Please click here to view the BABA 9 Tentative Program
BABA 9 NARA Retreat Organization
Dear All BABA Fellows,
This message is for all BFs. I want to thank you all for your understanding and cooperation in the last few weeks. We had a tough time making the selection. I did agonize over it because everyone who applied to attend B9 did deserve to be selected. I have received only kind responses from those who did not get a chance to attend. I want to thank you all for it.
This message is for all BFs including those who did not apply for B9. I want to share with you the developments in the organization of B9 and hopefully –where possible- make contributions to what is happening.
I had mentioned in a previous announcement that BABA 9 will be fundamentally different from previous retreats. The focus is on the exchange of ideas and views of the fellows. To this end I have put together 4main panels to deliberate issues of general concern. Each panel will comprise 4-5 persons who will prepare papers for presentation during the retreat. Each panel will have a chairperson whose role will be to work with the panelists when they are preparing the papers. This approach, we hope, will create a wealth of information and analysis. Each panel will be assisted by a Mentor.
The panellists were invited according to their interest or expertise in the particular subject. The four main panels and the persons involved are:
PANEL One: Leadership & Governance Issues in Asia
1. Novri Susan/Indonesia/TNF/4
2. Ronnel Del Rio/Philippines/TNF/BB
3. Guanghua Liu/China/SYLFF/7
4. Muhammad Iham/Indonesia/SYLFF/5
Chair: Sadia Khan/Pakistan/SYLFF/6
Mentor: Louis Goodman
PANEL Two: Promoting a Green Economy Through Asian Volunteerism
1. Noriko Hashimoto/Japan/UNP/7
2. Tuan Quang Tran/Vietnam/TNF/6
3. Mohammed Al-Masud/Bangladesh/UNP/8
4. Sanjeev Kumar/India/SPF/6
5. Oyundelgar Sedragchaa/TNF/8
Chair: Citra Wardhani/Indonesia/SYLFF/4
Mentor: TBC
PANEL Three: on Human Security in Asia
1. Sunitha Nair/India/SYLFF/8
2. Ryuhei Sano/Japan/TNF/6
3. Sherilyn Siy/Philippines/SYLFF/1
4. Yoshimi Horiuchi/Japan/TNF/BB
5. Payoshini Mitra/India/SYLFF/3
Chair: Kejin Qian/China/SPF/7
Mentor: Amitav Acharya
PANEL Four: Peace and Cultural Dialogue
1. Nirosion Perera/SPF/6
2. Ngeow Yeok Meng/Malaysia/SYLFF/8
3. Kyi Kyi/Myanmar/UNP/3
4. Kamrul Hossain/Bangladesh/SYLFF/4
5. Sarojini Imran/SYLFF/7
Chair: Kamei Aphun/India/SYLFF/4
Mentor: Thai Quang Trung
I have also formed a 5th panel which will comprise the rest of the fellows who are not panellists. The role of this panel is yet to be defined but I hope the chair and the mentor can do this so that the workshop will be very participative. But I hope that it does not stop you from offering your views and ideas to the panellists as they develop their papers. For one at least you can start also designing –individually or in groups-ideas and concepts that can be implemented. I direct this to those BFs who make be interested to work with those attending B9.
PANEL Five: Projects
1. Zeya Thu/Myanmar/SPF/1
2. Alwin Aguirre/Philippines/API/3
3. Saroth Chuon/Cambodia/TNF/7
4. Xiangxiang Ma/China/SYLFF/3
5. Menandro Abanes/SYLFF/5
6. Saman M Don/Sri Lanka/UNP/7
7. Nguyen Ngoc Anh/Vietnam/UNP/7
8. Uwen Wong/Singapore/TNF/BD
9. Dang Hoai Phuc/Vietnam/TNF/BB
10. Enkhbayar Janchivnyambuu/Mongolia/TNF/BD
11. Qifang Tang/China/TNF/7
Chair: Katherine Lacson/Philippines/SYLFF/2
Mentor: Lau Sim Yee
I hope that we can get two outcomes from these papers:
1. A report
2. Ideas that can be realised as implementable projects
These papers are expected to be circulated to the rest of the participants at least 10 days before the workshop. Each paper-writer will be given 15 minutes to make the presentation.
It is also time to develop a simple directory of all BABA Fellows. If there is any of you who is keen to edit this so that I can get it published please let me know.
I am attaching also a tentative programme of the Nara retreat so that you will have some idea of what is in store. I am finalizing the agenda.
Warm regards
Raja
Comments
Thank you very much and all the best.
beside, I am very happy and grateful to you Raja, that you have been promoting my book on the BABA Web. I appreciate you so much for what have you done for it. And I hope my book would be useful to others. Hopefully this retreat would give result that I could produce work of other books and do some social actions.
May we all continue to communicate to produce tangible works that could provide many changes to make better Asia.
You are right. It needs some clrification. I have sensed a great eagerness on the part of everyone to be proactive. Not everyone has a chance to make a presentation . Some of you may very well wish to do so.Instead, I was hoping that perhaps you all can offer some ideas of what you all can do. I have left it open to Katherine as chairperson to give it some thougt. In fact, someone had offered to write a paper even.This could be taken up with the panel chairpersons; I dont see why there cannot be collaborative papers with some of the panellists. Some can even act as rapporteurs so that summaries of the meetings can be made. In this way there will be more active participation.I have advised the chairpersons about the constraint of time. So I am hoping the 5th group can come up with some ideas, Alwyn.
Why not? We shuld be able to share the reasures that are produced by our BABA colleagues. I am sure they will all appreciate the work that you have done and the work that others have done. I hope they will also share some of their writings or information on what other things they have done besides publishing
topic one will have a great impact for all asian countris specially for the countries that have lack of good governance....
panel two is also very interesting
...but three and four are exciting for us because Human Security,peace and cultural dialogue have great impact for BUILDING A BETTeR ASIA.
one this is missing the topics of the individual ten project members are not given.If that were given we might have an idea about their projects which will help us to know their view.
finally many many thanks to raja for his tremindus effort on this matter.
I am responding to your email asking for a clarification about the panel topic. I was trying to combine two issues – the first is regarding our concerns about our environment, and the second the role of civil society in dealing with these concerns. More specifically, I see volunteerism as enabling civil society. If civil society embraces the spirit of volunteerism to some extent and if it also includes actors such as philanthropic organizations then this sector has an important role in many areas including the environment. Wealth from these philanthropic sector has increased particularly in Asia. This sector is focused in their work whether it deals with the human condition or with nature and bring innovation and creativity to their work.These foundations have proven how willing they are to take risks which governments can’t or the business sector won’t. What and how can civil society actors including foundations do to support our commitment to make our ecology sustainable. I suppose when I mentioned “green economy” I was also thinking how new activities can be developed in support of greening our global community. For instance, why not develop entrepreneurship among women but in Green areas? That said, I wanted you and the fellows to be comfortable with how you want to define and defend such issues.