Provocate.org

Are you willing to open your home, your office, or your heart to international visitors? Thanks to the generosity of local citizens, Indianapolis has hosted 128 educational, government, and business leaders since 2006. Learn how you can get involved in the International Visitor Leadership Program, and hear a panel discussion that explores Hoosier hospitality at its best.

When: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Where: Kiwanis International 3636 Woodview Trace, Indianapolis, IN 46268
A Spirit & Place event

Panelists include:

• John Clark, creator of Provocate
• Pascal Dupeyrat, secretary general of Cercle Jefferson (French alumni of the US State Department’s International visitor Program)
• Flory May, International Center board member
• Sherry L. Mueller, executive director, National Council for International Visitors
• Charlie Wiles, founding director, Peace Learning Center.

Admission is free. Presented by the International Center of Indianapolis and International Interfaith Initiative.

Questions? Call 317-955-5150 or e-mail info@icenterindy.org.

Indianapolis hosts more guests to the US of the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program than any other city for one main reason: The International Center of Indianapolis is VERY good at setting up good visits for these visitors. See this article about the International Center’s Kristin Garvey for a flavor of what is involved. Provocate lucks out since we get to meet an awful lot of people who have been identified as rising stars in their countries: Hungarian local economic development policymakers, Yemeni educators, Bahrain clerics, trade unionists from the UK, journalists from Iraq, many more. What sets Indianapolis apart from the other cities across the country that host the State Department’s visitors is that we go beyond being nice, or even being helpful with our guests. We are eager to establish long-term partnerships after the visitors return home. We don’t just want them to have fond memories of Indianapolis … we want to use their visit as the beginning of a sustained effort to jointly solve problems. This is something new for the hosts of the International Visiting Leaders, not seen anywhere else in the country.

So expect this discussion to be more challenging than just agreeing that “It’s nice to be nice.” Knowing John Clark as well as Provocate does, we predict that he will ask Pascal Dupeyrat to imagine concrete ways for the French to partner with Hoosiers to address the challenges facing Francophone Africa. He will ask Sherry Mueller what her agency can do to support sustained problem-solving partnerships between Indiana groups and their guests. It should be lively.

This event addresses “citizen’s diplomacy.” If it sounds interesting, you are in luck. You can let the International center know that you would like to provide home hospitality — dinner and conversation — for their visitors by contacting Kristin Garvey at kgarvey@icenterindy.org.

You also have a lot of chances to learn more, and perhaps become even more engaged in problem-solving.

• Start with Citizen’s for Global Solutions’s “Citizens’ Foreign Policy Summit” September 22.
• Attend the talks by Lee Hamilton September 26 and September 27. One of the main recommendations of Hamilton’s 9/11 Commission was for a strategy of public diplomacy … citizen’s diplomacy is related, but distinct.
• Jump into the IU-Kenya program, an important exercise in a citizen’s foreign aid policy, by attending the program’s gala October 13 and hearing Joe Mamlin October 23.
• Consider the possibilities of humanitarian tourism at Ambassadors for Children’s “Passport Celebration” October 13 and at Spirit and Place’s discussion of “VolunTourism” November 15.
• And to see how the individual pieces of citizens diplomacy in Indianapolis fit together into a much greater whole more make sure to attend the Spirit & Place event mapping Indiana’s links to the world November 17.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 3:30 am and is filed under Events, Interfaith, GLOCAL-ization, Africa, Volun-tourism, Philanthropy, Citizen Diplomacy, Taking action, Provocate Event. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.