Am writing this post rather breathless after a whirlwind 3-day trip to Malaysia and an astounding couple of events in Kuala Lumpur.
June ’09 is dedicated to supporting the growth of the Awakening community in South East Asia, and this has occasioned a tour of the region. One of the stops was KL where the World’s Greenest Man lives. Matthias Gelber, who won this acolade in a worldwide search, is also an entrepreneur, the founder of Eco Warriors Malaysia and a trained facilitator for the Awakening the Dreamer symposium.
So you’ll guess that Matthias is a make-it-happen kind of guy, and he was delighted to create both a symposium and then a one-day training in Malaysia this past weekend, and what events they proved to be. On Friday evening 180 people gathered in the Grand Millennium Hotel (Matthias had exchanged his time as an eco-trainer for use of this venue!!!!). What followed was the most spirited symposium I have ever been involved in; the crowd was with us, and vocally so, from the outset as Matthias, Jo Fok (remember Jo as the force of nature organising the whole June trip) and I lead the event. At least three wonderful possibilities emerged; the first was a grouping of the many people there working in the field of education, the second a collection of committed and active young people and thirdly the a group who wanted to attend the Facilitator Training the next day. The crowd was eventually dispersed (by the cleaners I think) over an hour after the event had formally concluded and it was clear that this first event had been a huge hit. The people who attended were almost all already active in some way, but as is so often the case, were galvanized into new levels of activity and collaboration by the ATD message. And, demonstrating a real opportunity for other groups around the world, the crowd had been assembled almost entirely on Facebook (no trees were harmed in the promotion of this event).
And then . . . . . the next day 47 of these people came together to train and form MY Awakening, the first group of facilitators in Malaysia (which is MY for short). Ranging in age from 13 (is Liam the youngest facilitator in the world?) to much older, speaking Malay, Tamil, Hindi, Cantonese, Danish, German, Spanish, Japanese and English (I probably missed a couple too) this group really represents the diversity of Malaysia and the natural joy and exuberance of its people. 24 hours later there is already a Facebook site, a nominated Youth Officer (Liam’s older brother Stephane) and a series of meetings in the diary.
I left the post-training celebrations in time to get 4 hours sleep and catch the first flight back to HK where we’ve just run another symposium . . . . . but that’s another story, for another post.
What I’m inspired to understand and pass on for other facilitator communities around the world is how tools like Facebook can be used so effectively, and what is it that Matthias is doing that has such a large and willing group ready to mobilise in support of symposiums, tree-plantings or other events. But for now, bravo Matthias and welcome to MY Awakening.
