OPEN SPACES IN SEARCH OF THERESAS
catcomm.org - Catalytic Communities HUB in Rio, Brazil
For us its appropriate to open our listing of projects emerging from global village hubs with a catalytic experiment out of the southern hemisphere- one of Brazil's great collaboration gifts to the world along with water for humanity (eg 2004 year of water for the public dialogues Brazil Catholic Churches 7000 parishes, world's largest dam at Foz is also 100 clean river basin projects -mail wcbn007@easynet.co.uk if you need the CD catalogue including a schools curriculum connecting 80 kids in mapping systemic waves of water, the collaboration of Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay steward one third of the world's reserves of underground freshwater, nature's need to restore to health the exponential global impacts of rainforests)

Let's Open The Talk about collaboration origins of Catcomm:
Founded by a lady who loves the three countries her roots comes from Brazil, USA and UK

Pledged by 200 citizens via pledgebank as well as interesting network of NGOs who see this as a chance of catalysing deeper community projects than can be reached in any other space

Supported with 1 in 40000 shares of the microfinance funds made available by omidyar and the billionaire philanthropists who founded ebay

So what's the next step in Bridging Catcomm with Schumacher's and Entrepreneurial Revolutionaries' open netizen mission of 2 million global villages

One way I will explore is search through my inbox of 5000 acquaintances for those from dual hemisphere origins and who I know love a Southern or Eastern hemisphere's nations people to ask them to find one deep community project they would most love the rest of the world to openly debate, and see if we can get that featured as the opinion lead example of catcomm's international online package tour of deep community projects. Should you be a 12th grade email user of similar desire to connect people's cultures around the world - or a Londoner who takes this responsibility on after 7/7 as a test of all future cities' sustainability, then please contact me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk so we can start sharing our best twin-citizen leads and help catcomm openly connect with them

conversation 1 with Theresa 1

Theresa asks :Would love to hear folks' ideas and in particular help us dream up improvements to the current Casa model, particularly in the area of what activities could bring sustainability to the space. How could we meet the Casa's costs from natural activities in the space???

a1.1 could you be the exchange where people come to learn about microfinance
Can the Omidyar community 1 2 bring to Rio a conference on community banking and microfinance -and co-brand it Catalytic Community and Omidyar.

I'm assuming Omidyar exists in part to open source training at every level of how to win-win-win from community up financing. If your CASA is also a local space for banks that could want to experiment with a community-up arm, maybe that's how you earn revenues to empower your other side the community projects you want to invest time and community and permission to converse about before deciding which need their own money, and how small an experim ent wil test out whether they are sustainable

You will find Theresa's story and her 200+pledgebankers and how several hunred locla project developers continues at catcom threads within the local global section of omidyar http://www.omidyar.net/group/localglobal/news/

a few lowlights and highlights aqs 2006 move forward
January
the original CASA was broken into and computers damages one January night of 2006 leading to the decision to relocate it; apparently the Roman Catholic church in its wisdom in redevelopimg the whole area around the old casa but this has meant a lot less safety for thsoe that are temporarily there
February
the last day of fully running the old CASA has been dated at the saem time as a feast and start of Rio's carnivals - carnival methods of animating projects remain one of our huge interests at Club of Dc having been introduced to a guy who is studying practices of carnivlas as they connect to sustainability education of peoples or other socila premneurial revolutions

this thread on the culture -QUALITIES OF CASA SPACE - seemed vital to reproduce here:
The following is a list of the characteristics of the space (also found at http://www.comcat.org/english/casa.asp#crie
A location accessible by one ride on public transport from any location within the metropolitan region;
2. A "homey" space: the fact that it is a house, we have found is important in building a fraternal culture of comfort, exchange, and dialogue; Staff and frequent visitors present the Casa and its objectives to all visitors and receive them with coffee and biscuits, in order for them to quickly feel at home;
There is no charge for use of the space given the low socio-economic level of community organizers in Rio de Janeiro; in addition we have found that the exchange of monetary resources among staff and community organizers weakens the bonds of trust and camaraderie, and so must be avoided to ensure the healthy nature of the space;
The connections made and information exchanged at the Casa are unpredictable and depend on the organizers that visit the space; the staff's role is to maintain a friendly space that nurtures and stimulates natural and strengthening exchanges;
Workshops, debates and lectures offered in the space are organized by volunteers including community organizers that seek out CatComm staff to make use of the space, as are meeting rooms and computer facilities; CatComm staff does not actively direct the use and content of the space;
The space is specifically available to support people in their effort to further projects related to community organizing or social mobilization; individuals wanting to use the space for personal, rather than collective aims, are directed to other Internet café's or locations for those activities;
The space is neutral relative to differences in gender, race, religion, age, or sexual orientation;
Community organizers may use the Casa's resources independent of the thematic focus of their work;
Exchanges among community organizers with diverse interests are actively encouraged; for example, a health project, AUAPARN, organized a computer skills workshop with a women's group, Woman in Action, and with a homeless movement, Chiquinha Gonzaga;
Outreach happens mainly naturally, by word-of-mouth; by attentively following these precepts, the space has become a reference among community organizers in Rio and new leaders visit us almost daily thanks to positive outreach by other leaders themselves;
Our staff offers to one only what we can offer to all; this encourages us to develop stronger bonds with community organizers and volunteers themselves, who effectively drive activity in the space while CatComm maintains a small staff to simply administer and maintain it;
Monthly open meetings are held with Casa users to determine how the space and CatComm's website can better serve them, and to discuss important issues currently affecting local projects;
Every visit and the use of computers and meetings spaces is registered in a customized database in order to determine how the space is being used, what works, and what could improve.