Hi Vicky, thanks for posting this link.

One thing in particular which Bunker Roy said got me thinking - that men
were difficult to train:
> One lesson we learned in India was men are untrainable. (Laughter) Men
> are restless, men are ambitious, men are compulsively mobile, and they
> all want a certificate. (Laughter) All across the globe, you have this
> tendency of men wanting a certificate. Why? Because they want to leave
> the village and go to a city, looking for a job.

This got me thinking about certification and qualifications, with
relation to Access Space. Recently we've been investigating the
possibilities for developing our own, alternative qualifications, as a
way to assert and celebrate the value of people's achievements - but
also, of course, as a way to help us access funding.

One of Access Space's core objectives is "the relief of unemployment" -
we interpret this to mean assisting with the social, cultural and
economic regeneration of Sheffield. (Whether unemployment is "relieved"
by being reduced, or by being made more positive and meaningful, is
another question.)

We have always maintained that a purpose of coming to Access Space may
be to learn how to do something. Not to get a certificate showing that
you can do it, but to actually be able to do it.

What is a certificate? It's value encapsulated in paper - a form of
money. It's a way that you can assert to strangers that you are expert
in a particular field, and have them believe you. A certificate is a
mechanism for you to export your expertise.

By this understanding, therefore, is certificated training actually
antagonisitic towards local development? What local development requires
is that LOCAL people become more skilled, and exercise those skills IN
THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD. Not do what lots of people do, which is grab the
certificate, and get the hell out.

In Sheffield, the only game in town is "urban regeneration". The city
has had structural economic problems every since the shutdown of the UK
coal industry and the technological changes in steel making. (Now steel
is made by robots, not people.) Is the best move for young graduates
simply "away"? (If you'd like a laugh, check out the Regen School:
http://www.regenschool.com/ )

This got me thinking about mobility - what may be good for the
individual (lots of options, high mobility, opportunities) may be bad
for the collective, which needs skilled, motivated experts to STAY PUT
and BUILD - not make a quick getaway.

So how many of us Bricos are working in communities where the work is
hard, and the opportunities are scarce? And how many are ambitious,
highly qualified and compulsively mobile, making their own way in the
world without making an impact on places and real-world communities? Is
the tension between localism and academia a key

I guess that most of us are somewhere in-between - we try to apply our
expertise in localities, despite the facts that we have opportunities to
move on.

Just a thought.

Warm wishes to all!

James
=====

On 30/10/11 00:55, victoria sinclair wrote:
>
>
> sorry everyone
> i would not post this if it didn't seem to be something that would
> yield some reactions
>
>
> love from sunny brasil, and link is
>
> http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy.html
> --
>
>
>
>
>
>
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