Update on Progress in Londrina, Brazil
It's always gratifying to see how other communities are applying JCCI's Model of Community Change to engage their people in creating a brighter future. I had that privilege today, and I wanted to share the moment with you, the extended JCCI family.
The first time I visited Londrina, Brazil was in 2009. David Swain, JCCI's long time Associate Director, had done some consulting for JCCI in the state of Parana some years earlier, and one of the results was the creation of the Forum Desenvolve Londrina in 2005. They used our model to do both community-based inquiries around important issues as well as community quality-of-life indicators. In 2010, when I returned, we were able to seegreat progress in both Londrina and the neighboring cities of Apucarana and Maringa. (Those of you who were at TEDxJacksonville may remember me sharing a story from Londrina in my talk.)
So it was a real pleasure to meet today with Luis Claudio Galhardi from the Forum Desenvolve Londrina to get an update on the work. (His daughter moved to Jacksonville -- either a small world moment or we did a really good job on selling the merits of our fair city!)
He shared with me their latest work -- a new report on Health in Londrina, another one on Adolescents in Trouble with the Law, and one called "Third Sector: The Participation of the Organized Society in the Formulation, Implementation, and Monitoring of Public Policy." I'm particularly interested in this report, because they had me serve as a resource speaker for their study group! The cover of this report draws linkages among Governance, Sustainable Development, Working by Consensus, and Social Networks -- a very rough translation of the report's primary conclusions would be:
Invest in local social capital, supporting entrepreneurship and dissemination of civic initiatives that strengthen social networks.
Establish a new form of "governance" in the social contract, where government and citizens can interact across distributed networks in order to improve consensus building in partnership projects and public policy actions, constituting a huge instrument towards a new era of civilization where peace and social justice are not just a hope, but a true and definitive conquest.
Implement teachings that encourage collective imagination, solidarity, cooperative, associative and civic entrepreneurship.
Improve mechanisms for evaluation and control of the third sector providing public services (measure the effects of your action).
Governance should be a process of political intelligence.
He also shared with me their latest indicators report, and some fascinating work he does with his work to create peace in the community -- dusting off a Portuguese word that means to actively wage peace and using it to drive policy and action in the community. He's pushing some of the specific reforms they've already made in Londrina up to the national level, and are hoping to have them enacted before Brazil hosts the World Cup.
The work we do at JCCI continues to echo globally, and we continue to learn from others as they too believe in the bold idea that together we can create better communities. It's exciting to see how others bring people together to learn about their communities, engage in problem-solving, and act to make positive change.
Plus it was fun to try out my very rusty Portuguese!
Thank you for all you do to support JCCI. What you do makes a difference.
- Ben Warner, President & CEO
