I am a social forester presently working as a local consultant in La Paz -
Bolivia. Before, I worked during 4 years (1993 - 1997) as an associate
expert in development projects in Honduras (forestry education) and
Ecuador (Andean community forestry) for and with different national and
international organisations (international: DGIS/NEDA and FAO). In Bolivia
I have carried out short term consultancies for the Dutch Embassy (funding
of gender/women projects) and for the FAO Project in support of the
Bolivian Forestry Action Plan (revision of technical project documents)
Although the forestry training I received had a strong technical
orientation, I4ve always had a strong interest for the social aspects of
environmental problems in developing countries. In 1996 I did a course on
"Leadership, Teambuilding and Intercultural Communication" (Management for
Development Foundation MDF, Ede - The Netherlands). This course really was
a eye-opener for me, because it enabled me to put into place a lot of
questions I had about my work ... and because I was introduced to Senge's
Fifth Discipline and the ideas about learning organisation, personal
mastery, etc. Curious enough, upon my return to the project in Ecuador I
stumbled upon the spanish version of the Fifth Discipline; the ecuadorian
coordinator of our team, also enthousiastic about any learning
organization theory, gave me a copy. Both we reflected a lot on the
importance of this discipline for any development project. In short, I've
become a fanatic on the subject now.
Now, I'am trying to start my own research reflecting on management of
development projects from a learning-organization point of view. Therefore
I would like to get into (e-mail) touch with people who have been actively
putting learning organisation ideas into practice within the intercultural
context of development projects anywhere in the world. I'm especially
interested in work done on mental models, shared vision and systems
thinking.
Thank you for your attention.
Best regards
Alette Getz-Smeenk
Local Consultant
Social Forestry and Natural Resources Management
La Paz - Bolivia
Postal address:
c/o P.J. Getz, Koeriersdienst, Postbus 20061, 2500 EB Den Haag, The Netherlands
E-mail adress:
pgetz@datacom-bo.net or pgetz@hotmail.com
--Paul Getz <pgetz@datacom-bo.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>