I met Chaiwat on different occasions. One was the famous first European
Appreciative Inquiry
training of David Cooperrider and Diane Whitney, 1999 in Riccione,
Italy. Then at the Society of Organizational Learnng International
Conference 2005 in Vienna. We sat together, when the entire group of
400 went to the
Heurigen (a
typical Austrian trinking and eating event), and we talked about old
and new times. Chaiwat told me that he was about to facilitate a mega
event back in his home country Thailand.
That
is what he did - he run a World Café with 3000 delegates of the
Democratic Party. His report of this remarkable event, photos that show
its magnitude (like the one on the right), and some information on his
background can be found on
the World Café Global Website hosted by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs.
Chaiwat is an extremely kind person, with remarkable reflective skills,
and he is now one of the leading Asian facilitators for large group
interventions such as
Open Space Technology,
Appreciative Inquiry and
World Café.
He writes about himself:
As
a member of 1960s generation, I grew up in the midst of the search for
the meaning of life. The book Sidharatha by Herman Hesse, The Art of
Loving by Erich From and Herbert Marcuse have brought us out of the
lecture rooms into the streets with pictures of Che Guevara and Ho Chi
Minh. The public demonstration songs from Bob Dylon and Joan Baez
comforted our rebellious souls. In numerous parties and meetings, we
sang the song “Imagine” by John Lennon with our full voice. That was
the world we wished to have and strongly desired to live our lives in,
not only for us but for our children and for the next generation.
As
I returned from Germany to Thailand in 1974, I started working in the
labor and the farmers movements. For twenty years I spent my time
organizing protests with hope to strengthen the country’s politics by
fighting against the establishment. I got involved in street fight, one
of the bloodiest fights against the military dictatorship in May
1992.We Thais called it “The Bloodied May”. It was the first time I
witnessed and felt “the field of energy” with my own body and mind. Two
weeks long, we experienced and touched this kind of creativity and
courage as human beings that fought against the military regime that
ruled Thailand. Unfortunately, after the government dictatorship has
been overthrown and a new election was held and everything went back to
“the normal state”, no creativity, no innovative ideas, and no actions
.Citizens returned to people who live their “normal lives”, all the
energy was gone. We could not manage to sustain the energy to bring
forth the society we dreamed to have. It seems that most of us have
forgotten how many courageous citizens have scarified their lives for
that dream.
To bring that dream back, I threw away old theories
and methodologies and began a long journey to find how to create a
positive energy without protesting and fighting a “common enemy?” How
to make sure that this energy will sustain? And, how we could notice
when it starts to wither away?
Starting to become interested in that special person? Read more...
Chaiwat's website and contact can be found here.