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1.
History
LOCOA continues the work of the Asia Committee for People's Organization (ACPO)
which beginning in 1971 instituted community organization (CO) in several Asian
countries. It was composed of three persons recommended by the Office of Human
Development of the Asian Bishops and three by the Christian Conference for
Asia-Urban Rural Missions office. It initiated CO work in Thailand, Hong Kong
and India and strengthened it in the Philippines, Korea, Pakistan and Indonesia.
In the early 1990s, ACPO was dissolved by the Church groups for reasons of
their own.
LOCOA seeks to replicate ACPO's work, such as:
introducing CO to countries where it is not existing, training COs on a long or
short term basis (one to seven months); organizing exposure trips for COs and
their support groups; arranging workshops in which national groups can exchange
tactics and experiences; circulating information through e-mail and newsletters;
arranging for research and evaluation; and working with other Asia-wide bodies
to help make people's participation a reality.
It
should be noted that LOCOA retains the ecumenical nature of the network and
indeed expends it to include Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist
member.
LOCOA
was born at a meeting of ASIAN CO persons held in Baguio City, Philippines in
November 1993. The meeting was an evaluation of CO work in Asia. One of the
results of the meeting was a successor to ACPO. It has became LOCOA, though in
1993 it had no name.
Over the next three years meetings were held in
Delhi, Hong Kong and Manila to work out the goals and methods of the
organization. A meeting was held in South Korea in September 1997 at which a
program of action was formulated in some detail for 1998 and in a general way
for 1999 and 2000. The tasks for 1998 included a visit of 12 Koreans to Manila
to study the CO work being done there. The most elaborate plan was for a
training team to go to Indonesia to work with young Indonesian COs. This plan
was delayed because of the turmoil in Indonesia in those years but it took place
in 1999, providentially in time for the democratic space that opened up that
year in the country. Individual LOCOA members visited and helped their
colleagues in other countries when they had chances to travel.
2. Goals
Top
Provide top level, professional CO training. This can
be done in workshops, consultations and long or short term on the job training
programs. To achieve this and the following goals the staff in Manila and the
organizers in different countries must share the work. Organizers in all
countries will be asked to travel to assist in the training
programs.
1) Initiate CO programs in countries and areas of
countries where CO doesn't exist.
2) Set up a network of CO practitioners who use the
Internet as their means of communication.
3) Bring CO persons together to evaluate, exchange
experiences and learn from another and To reflect on new initiatives in
organizing.
4) Arrange visits of CO persons to CO areas in other
countries to broaden the experience of both groups of
persons.
5) Publish articles, manuals and books that will help
COs do their work more effectively. Also provide organizers with useful
materials and videos put out by other groups.
6) Cooperate with other social action networks in
Asia.
7) Make a special effort to link the organizing work
to the religious traditions of the people.
8) Offer occasions for COs and others to discuss how
the larger context of Asia affects the CO work and what other responses might
be.
9) Included here might be discussions on global
trade, and the compromises that might be made in our lives between an all out
consumerism and a sustainable future.
10) In other words, LOCOA will help COs work toward
a practical, alternative vision of what social life might
be.
LOCOA :
Leaders and Organizers of Community Organization in Asia
28-B, Matino cor. Malumanay Street, Sikatuna
Village, Brgy
Malaya, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
Tel :
(632) 925-8432, 426-4119, 922-0988 Fax : (632) 426-4118
E-mail :
locoa2000@yahoo.com
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