INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITY ILT - Face to Face Teams Meeting in Portugal IC MEEITING 2019 in TANZANIA “we are adding yet another Grail saint to The Grail registration in the cloud of witnesses” UNFCCC Lucy Jones (USA) THE GRAIL INTERNATIONAL IT HAPPENED IN … NEWSLETTER EVENTS November 2018 This newsletter is intended to be a It's still November! And November is a time of two-way communication channel thanksgiving for the lives of our Grail sisters who have for Grail members to fill up the gone before us. Let their lives shine upon us while gaps between Crossroads with short news items and an events reminding us that it’s not the great things that they are calendar. remembered for, but instead a lifetime of invisible and small things - light and inspiration for each of our DEADLINE NEXT ISSUE journeys. December 09, 2018 Phone: +31-74-7074273 cell: +31-6-31072836 [email protected] www.thegrail.org 1 International Activity ILT Face to Face Meeting, Golegã – Portugal As we write this letter, we would like to thank the Grail in Golegã, Portugal, for hosting the ILT face to face meeting followed by the Teams Meeting in which 35 participants gathered to work together for a week. It is with deep gratitude that we thank all Portuguese Grail members who worked hard to make this meeting possible and all of the preparation and work of each participant. A few updates from the ILT face to face meeting: We would like to draw your attention to a few calendar updates, changes and additions: • Network Forum planned for late February/early March 2019 • 2019 IC Meeting in Kisekibaha, Tanzania from July 3 to July 14 • 2020 IC Meeting in July to launch the 2021 ILT election process • 2021 IGA side by side with the Big Meeting (100th Anniversary of the Grail) in Brazil We thank you all for your attention to these calendar changes. ------------------------------------------ TEAMS MEETING – 22 to 26 October 2018 At the IGA in 2017 some new teams were formed based on IGA decisions and other teams were reconfigured with new members. As these teams were put together, not only was a great deal of attention paid to the task at hand, but also to including membership which represents our global and intergenerational diversity. To that end 35 participants gathered in Golegã representing every team. These teams, although formed in April and May 2018, had all done preparation for this meeting. This meeting not only provided a chance to meet face to face as teams, there was also ample opportunity to meet across teams as none of our teams can work in a silo. We definitely need to work closely with each other. 2 GRAIL STORIES the histories of 18 Grail countries from the 1980’s to 2017 The idea of Grail countries writing their stories was born around the time of the 70- 100 meeting in 2013. The 1984 book in which 16 countries wrote their stories from their beginnings needed to be updated. Also, since then the Grail has grown and a number of new Grail groups have developed in the last 34 years. All countries were invited to write their stories from the 1980s onward. There was some delay in getting the stories and so the date for completion was moved annually. It had been hoped to have the stories ready for the 2017 IGA but that was not possible. The idea was that the stories would be posted on the international Grail website. The incentive to complete the project came when, in December 2017, the Grail in the Netherlands provided funds to have copies printed, especially for those countries and individuals who do not have ready access to the internet and website. We are deeply grateful to the Grail in the Netherlands for their generosity and thoughtfulness. During the Work Teams’ meeting held in Golega, Portugal, the book was launched. All countries represented received a number of copies of the book and also a flash drive containing a PDF version of the book as well as Word documents containing each country’s story.. The aim is that the book is readily available for people to use in whatever way they find most helpful for their country’s Growth in the Grail programmes. It also provides a valuable preparation for the Grail’s centenary in 2021, getting to know the work of other Grail countries before we come together to celebrate. We are grateful to the national leadership teams and individuals who wrote their country’s stories for this book. Gratitude is also expressed to those who helped to edit, proofread and prepare the texts for publication. Some additional copies of the book are available from Loek Goemans at [email protected] Mary Gindhart, Carol Webb, Loek Goemans The History and Archives Team ------------------------------------------ We are all very grateful to The History and Archives Team! THANK YOU!! Congratulations!! This is a great job!! We are called to read and meditate on every page, which will give us the opportunity to inspire ourselves for the next 100 years!! 3 IC MEETING – Kisekibaha, Tanzania 3 to 14 July 2019 In order to prepare us for the International Council meeting in Tanzania, we thought it would be good, in upcoming Newsletters, to explore aspects of Tanzania (the country, the culture, the language, art and literature...) that most of us do not know. We started with the picture we chose for the International Council. It is a detail of a big painting. Look carefully at the painting. What do you see? Butterflies?Flowers? Birds? This painting is from Ally Omari. This painter is a member of CTAPS (The Craft and Tingatinga Arts Promotion Society) which represents the second most important Tingatinga association in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Tingatinga School Artist - Tanzanian painting style Tingatinga is a painting style that developed in the second half of the 20th century in the Oyster Bay area in Dar es Salaam. The genre is named after the Tanzanian painter Edward Said Tingatinga. Edward Tingatinga began painting around 1968 in Dar es Salaam. He employed low cost materials such as masonite and bicycle paint and attracted the attention of tourists for their colourful, both naïve and surrealistic style. When Tingatinga died in 1972, his style was so popular that it had started a wide movement of imitators and followers, sometimes informally referred to as the "Tingatinga school". The first generation of artists from the Tingatinga school basically reproduced the works of the school's founder. In the 1990s new trends emerged within the Tingatinga style, in response to the transformations that the Tanzanian society was undergoing after independence. New subjects related to the new urban and multi-ethnic society of Dar es Salaam (e.g., crowded and busy streets and squares) were introduced, together with occasional technical novelties (such as the use of perspective). Tintatinga School has had great influence in neighbouring countries, as Kenya and Mozambique. The great majority of artists in Tanzania are men but several women are beginning to be notice in the Tanzanian arts circle. The great promoter of Tingatinga genre, and also Tingatinga’s painters, is the daughter of the founder, Martina Tingatinga. Watch the videos about Tingatinga: https://youtu.be/QOOJvtCLu3w https://youtu.be/y2Z_IeNUYZg 4 THE GRAIL registration in UNFCCC As Grail Climate Change has been a priority in our Mission for many years. It seems to us fundamental that The Grail become involved in UNFCCC and exchange and work together with other NGOs. ILT is committed to registering and recognizing the International Grail as an organization focused on Climate issues. In order to make the Grail registration in the UNFCCC we ask each country to help ILT in collecting and preparing a solid international report on the actions The Grail has been carrying out in each country in the last 5 years. Please send to the International Secretariat ([email protected]) a description of the actions that have already been taken in your countries, as well as the materials that you have developed, books, articles or leaflets that have been developed in the last 5 years in your country. IT HAPPENED IN… NETHERLAND - The Peace Week in The Grail House In the Netherlands, PAX (formerly Pax christi), an important peace organisation with Christian roots, always organises a whole peace week around the 21st of September, the international day of peace. They invite committees of citizens and organisations to be ‘an Embassy of Peace’ and join them in organizing peace activities. This year, the Dutch Grail said ‘Yes, let’s be an Embassy of Peace!’, and organize different activities in the Grail house. Together with my younger colleague Rachelle van Andel, we made plans. We choose to open our peace week with a very special performance by Ekaterina Levental, a harpist, opera singer, ballet dancer and theatre maker. As a 16-year old girl from Jewish origin, she had to flee the ex-USSR and eventually ended up in the Netherlands. In her performance ‘The way’ she shares with us what she went through during this journey to a safe land. Who are you when you are on the run? What is your identity when you belong nowhere and how can you learn to express yourself in your new country? With her beautiful voice and moving performance, Ekaterina really touched our hearts and souls during that evening… We also knew right away that we wanted to organize an evening around the stories of Syrian women. This was also an unforgettable evening. Two Syrian women shared their story: how they fled their country and how they are trying to build up a new life in the Netherlands.