PROJECT: Liwanag 2014
CATEGORY: Convention/Workshop
PLACE: Iloilo City
LIWANAG World Festival is an annual event in the Philippines celebrating the positive side of life and society – environmental, political, economic, social, cultural, human, spiritual. However, due to the recent devastating effects of Yolanda to the country, “celebration” in its conventional form feels disconnected with reality. LIWANAG 2014’s approach will be different from the celebratory event of the past year.
Liwanag means “Light” in the Filipino language. Filipino heroes understood the importance of creating a new nation on the basis of profound inner change, resulting in an encounter with the “true light” within, an encounter that can set a nation free. In this context, “liwanag” can be interpreted to mean a profound form of creativity, individual and collective, that can address the most profound challenges the world is facing. The Liwanag series of events feature innovation, creativity, and new ways of being together as a basis for creating sustainable societies.
The SEA team helped conceptualized the theme based on “solution revolution” – the coming together of civil society, government, and business around a challenge where they combine their unique talents and resources to create innovate solutions. They decided to use this new science and art to organize, convene, and conduct the national gathering on disaster response.
A program was designed to achieve trust among the participants and had the following innovative design elements:
• Ensure the greatest diversity of participation from individuals and organizations in business, civil society and government involved with disaster response.
• Encourage all participants to be resource persons based on their first-hand experience and involvement in disaster work.
• Provide minimal context-setting inputs from key individuals.
• Maximize time spent in focused and guided conversations where the sharing of stories, discoveries and best-practices will deepen our understanding of what can be done together as well as provide the basis for nurturing connections important for the creation of solution ecosystems around disaster response.
• Introduce process exercises and artistic content to stimulate attendee participation, deepen relationships and trust, and provide clarity on essential aspects of solution ecosystems for disaster relief and stimulate creativity.
• Provide open spaces for spontaneous participant networking and sharing as well as participant-created workshop sessions.
The national gathering resulted in a network of more than a hundred influential people and organizations in the Philippines including Naderev Saño of the Phil. Commission for Climate Change, the Civilian Group of the Philippine Military, international and local relief groups and several LGUs.
