Hi All,

Life has been busy! I can hardly believe it's been a month since I returned from Indonesia but I would still like to reflect on my week in Makassar which I think highlights the saying, "All communities are unique!"

Even though the content seemed similar to Surabaya, we worked with the emerging intent - basically, it was 2 weeks of participant-driven learning according to the individual needs of the groups I was working with!

So, in Makassar, we started the week with theABCD team, Project Implementation Unit and management representatives where we went over the underpinning principles of ABCD, explored People versus Programs andMike Green's 90/10 Principle in relation to student placement with the community partners and shared the Inspirit ABCD clipwith the participants!

Some of the emerging questions from the first days were; "How do we engage people who are afraid to talk?" and "What do strengths-based surveys look like?"

Day 2 & 3 was once again with the community partners and we explored Asset Mapping on 3 different levels; individual, community and organisational and I shared a few community-based research projects I was involved in during my time with theFamily Action Centre, University of Newcastlefor inspiration in future student projects. In response to the questions the day before, I shared the idea of incorporating an underpinning framework as guidance; we looked at the divergent/convergent model as a project framework and also explored Appreciative Inquiryfor forming powerful questions in strengths-based surveys.

Some of the emerging reflections came from the Appreciative Inquiry session:

• Use what we have and what we know to get what we want
• Appreciative Inquiry will help the community to find and assets to discover community strengths
• It's not about the problem, it's about the assets
• We need to think bravely about small things
• ABCD helps to name what is already happening in communities

Day 4 we explored opportunities for the future and ended the morning session, with the community partners, with an Open Space session where there were many great topics raised for discussion ranging from "How do we work with farming communities better?" and "How do we get people to speak with authentic voices?" to "How do we use ABCD for conflict resolution?"

After the community partners all received their certificates, the afternoon session was a review and feedback session with the ABCD teams and student supervisors.

Day 5 saw a new topic emerge from the SILE participants and in response, we worked through a session on Community Leadership and that they are not always who you might expect. Drawing on the lessons learned from ABCD Connector Leaders we discussed the difference between formal and informal community leaders and explored where we might find more of them and how we could lift their everyday work. For the afternoon session, we reflected on what we had learned during the week, what's currently working and not working and what skills and abilities were in the room to support this work. Participants shared examples of good practice and committed to explore and review the student placement guidelines in the future!

Overall, it was another inspiring and energetic week and we are looking forward to welcoming a delegation of Indonesian practitioners to our shores this month!

Yours in Community,

Dee...