Leaders and Organizers of Community Organization in Asia (LOCOA)

Leaders and Organizers of Community Organization in Asia (LOCOA)

1. Background

LOCOA continues the work of the Asia Committee for Peoples Organization (ACPO) which beginning in 1971 instituted community organization (CO) in several Asian countries. It was composed of three persons recommended by the Office of Human Development of the Asian Bishops and three by the Christian Conference for Asia-Urban Rural Missions office. It initiated CO work in Thailand, Hong Kong(Special Administrative Region of China) and India and strengthened it in the Philippines, Korea, Pakistan and Indonesia. In the early 1990s, ACPO was dissolved by the Church groups for reasons of their own. 

LOCOA seeks to replicate ACPOs work, such as: introducing CO to countries where it is not existing, training COs on a long or short term basis (one to seven months); organizing exposure trips for COs and their support groups; arranging workshops in which national groups can exchange tactics and experiences; circulating information through e-mail and newsletters; arranging for research and evaluation; and working with other Asia-wide bodies to help make peoples participation a reality.

LOCOA was born at a meeting of ASIAN CO persons held in Baguio City, Philippines in November 1993. The meeting was an evaluation of CO work in Asia. One of the results of the meeting was a successor to ACPO. It has became LOCOA, though in 1993 it had no name.

Over the next three years meetings were held in Delhi, Hong Kong(Special Administrative Region of China) and Manila to work out the goals and methods of the organization. A meeting was held in South Korea in September 1997 at which a program of action was formulated in some detail for 1998 and in a general way for 1999 and 2000. The tasks for 1998 included a visit of 12 Koreans to Manila to study the CO work being done there. The most elaborate plan was for a training team to go to Indonesia to work with young Indonesian COs. This plan was delayed because of the turmoil in Indonesia in those years but it took place in 1999, providentially in time for the democratic space that opened up that year in the country. Individual LOCOA members visited and helped their colleagues in other countries when they had chances to travel. 

Another important work was a series of visits by Calcutta COs to Dhaka to examine the possibility of starting CO work there. In 1998 the NGOs of Dhaka were not very interested, but by 1999 they were, because in the interim close to 100,000 people were evicted in Dhaka.

2. Overall Goal:

The following lists of goals is a summary of the goals stated by ACPO and LOCOA members over the years at different meetings and conventions and updated at a meeting August 30, 2000 in Manila attended by Hyo Woo Na, Corazon Soliman, Fides Bagasao, Alicia Murphy, Francia Clavecillas and Denis Murphy.

LOCOA will work to:

– Provide top level, professional CO training. This can be done in workshops, consultations and long or short term on the job training programs. To achieve this and the following goals the staff in Manila and the organizers in different countries must share the work. Organizers in all countries will be asked to travel to assist in the training programs.
– Initiate CO programs in countries and areas of countries where CO doesnt exist.
– Set up a network of CO practitioners who use the Internet as their means of communication.
– Bring CO persons together to evaluate, exchange experiences and learn from another and To reflect on new initiatives in organizing.
– Arrange visits of CO persons to CO areas in other countries to broaden the experience of both groups of persons. 

– Publish articles, manuals and books that will help COs do their work more effectively.
– Also provide organizers with useful materials and videos put out by other groups.
– Cooperate with other social action networks in Asia.
– Make a special effort to link the organizing work to the religious traditions of the people. 

– Offer occasions for COs and others to discuss how the larger context of Asia affects the CO work and what other responses might be. Included here might be discussions on global trade,
– and the compromises that might be made in our lives between an all out consumerism and a sustainable future. In other words, LOCOA will help COs work toward a practical, alternative vision of what social life might be.

3. Specific Objectives (Program for 2001)

1. LOCOA is the only Asia wide network that specializes in community organization (CO). It is the only network that provides the training, exchanges of persons, information, etc., that COs in the field need. It also protects them and their work by bringing publicity to bear on happenings in countries.

2. All of LOCOAs work is human rights. We work for poor peoples housing rights (including water, drainage, sanitation, income improvement and peoples right to organize). We alert our network when these rights are abused and mobilize response to governments at fault.

We cooperate with all types of networks. We share tasks with them. We cooperate with them as long as they work for the good of the poor. We will have a special concern for democracy in Burma. We are asked to do that by Burmese people. They say no Asian NGO helps. Indonesia is another priority of ours.

3. When there is need to relate to foreign governments about human rights violations, we send an appeal throughout our network by e-mail asking our members to write to the government concerned, or the funder concerned (Asian Development Bank, for example) and express their concern. LOCOA itself doesnt protest to foreign governments. It does seek some status at ADB and Japanese Bank for Overseas Cooperation, so it can easily advise them on important human rights problems.

LOCOA asks local members what they need and tries to do that. It does not have a program of action into which members must fit. Indonesia right now wants training for its COs in Jakarta. In the case of Pineda the Philippines asked LOCOA to mobilize a flow of letters to ADB.

4. Details of the program: 

1) Indonesian Program

In addition to the above which in great part concerns Indonesia, the following will take place. A Filipino organizer will spend four-to-six months in Jakarta and the Surabaya area to follow up on people trained by LOCOA in the past. The person will quietly visit the organizing areas, give suggestions, help analyze problems, offer encouragement in a very personal way. Some 22 Indonesian will have been trained by LOCOA by the time the Filipino goes to Indonesia. LOCOA has discussed the above initiatives with the NGOs of Indonesia.

2) Burma.

Another priority country is Burma. Burma has asked LOCOA for help in two ways. It wants assistance in organizing NGO support throughout Asia for the Burmese democratic movement led by Aung San suu Kyi . Burma support is well organized in the West, but not in Asia. The second request is for CO training in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, or possibly in Burma itself. LOCOA believes a CO that organizes farmers or other poor people to make small but persistent requests of government can gradually move the government to make even bigger and more major concessions, and in the end have an
organized people able to participate in decisions at all levels. LOCOA will try to answer both requests. POP is willing to do the training. We will begin circulating Burmese stories to our internet network as a way of getting support for the country. We will evaluate responses and plan more specific programs.

3) Dacca Program.

This year LOCOA will begin CO training for Dacca. The Calcutta trainers will go to Dacca or they will bring trainees from Dacca to Calcutta for training there. The training in either case will last about six months. It will be on the job training in a master-apprentice relationship. The program will begin by July and go to the end of the year. Six young Bangladeshis will be trained.

4) China.

Ms. Fides Bagasao who visited China recently in connection with a preparatory meeting for Istanbul + 5 in Hangzhou has volunteered to investigate in 2001 the situation of urban poor people in China. She will work with our friends in Hongkong, especially SoCO, and the NGOs in China who are connected with our European partners, with the United Nations, including the TUGI program, for example. She will try to discover how the urban poor are managing, what are their land tenure arrangements, eviction problems, organizations of their own etc. Based on this information and contacts made we will draw up a program by September 2001.

5. Organizer, the newsletter.

We wish to publish it bi-monthly. It contains information, contact points, stories for consideration, and news. We send out 500 copies and ask friends to zerox it if they need more copies. So far the response is quite good. 

6. Internet.

We have used the internet to share general news, to raise support for poor people with special problems and for making contacts and new friends.

7. Contact Person:
LOCOA Coordinator : NA, Hyo Woo
E-mail : locoa2000@yahoo.com
Homepage : www.locoa.net
Tel: (+632)925-8432, 426-4118 Fax: (+632) 426-4132