Integral Without Borders' partner, One Sky, has just completed a three-year project in Nigeria, West Africa. Leading From WIthin-Integral Applications to Sustainable Development began in 2009 and ran for three years, with four leadership retreats annually, continual small group work between sessions, and seven breakthrough initiatives across the South-East corner of the country. All four directors of Integral Without Borders are on the Advisory Committee for this project, joined by other integral thinkers like Ken Wilber, Karen O'Brien, Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, Laura Divine, and Terri O'Fallon.
The project sought to provide emergent ground for project participants to develop their capacity and consciousness for integral programming in one of the 'bottom billion' nations today. The results have been extraordinary. The grasp of an integral approach has been evidenced in their ability to move from learning integral concepts, to applying integral concepts in the retreat sessions, to actually manifesting integral applications in their breakthrough initiatives.
The project design and methodology is something we'd like to reflect on at IWB, and perhaps begin to formulate a set of guidelines, or at least a case study, for use by other practitioners in other regions of the world. Watch for this discussion on the member's forum as well as upcoming writings and booklets on the project under Resources.