Update from ECI's Stockholm Office
For the ECI Community as a whole, here is an adapted version of an update memo I sent to our Staff team, and the ECI Council's Executive Committee ... a snapshot of what we're working on right now!
- Alan AtKisson, Executive Director
Dear ECI Executive Committee and Staff,
It seems good time to share an update with you on what is happening here in the Stockholm office, where we have started back to work after our July vacation season.
1. Michael Slaby to rejoin ECI Team full time, based in Heidelberg, Germany
With the approval of the grant ffor the creation of our new Program on Religion and Sustainability, Michael will now start to work implementing the strategy developed over the past year. Michael will focus first on further development of a general "Earth Charter Guide to Religion and Sustainable Development," but more specifically on an Earth Charter-focused briefing and teaching guide for religious leaders on the ethical issues surrounding climate change.
Congratulations to Michael and to all of us for having successfully navigated from initial Council approval to a well-researched and grant-funded program, in just nine months.
2. Dominic Stucker and Family to Move to Costa Rica and ECI Center at UPEACE
Dominic, the Earth Charter Youth Initiative's International Coordinator, will move to our Costa Rica center as of 1 October 2007. Dominic will ...
Dominic will spend the second year of his initial two-year contract working to integrate the Youth program more tightly with ECI's education program, where the synergies are both obvious and important. Since he and wife Abigail are graduates at UPEACE, this will be a "semi-homecoming" for them ... even though we are saddened indeed that we will not have Dominic's bright presence here in our Stockholm offices on a daily basis. We know, however, that this is a good move for Dominic, his family, and the Youth program in the near term.
3. ECI partnership with Stockholm Environment Institute takes form
ECI is continuing to build its working relationship with Stockholm Environment Institute, with a variety of project ideas and collaborations on communication. One of the first of these will be to work with SEI materials and "translate" them for religious audiences grappling with how to engage on climate change and other global issues. ECI Council Member Li Lailai also serves as Assoc. Director for SEI, so we are especially happy for the link this provides, not just to SEI, but to China as well (Lailai, former director of LEAD China, retains very strong links to the research and NGO world in China). Stay turned for an announcement about a new high-level seminar series, in partnership with SEI, to be launched in February 2008 (among other projects!).
4. Goodbye to Leah Wener ... and shortly, hello to Lisa Panella
Leah Wener worked with us all year as an intern and World Leadership Corps fellow ... and she was an extremely valuable team member. In addition to supporting the Earth Charter Youth Initiative and working closely with Dominic on its design and development, she undertook several specific projects, including the drafting of a new guide for youth to get engaged in global governance issues. She also was an essential part of our communications team, managing the weekly emails and keeping web content updated. And a wonderful, smart, pleasant work colleague on top of all that! We will miss her greatly but wish her good fortune in her new volunteer assignment, working refugee camps near the Thai-Myanmar border zone. And we hope and expect to keep her engaged in the ECI family!
Starting 1 September, we will be joined by a new intern, named Lisa Panella, from Italy. Lisa P. (we will need to start saying Lisa Ö. and Lisa P.!) comes to us via the prestigious, EU-funded Leonardo Da Vinci fellows program, and is funded to work with us through the end of February 2008. With a strong background in communications, she will be picking up some of Leah's functions, and supporting Lisa in communications generally.
By the way, we're not saying goodbye yet to Kat Cooley -- working in Sichuan, China, in connection with our partner Ecologia and WLC, with an Earth Charter-related set of projects there -- because Kat is staying on after the end of her formal internship for at least several more months.
5. Other Updates ...
Here are some other things we are working on currently ...
- As Executive Director, I am trying to focus my time on fundraising as much as possible -- writing proposals, fundraising letters, fundraising materials. Now that we have such a wonderful team in place, and our programs are growing, it's important to build an even stronger financial platform to support this work over the long term. (Can you help, with donations, or links to inspired donors for ECI? Let me know!)
- Lisa Öberg is moving forward (with our new partners Mattias Klum AB, the National Geographic photographer and his colleagues) on the design of a new set of Earth Charter Exhibition Panels that hope to make available around the world, and we are also finalizing the initial agreement with National Geographic photographer Mattias Kum on the further development of our envisioned "Earth Charter Lighthouse" process.
- And finally, I've been in frequent contact with the Council Co-Chairs as the Council continues to develop its thoughts around a long-term vision for "Decentralized Empowerment to Scale Up" (as reported earlier).
There's a lot more, but this gives a you a snapshot of what's occupying our thoughts and time.
Warm greetings,
Alan