creative leadership workshops (in cross-cultural settings)

This is one of the possible ideas for my kaospilot final project. What I am thinking of is developing what we started in Cuba, try it out in Colombia(and perhaps in the future extend it to Latin America). A way to plant seeds and promote social entrepreneurship in Colombia.

Some people have been talking about the possibility of starting a kaospilot school in Colombia, or in Latin America, I kind of think that it is perhaps too early for that, and that if open rigtht now, such a school would be mainly targeted to young privileged people, people who have the economic means to try out this kind of education, I think this might not be the right approach for the social needs of Colombia.

Before actually starting a school, I would like to develop a program of short courses, a more flexible way of working with the same kind of issues as the kaospilos school works with that would allow the program to reach more people from a wider social spectrum. That would empower and inspire those that need it the most, and that is not dependant on a big infrastructure in order to survive.

I would like to work with young people who would not otherwise have the opportunity to access further education, and in whom I see a great potential for making a possitive contribution to their communities.

My idea is be to design and carry out two week workshops with groups of no more than 15 people in a very hands on approach training skills such as team work, communication, proactive planning, personal leadership, creative project management, problem solving, techniques for idea development and prototyping and the use of invormation and communication technologies.

Ideally the participants will come to the course with an existing project that they are working on or are interested in, and that would like to develop, the projects should have a social perspective, intending to generate a reflection about a social issue and a possitive impact in their communities.

An important perspective of the course is to work in a perspective of co-creation. It is not about taking the european or first world way of thinking and impossing it onto other people, it is not about comming with solutions or recipies, that has been tried many times before, and has been proven unsuccessful more than enough times. What I think is interesting is the perspective of empowering people to find their own solutions, to take responsibility for their lives, to be part of making a better future for themselves, to learn to free themselves from the self-image of being victims.

This is also an invaluable opportunity for me to learn. Working with motivated people and having the privilege of sharing their dreams is perhaps one of the most amazing gifts life can give one. I don’t see it as a transfer of tools, as me filling empty buckets with information, I see it as an oportunity for all the participants including me to engage in a learning adventure together. More than answers I am interested in people getting better at asking questions, at being curious, at trying new things, at thinking of the common and not only on their own personal gain, I am interested in people exploring their natural abilities for learning, for knowing themselves, for inspiring others.

And inspiration is a very important aspects, one of my objectives is that after the course some of the participants would be involved in designing a new course, and would be part of facilitaing. It is very important that the project is not dependant on me, I would like to see myself as the one planting seeds, and that seeds will fly and start new crops in other parts with other groups. I would like to see this project growing organically not industrially, and certainly not dependant on bureaucratic
The vision I have with this workshops is that they can be carried out in different parts of the country (I love travelling my beautiful contry, so that is not a bad thing) and that they should be accompanied by an online community platform where the participants can post information on themselves, the course and the projects they are working on, using text, pictures, video and sound. The intention with this is in different areas:

• Extend the time and geographical reach of the workshops
• Familiarize participants with the use of new media and information and communication technologies
• Inspire others
• Promote cross polination of projects and hopefully in the future see how collaboration emerges among participants throughout the country

I am right now looking for partners and people that could be interested in trying this out, I have made this website

liderazgo creativo

Let’s see what happens…

Filed under beginning project, chachara, kaospilot | Comment (0)