CID at Harvard University :Bridge Builders

"Bridge-Builders: Twenty-First Century Leadership in International Development"

Overview
Can you build bridges between people and ideas? Do you want to meet people who are committed to the same ideas you are?

Join the Steering Committee for CID's student-run conference, Bridge-Builders: Twenty-First Century Leadership in International Development We invite all KSG students interested in indigenous leadership in international development, grassroots organizing, and social justice movements to contribute to our upcoming conference.

1st Planning Meeting: Wednesday, September 18, 5PM, Perkins Room, 4th Floor, Eliot Building, KSG

Introduction to Bridge-Building: Indigenous peoples have developed strategies and tools to help them alter structural asymmetry and to "level the playing field" as they negotiate or otherwise avail themselves of opportunities presented by national or international groups, institutions, and governments. However, issues not only between stakeholders but also within stakeholder groups-such as local communities-complicate development projects and often lead to their collapse.

Bridge-builders-the rare individuals who effectively articulate interests and communicate conflicts-reduce misinterpretation and misdirected accusations. They cultivate solidarity within and between stakeholders involved in international development, grassroots organizing, and social justice movements. They are the leaders of the 21st-century.

This forum focuses on the question of what, from the point of view of the participants, is bridge-building? Who is a bridge-builder? How do bridge-builders navigate local social networks? In what ways do they negotiate a collective voice within a heterogeneous community? How do they deal with tensions between "bridging" and "brokering"? What are the structural conflicts and personal skills required for bridge-building? When is technology an appropriate bridge-building tool? How do bridge-builders balance representation and efficacy? Who elects bridge-builders? Moreover, what makes our participants effective "bridge-builders"?

This conference provides students with the opportunity to meet and hear the grassroots stories of indigenous "bridge-builders" from India, Kenya, Benin, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Australia, and the United States. Though all participants come from indigenous communities dealing with development, no two bridge-builders tell the same story or build the same bridges. Each unites different stakeholders for different purposes in various contexts, from grassroots organizing to social justice movements. As policy makers, how do KSG students identify and support local bridge-builders? Moreover, what skills do students need to become more effective and dialogical bridges?

Conference Objectives:
The goals of the conference are directed at Harvard students, faculty, and bridge-builder guests. These objectives include:

1. To inform Harvard students about deep grassroots projects to which they have limited access. To create increased visibility of grassroots projects, indigenous leaders, and development issues.

2. To inform Harvard students how difficult it is to speak to and for a diverse community. To depict how agreement is best achieved within local communities, as well as between stakeholder groups.

3. To show Harvard students the firsthand complexities of articulating a genuine voice within a community and the ways that voice can be best understood and made heard. To teach students how to identify, listen to, and integrate indigenous voices within the policy process.

4. To demonstrate the evolving local, national, and international norms in support of indigenous rights and voice.

5. To create dialogue between students, faculty, and bridge-builders in order to help one another better understand where the other is coming from. To demonstrate the progressive shift by indigenous peoples to forms of negotiated responses to development conflicts.

6. To create dialogue between bridge-builder participants so that they have a better idea of what is going on in other parts of the developing world. To provide an opportunity for bridge-builders to share resources and ideas.

7. To bring bridge-builders to Harvard to get a sense of policy makers in the Western world.

8. To give bridge-builders the chance to tell their stories. To recognize them for their skills and strengths and struggles.

9. To provide bridge-builders with contacts and resources, and potentially propel them toward higher education opportunities.

10. To initiate bridge-building within the conference. To create future bridges between students, faculty, and bridge-builders.

11. To break down stereotypes concerning work with indigenous leaders and communities.

12. To provide formal and informal spaces and contexts for bridge-building to occur.

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Copyright Š2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Last revised 08/07/2006