Samstag, 18. September 2010

"Something frail and small is currently left behind. It needs to be tended to and cared for and over time it will grow into an energy that can give impulses again. What is to be done?"
(quote Ben S.)

Over the past few months new hands have found their way to the Idem Office in Basel and are now standing in front of an organization that feels as thought it is a garden that has not been tended to for a while. Brush and brambles covering something that wants to grow, it is surely there and I am convinced we will find it with the help of courage, support from our friends and some time.



What Idem is and has been:

an organization that has been supporting projects in the past and can do so in the future. An office in the unternehmen mitte co-working space in Basel where young people can come and work on their projects and implement their ideas.
A network linking up with many individuals, active people, projects and initiatives (YIP in Sweden, Aramitan in Brazil, Supperheroes Adventurous Catering, The Youth Section Dornach, captura in Germany, projekt zeitung in Germany Connect Conference, Connect Cafe Basel and many more), donors, learners, teachers, organizations, students and volunteers.
Young people and people young at heart who want to creat alternatives to what they experience is wrong in our world, people who are not afraid of opening their eyes to conflicts and problematic situations but on the contrary, who want to come together and change them.

Idem has been a place of learning for many of us. The underlying concept of „Identity through Initiative“, the process of finding one‘s way out of one‘s initial creative chaos into something experienced and more refined and manifested, has been experienced by many youth who have been active under the Idem wings or on what we used to call the Idem plattform. School classes, youth groups, individuals...
Idem has been a host to learning processes such as trainings and workshops, it has created meeting places in the form of conferences and has given working space to many who have come to join us in the office in Basel.
Idem has many brothers and sisters around the world, direct Idem partner organizations as well as project partners that are all standing autonomous from our organization but are linked up with and through the Idem network.



What Idem is and can be in the future:

The Idem team in Basel is currently made up of three young women who are willing to re-shape and re-think the organisational part that holds Idem in place. We are all three interested in learning from all possible sources around us how to carry and organization that is already defined and that needs to be held up as a vessel for more ideas to come into this world and be implemented.
We call Idem a playground instead of a plattform at the moment, as we are only able to offer the space for all of you to come to and play in, we offer to prepare some rules to follow but we are ourselves not strong enough to carry a plattform for others to dance upon. (It is apparent that our plattform services were not sustainable in the past, thus we have changed the image: a playground is for everyone to participate in and carry the responsibility for the playground while playing on it. It is up to each player to tend to the playgounds in order for play to be possible.) Idem is a space of learning but more importantly it is a chance to ask yourself you most important questions: Who am I and who am I to be? In my own life Idem has played a major role in dealing with these challenging quests. Who am I? I can find out while I am helping you in your project, while I am organizing my own, while I am engaging in society and am serving this world by shaping it into something meaningful and worth standing for! Who am I to be? Where is my potential? Who am I supposed to grow into? Whom do I need to become in order to be able to shape this world?In many conversations with my life mentors I find mirrors that show me who I am, that help me see how I am growing while I am being active, that teach me and help me find my own methods of learning. Mentors are everywhere in life, in partner organizations, in random meetings at other youth events, in colleagues and friends. If I take my time to open my eyes I begin to see them clearly everywhere. Idem is a place where I can begin to open my eyes. Mentors are those sort of real friends who tell you things you do not want to hear. But things you can learn from and build upon your next steps of developing towards your true self.
The Idem Office Space is open to youth from here and there to come and work on their ideas and find ways to implements them. We have internet, we have a phone, we have courage and supportive ideas on how you could make your dream come true! Give us a call and we will do our best to help you!


(be rebellious, be on fire, the sky is the limit!!)

In our own plan and life-program we find the need to learn to be a priority, so we have decided to make this our agenda. Themes from basic income, social threefolding and general project management (fundraising!) to cooking, cultures and languages, anything could come up. We are scheduled to visit partner initiatives who deal with similar themes, as our wish is to closely network and co-work with fellow learners and activists in Europe and the world.
Contact us to find out what our actions on this are. (mail (at) idem-network.org)

My vision tonight!

I see the world and it inspires me to engage in it. I watch people in the supermarket down the road, in the cafe where I work, and I percieve all diversity, more thank I can fathom or grasp, more than I could ever imagine. But there they are. And each of them has an impact on this planet. And each of them is trying to understand something of this world. Each of them is feeling how it feels to be alive, is walking and is striving and is needing and trying.

What is it that I want to try? I want to put my hand into their heart and turn on the light, when I see them sitting grim and frowning. I want to put my hand into their mind and stroke away the pain and doubt and all the fear that they carry around in their way of being, their way of trying to be an image of something that doesn‘t exist, of trying to be in fashion, of trying to be someone else than they are. I see them distracted, I see them searching and I feel so alike. I am ditracted, I am looking away, I am searching and hurting for this world and this life that is so radiacally fast and furiously hard and cold around me.
I want to invite them into a real conversation with themselves. If I could put a drop of fearless selfreflexion into every coffee I serve I would be the most satified world chaging person on earth. I want to give them the feeling of what it means to live on this planet Earth and be meaningful. I want to creat opportunities where their inner soul pressure, that arises from not knowing how to engage in positivity, can be released. I want to give them keyholes for their keys of engagement into this world, of participation in what is real and not what is distracting and fake and flimmering into their minds from TV and advertizements. I want to give them reality. Real chocies every morning when they get up and enter another day of their lives. Real meaning when they look at their work at the end of the day and real opportunities to smile about what they have created and done. Real consciousness about who they are in being human, what it means to take themselves and their own potential seriously.I want to give them a chance to become the butterfly that wants to come out of them. I want to take away their fear of cocooning, their fear of the dark, their fear of maturing because once they go into it they will find out how beautiful they really are. And out of this beauty in each of us only good things for the world can arise!

by Katharina, Team Idem Basel

Mittwoch, 5. Mai 2010

Workcamp Leader Training

We got it running, a next Workcamp Leader Training is happening in cooperation with Onipa Nti on the weekend from 28. till the 30. of May in Essen. See a possible plan for the training.
If you are interested in the training please write to basel (at) idem-network.org you would be welcome to participate.

Samstag, 24. April 2010

Idem Future Meeting

first notes:

Idem future meeting 24.04.2010 Haus Julian,

Katha, Ianthe, Silvia, Caitlin, Valentin, Emilie, Josias, Jara, Fioirna, Lukas, Sebastian

10:30putting up central questions for the meeting

putting the questions hear.

The initiative questions are more general and might answer the reason for Idem to exist.

Many of the questions have been asked several times and are more personal, we speak of Idem in the third person. Where is the real overall question? How can I get the questions down from all the problems in the world to the question what I can actually do?
(How) Do I want Idem to exist? Different levels to look at that question.
platform / network
practically
place / space
idealWe have been talking about different issues but already always assuming that we want it to exist.

Lukas: says I want Idem, the questions stays how
Katha: Need to be „cleaned“ up and her yes depends to the renovation of the platform. Wont say yes to the yesterday platform, opening the space to reinvent the platform
Fiorina: Idealistic platform yes - might see later that it cant work
Emilie: Sees a lot of potential and says yes to the building of something good
Valentin: The platform is relevant, yes
Josias: Can say yes to concrete thinks - but is not sure if that is the platform. Cant say yes to the platform because he cant carry it.
Caitlin: Theoretically it‘s beautiful, pretty easy question
Jara: Depending on the learning and newlines of the platform, if we keep it inside she can say yes
Sylvia: Likes the word net weaver and that‘s what she can do at the moment.

14:14 Uhr
Juliana, Dave, Saskia joined in

Resumé about previous session.

Talking about the office/space/place
Community needs a common place/space to meet as a basis for a platform, which could have Satellites all around. That space need to be kept free, that everyone who want can join in.
People walking in the office asking specific question, thats the point where office work gets exciting.How free are we in the Mitte office what can we do without disturbing others in the office.
An office needs to make people enthusiastic and stay itself enthusiastic. If you keep the overall picture of the project and the vision even stuff such as bookkeeping gets exciting.
Does it need a fixed structure or could it be a moving one? A fixed one creates stability and a flexible one needs to be build up and taken down.

Platform:



Who's able to do what, personal point view:



Changes:
Don‘t only talk about changes and than see what happens but rather just try it and than see what happens.
Situation in the office feels totally different, open to live the changes we want to see.

Bare foot Guide meeting:
05.05.2010 contact Sylvia

Contact person for information about a further meeting:
Emilie and Jara
Possible questions for the next meeting



Further meeting midst of May, date being set in the office

Mittwoch, 3. März 2010

retreat in Kichheim 26.-28.02.10

The long wanted and needed Idem retreat happened the last weekend. We were all really excited that it finally could happen again, we just had no time, means, will or capacity to meet to look into Idem again as if it was newly founded.

Friday we had some personal exchange around a central question which was:
"Which experience had/has importance into your future?" I haven't been there, so I cant tell you how they were. (Maybe some one wants to share his/hers with us?)

Saturday started with two questions:

"What do you love to do?"
"What gives you energy?"
First we sat alone and thought about this questions our self, than shared them with someone and the listener than wrote a short story about what he heard. I like to share one story we heard:
"My car is finally road worthy for the long journey ahead. My family have joined me to wish me farewell, some of my friends are there too.
Together we load the car with carpenters tools of all shapes and sizes, each having been made for specific purpose.
As important are the toys, there are several coloured balls and a parachute which is cavity to be held by a group of children is a wish.
The tank is loaded but it will be needed to be filled many more tomes to make the long journey to Mongolia.
On my way I will use my skilled hands to work the tools and I will teach children games, in return I hope to see a smile on a young girls face. I want to help young people to do what they really want to do and to help those that are less fortunate or face difficulties in life.
I am privileged but that's not what is important, to me a gift can be a 19 years old boy telling me his life story, I will listen with wide eyes, as the light dives at dusk.
I will collect stories which I will take with me on my way back home over the Caucasian mountains."

After more of these beautiful stories we went into the "Open Space" with different groups.

The following image will show the outcomes of the first group where we were talking about the present status of Idem.



The notes of the other groups you will find theme her

There is one great picture to come, I haven't got it yet.

Friday 5th of March we gone talk about a few upcoming open meetings were you can bring your topic and were we will ask questions like: "What is your burning question in life? Why do you stand up every morning? Why do you do what you do? What is the chance you want to see in this world?" The dates haven't been set yet, but we hope that we can do that way:
  • May - Ruhrgebiet
  • June - Basel
  • September - Berlin
  • November - Munich
Some when in November/December we gone have another retreat to close the year 2010.

All in all it was a great meeting, not to enthusiastic, not boring but grounded and clear, hope to see you all at the next meeting to get Idem again what it is - a platform to share!

Any questions? Dont wait to ask! write to mail (at) idem-network.org