background and flow of the 35-day training program were also presented by the organizers.

 

Personal History as Social History

Everyone was asked to draw a diagram of their life journey and to reflect on it relating to their own society. They shared this reflection with 3 guiding questions:

š   What are the most significant events, persons or experiences in your life?

š   Who are you now?

š   What are your struggles and dreams now?

Participants were selected to partake in the various task committees to ensure the smooth running of the training workshop. Committees include Steering Committee, Documentation Committee, Bible Study and Worship Committee, Community Life Committee, Pastoral Care and Time-Keeping.

 Cultural Nights were conducted according to the different regions in the Asia Pacific.  They were aimed to enhance the community life of the participants, to understand each other's cultures and to bring laughter in the interactive songs, games and dances.

The Solidarity Nights helped the participants to comprehend the social issues behind each country so as to forge a sense of solidarity amongst each other and lend support to those who are struggling with human rights violations in their countries.

 

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This session was divided into 3 parts. The first part introduced an exercise to analyze the social conditioning that is ingrained in all human beings since birth. The social conditioning normally dictates the role, image, and ability of each gender and confines them in exploring their potentials as a human being. The second part introduced WSCF AP sexual harassment policy. This policy details the different forms of sexual harassment and ways to deal with it if it occurs during a program. However, different cultural backgrounds have different ways of conveying greetings or affection to another person. Sometimes these differences could lead to be mistaken as sexual harassment. In light of this, the third part of the session was an exercise which asked the participants to draw a female and male body and shade on them the parts which they do not like others to touch. This exercise clearly indicated to all participants who were from different cultural background the sensitivity everyone should adhere to.

Women and Men Caucuses

The caucuses were held in the evening to let participants continue discussions on pertinent gender issues that affect their lives. It is hope that through the caucuses, the women and men participants would become clearer and have deeper understanding on the social conditioning in their lives.

 

Women Caucus :

The women participants were divided into 2 groups to discuss on 2 separate topics. One topic is on Women & Sexuality and the other topic was on Women & Family.

 

Men Caucus:

The men participants had to draw out their abilities to change patriarchal attitudes through sharing their own experiences. They were encouraged to actively participate or become supportive leaders in women's and gender issues in their own respective movements.

There were a total of four Bible Studies conducted during this training program. They were led by Rev. Dr. Chuleepan Srisutorn-Person and Rev. Dr. Pradit Takerngrangsarit. In these sessions, participants were reminded of the do's and don'ts when doing Bible Studies.

 

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With the aim to draw participants from different realities to common realities, the exposure programme was a shared process of experiencing, studying, analyzing and reflecting on the peoples' lives and their struggles so as to express solidarity with them. There were 2 exposure trips throughout the training workshop and each trip lasted for a week. Participants were divided into 3 different groups for each trip.

 

The first trip was in Bangkok and some of the places and communities that were visited are highlighted below:

·       Foundation for Women

·       Green Net

·       Alternative Energy Project for Sustainability

·       Labour Museum

·       Alternative Communities and Settlements

·       Klong Dan Community (Waste Water Management)

·       Urban Poor Community

·       Campaign for Alternative Industry Network

·       Clinic for Patients of Industrial Diseases

 

The second exposure trip saw the groups in :

·       Struggles against mega-dam project

·       Community currency, alternative livelihood experiment  

·       Refugees issue

 

A mid-evaluation was done with the 4 guidelines below. It is hoped that this mid-evaluation would help fine tune the remaining training modules and spot the difficulties participants have been experiencing. The guidelines were:

1   Strengths

2   Weaknesses

3   Opportunity

4   Threats

 

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1          Reading the signs of the times

     Resource Person: Dr. Kim Yong Bock

Dr. Kim started the session drawing from the realities of Asia and the worldwide economic and political dimensions. He explained that the meaning of Ecumenical is as living in the household together: local, village community, national, regional, international and finally the cosmic level. Whoever is resisting or against this communion, destroys the household of life.

 

Kairotic Reading of the Bible

Dr. Kim's second session deals with the Christian Faith perspective centering on life. The Kairotic reading of the Bible was explored. The Biblical geo-politics of Kairos was dealt from the stories of the people of God in their struggles and achievements and culminated under the Messianic Movement of Jesus which connect local, national, global and cosmic dimensions. It is explained that the Kairotic geo-politics understanding would help to facilitate the need to live a new and reflective life in the Oikos of God, the Abode of Life. Created by God, who is the paradigm that gives us power and basis to overcome the forces of death present in the globalization process, Kairos is one concept of time that is decisively needed in human life. Here Dr. Kim advocated that the Bible is akin to a pair of spectacles, which radically opens us to other texts available for life as long as it is enhancing justice and peace.

 

2          Human Rights and People’s Governance

     Resource Person: Sanjeewa Liyanage

 

The main focus of this session was to trace out Human Rights and its problems in Asia, and also encourage participants of using modern means of communication and mass media for urgent appeals and networking. We first traced the Asian context of Human Rights and some case studies and campaigns through slide/video show.

Some of the abuses of Human Rights include:

·       Caste discrimination in South Asia with special emphasis on "Dalits" who are considered as scavengers and are treated as sub-human in the Indian society

·       Kwangju Uprising: a story that provides hopes to the struggle for Human Rights

Finally, Sanjeewa pointed out the importance of rememberance of those suffered from human right abuses. This politics of memory is important for solidarity and educational purposes.

 

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For people’s governance, participants were introduced to the concept of folk school, an experiment of bottom-up democracy.

 

3          Ecumenical Movement

     Resource Person: Rev. Duleep de Chickera

The participants were challenged by Rev. Duleep to move from the known to the unknown/lesser known as Ecumenism is both confronting and transforming the Joys and Irritants of different human communities together. He then asserted that the Ecumenical Movement is a movement for humans and is not a movement in vacuum. Therefore the experiences are not the same for all. It is important to discover and face each other.

Rev. Duleep next moved to focus on the Ecumenical Movement from the Theological and Biblical perspective.

The participants broke into small groups to discuss the followings:

·       8th century prophets and to draw out the inspirations from them

·       Asian Pacific realities and the challenges

·       Spirituality Incarnation

 

Rev. Duleep urged the participants to make a Manifesto as Spiritual Incarnation in the Ecumenical Movement of Asia Pacific.

 

4          Inter Religious Dialogue

     Resource Person: Rev. Duleep de Chickera

The core message of Inter Religious Dialogue is it is in today's agenda of the churches and the needs for Inter Religious Dialogue was explained in 3 dimensions:

1         There is already a dialectic (creative tensions) in the churches.

2         Human Issues: there are common issues beyond all religions i.e. issues of gender, environment, peace, human rights. Such common issues bring people of different religions together.

3         Solid Mobility: people move to other countries for different reasons such as migrant labor both permanent and temporary, war victims and professional labors that have much to give to other countries than local areas.

Some contemporary attitudes of Inter Religious Dialogue were highlighted as hostility, fear, indifference, aggressive evangelism, and dialogue where mutual

 

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sides learn together.

Then, participants were given Bible Study group work chasing Jesus’s attitude to people of other faith in his times. Finally Rev. Duleep challenged the participants by giving 2 critical questions for thinking more comprehensively on Inter Religious Dialogue:

·       Where do people worship God?

·       What is the task of Jesus Christ?

 

5          Feminism and Ecumenical Movement

     Resource Person: Necta Montes

The objectives in the session on Feminism are:

·       To provide a general overview of Feminism, its aims, objectives, elements, principles and application

·       To discuss and analyze the various women's issues in Asia and Pacific

·       To understand and discuss various misconceptions and criticisms on Feminism and the Feminist Movement

·       To understand, review and examine the application of Feminism in the context of the Ecumenical Movement

·       To find connection and relationship between the Bible, Christianity and Feminism

·       To understand the influence of Feminism on leadership styles         

An article was distributed to the participants as a groundwork exercise to find out their understanding on Feminism. Necta gave an input on the different terminologies on Feminism and the different origins and emphasis were discussed. Case studies were done and shared among the participants to demonstrate how Bible has to be interpreted with a new, holistic and inclusive perspective.

 

6          New Social Movements

     Resource Person: Muto Ichiyo

From the perspective of the Globalization process and Neo-liberal globalization, Mr. Ichiyo traced out how the Social Movement has started and the present situation it is facing now in relation to the Asian context.

 

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Ichiyo traced particularly the different movement for nation-state formation in Asia. He then turned to the forces of globalization which sharping the policies adopted by many Asian government. Mr. Ichiyo again stressed that globalization undercuts the process of student movements which are declining and tend to neglect the past and present social issues in the pursuit of instant gratification. He urged the need to call for a unity and solidarity amongst all peoples’ movements and to exercise trans-border participatory democracy with a clear process to be consciously promoted.

 

7          Community Organizing

     Resource Persons: Lucila B. Malibiran & Alicia Murphy

The facilitators pointed out that Community Organizing (CO) is not far from the church where our mission starts.  There is a need to keep in touch with the poor and a focus to empower the marginalized people.

The session constitutes:

·       Situation analyses

·       Vision/transformation

·       Input and context for Community Organizing

·       Specific techniques and strategies to do Community Organizing

·       Complementing skill and networking

Analysis for Community Organizing:

·       Why the poor is always the victim in the unjust social structure?

·       Why do we need networking?

·       Review

·       Present context of Ecumenical Church youths

 

Though participants are representing different organizations, i.e. from National Council of Churches Youth and Student Christian Movements, the participants from the same countries are encouraged to come together to plan the follow up activities after SELF. These would be the effort to multiply the spirit of SELF in their own countries. The follow up action plan showed that though they might be faced with different kind of difficulties, participants are eager to share the sprit and practice of SELF in their own youth groups.

 

 

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Evaluation and Worship

The five-week training program ended with an evaluation and a closing worship.  Participants are appreciative to have the chance to receive such an intensive program. They also filled in an evaluation form to give concrete suggestions on improving similar program in the future.  At last, the host also joined the participants for the closing worship with the spirit of thanksgiving for the time of living with and learning from each other in Thailand.