EJBM Neighbourhoods

hey guys,
to the hoods... well it's a very loose structure of people being more or less involved within
it isnt a strict substructure of ejb, people shouldnt feel tied to it... it's also a way to make ejbteam work a bit more efficient.
it is rethought every year, when new teammembers get elected, thus giving the team a very unique feeling of ownership of how they want to work...
that's why i think it wouldnt be very good to take up the same system as cisv international and stick to it, since that would be a very fix system with little room for change... after all ejb is nothing official and should have the least strict structure possible, which wouldnt be possible if it was dependant on cisv international...
i see a point in making a unique regional system though, maybe cisv international wants to take ours? :D
at last statement, the map has been changed a while ago, jordan isnt on it yet i think but lebanon is, also the hoods were thought of by the last, or better first ejbteam, so not on this ejbm...
sorry for being picky ;)

Agreeing with Paul's thoughts, this is a mere way to encourage JB cooperation at a smaller scale and a way to attribute contacts for each country between EJB team members. We do not use the ODC division since we are 4 team members, not 3.

Something that is very important to underline about N-hoods is that they are made to unite rather than split, and that's why we keep it an informal and flexible structure (although the map may give a different impression).

Common regional concept? Maybe it would make some sense in a way, but on the other hand it's again dividing in stead of just encouraging cooperation..

Or maybe this is just the juniors' constant need for different things... hehe

I'm quite aware of the maybe not-so-good development of regional division in Junior Branch in the past years. In Paul's and Ze's comment I can read an implicit urge to underline that the splitting up of countries will always remain inclusive and flexible.

However, I think that regional development has way more advantages than disadvantages. And the fear of creating exclusive structures has prevented CISV from using the regions for all the good things they have to offer. All we need is some more courage to establish a regional system. Creating different regions and hoods doesn't help. That's all I'm trying to say.

I also know that not everybody is happy with the regions ODC suggested. If you look at Europe, the hoods-system looks way more reasonable.

This is the new Hoods image. The one you have is outdated. Lebanon is in goldenish there :)

http://www.ijb.cisv.org/mwiki/index.php/Image:Neighbourhoods_of_Europe2009.jpg

Comparing the ODC and the EJB maps, the only difference I see two differences:

1) The presence of countries like Algeria, Kenya and Ivory Cost in the ODC map is absent from the EJB map because these countries have not attended EJBM or have been part of the EJB region. A lot of efforts were done by the participating countries in the Arabian Nights JB Workshop (Lebanon - Egypt - Jordan) to contact and bring these struggling countries JB wise to the WS and help them grow and develop their JBs. This hasn't been successful in the last 3 WS, but the efforts to bring them in this year is looking good. About Jordan, I think they're non-existence on the map yet is due to their non-attendance of EJBM this year. But they are on their way there for sure, they were non-explicitly for the past year so it is just a matter of map updating.

2) The splitting of Europe South into two Hoods (the Wild West & the Mediterranean) was simply because (according to the discussions we had at EJBM 2009 - that is 1 year after the Hoods creation) is because it's more convenient. Basically it revolves around money issues and proximity, where a ticket to the wild west from the middle east (or Bulgaria or Slovenia) is even more expensive than to another Hood such as central europe for example. I know money isn't everything, but talking about JBs and JBers and regional WS that are becoming a consistant thing for each Hood, the split is smarter and allows more strengthening and developing of all the South Europe JBs but as two smaller proximate blocks that have more in common and can do more WS and trainings and send double or triple the people to these WS rather than having one south european WS.

The beauty of all this is its flexibility. The Hoods are not fixed, and it is open to changes as long as it's for the best of the region. This was not put down by a bunch of people. This was a shared decision of all the EJB countries (after long discussions though - I highly recommend looking at the ToR discussion minutes of EJBM 2009 and 2008 to know how this shaped up).

This is what the Juniors of Europe saw best fit for them - and this is what has been working highly for the past year and a half. The ownership in a Hood for an average JBer is far more reachable than the ownership in the EJB region (though that doesn't mean there is no feeling of ownership in the EJB region as a whole). It's just that the regional WS is more plausible for the average JBer than the EJBM.

ARM has a flexible "JB South" group which is not really separate from ARM but more a group that formed to give more support to Argentina, Brasil, and Chile. (Correct me if I'm wrong, ARmers) This is something that has happened casually for more than ten years, but the more "grassroots" group that has grown up now is more organized and, from what I have seen, more successful than it was when ARM designated it. Of course, ARM has changed its way of working as well, which better allows this type of sub-group. Part of the point of JB is to evolve, and maybe it is easier to do so because they themselves are the product, not having to be responsible for hosting programs or sending delegations or fundraising. The ODC structure is designed to produce camps, in my opinion. Perhaps this is why they are different.

I know this comment is rather late, but I have just been reading what others have commented on and find them very interesting.

I think the concept of Neighbourhoods within the regions is a rather fine idea. Like the "Hoods" JASPAR has divided up its region into different neighbourhoods to accommodate the geographical limitations between many of the countries. Coming from Australia, it is very hard to send JBers away to JASPARC or other trainings as we are so far away from everyone else and it becomes to expensive for our juniors to fly to the hosting countries.

Overall, I like this idea and having worked within a Neighbourhood and seeing the effect these Neighbourhood training workshops have had on our juniors I would say its something to embrace and keep working towards in the future.

Pairing up with New Zealand to form the neighbourhood ANZAC allows our two countries to work together and host training seminars and workshops for our juniors who cannot afford to travel. I don't think this is excluding at all but in fact is allowing for more countries to be included. Vietnam has recently joined the NJB list and if not for its neighbouring JBs Vietnam wouldn't be at the stage they are now.

The idea of sub-groups within groups allows for decentralisation of information and gives many JBers that chance to experience working with another country they otherwise wouldn't have had.

If you look at all the regions and compare them you will see that infact we all have the same structure. Although each region may differ slightly, each has a leadership team (ARM Team, EJB Team, APJB Team) along with neighbourhood leaders within each region.

I'm no expert, but I believe you just crafted an excellent point. You obviously understand what youre talking about, and I can seriously get behind that, basically have to point out you come up with several fantastic points and definitely will write-up a variety of options to add in just after a day or two Thanks for staying so upfront and so truthful.