Competency Statement:

Dennis Morgan

Summer 2000

CONCENTRATION:  International Environmental Policy and Management

Proposal Writing/Program Evaluation

 I have been involved in planning for various non-governmental organizations witnessing an organization grow from 11 to over 200 staff members (total implementation budgets grew from $1,000,000 to over $40,000,000).

 I was directly involved with visits by the funders of the UMCOR’s Youth House and Outreach projects, UNOV’s volunteer project, and the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Resolution.

I was the lead person for the creation of a Youth House Project in Sanki Most (northwestern Bosnia) and developmental plans for Gorazda (Eastern Bosnia). From my experience in Zenica I was able to create budgets, schedules, and most importantly I designed the usage of the spaces.  With as many as fifteen activities taking place it was crucial to keep the space constantly in use.

 For two summers I supplied logistical support for the short-term volunteer program.  At peak times I averaged 600KM travel distance a day.  Through this process I was exposed to administrative task involved in large volunteer projects.  There was on average eight groups coming for two weeks throughout the summer.  At this time, the Sarajevo Airport was closed for civilian travel and the airport in Split, Croatia was used as the arrival point.  I, along with one other driver, was responsible for coordinating free time in Split for each group upon their arrival and departure.  We each drove a passenger van with an average of eight volunteers each.  During this time I had a perfect driving record driving on war ravaged roads and improvised United Nations supply roads.  I also had extensive exposure and coordination with UNPROFOR, IFOR, and SFOR (Peace Keeping Missions).  

I worked with the United Nations Office in Vienna volunteer group helping to create the Youth House project in Gornji Vakuf.  From the start I worked in the over-all UNOV project and as a subordinate to the local coordinator the Youth Club Project.

• I developed the multi-media aspects of the Youth Club 96 project leading to $15,000 in funding from the Sir Hailey Trust.
• I worked directly with USAiD to create objective evaluation models that lead directly to their funding of the club in Gornji Vakuf.
• I was part of the team in Bosnia, working with the United Methodist Committee on Relief, which identified the trend of local NGO creation.  The youth house projects were redeveloped to become local NGOs.
• I worked with the regional government in Serbia to create a funding proposal for LEAP (Local Environmental Action Plan).
• I attended United Nations Environmental Program’s first meeting with the local Nis government, after the NATO bombing campaign, as a representative of the local NGO community.  Eko Tim Nis was the only local organization invited. 
• The LEAP project was funded by the Regional Environmental Center for Eastern and Southern Europe located in Budapest.  We were one of the few organizations that submitted a final report after project completion.
• Our groups participation with ANPED’s (the northern alliance for sustainable development) Skill Share seminars on LA 21 lead directly to the creation of the project.
• Local Agenda 21 (from the first major UN Environmental Conference in Rio de Janeiro) campaign was coordination with ANPED (Northern Alliance for Sustainable Development).  I also attended their Annual General Meeting in Sophia, Bulgaria 1998.  Local Agenda involves bringing local government together with local NGOs.  In Eastern Europe there has been a shift of responsibility for the environment to local authorities.  LA 21 has been the method of choice for dealing with this transition.
• During my time there we registered three new local NGO’s in the city of Nis (registration process), coordination with local and regional government, participant in numerous workshops: woman’s issues, nonviolent communication, and NGO development.  Attended ANPED’s skill-share seminar – sharing NGO experience with NGO through out Europe and NIS.

·        Planning and logistical support for member participation in the EU’s first Environmental Ministers Conference in Arhus, Denmark 1999.

Conflict Management

• The UMCOR social services department developed into a conflict resolution program working with local institutions.  A staff member was hired from South Africa with a Masters in Conflict Resolution.  I worked closely with him to introduce the various programs within UMCOR.
• Conflict resolution skills gained through summer camp with mixed Moslem, Croatian and Serb youth lead by the new UMCOR conflict resolution specialist.  I provided logistical support as well as leading a daily video workshop with mixed youth.
• The UMCOR Youth house projects were designed to support the integration of displaced persons in to the urban field. 
• Services available in the city were generally not available to the displaced person, as they considered by most of the local residence as the largest problem within their life.  Discrimination was in most cases strong enough to discourage the displaced population’s hope of integration in the short-term.
• As an extension of the UMCOR Youth House, workers identified spaces within the collective centers that could be economically redeveloped as childcare centers.  Material excess from the general repair budget was used to create these spaces for children.  A project psychologist was hired to offer general counseling to youth and parents involved in eight different collective centers.  The childcare workers were refugees from within the center who also improved their skills through direct support of the project psychologist.  Special screening sessions were used to identify youth with more serious problems.  I provided logistical support and worked very close with project staff.
• I gained exposure to crisis refugee management including the building of a tent city after the fall of Srebrenica in July of 1995 and Zepa a week later.  During these times it was not uncommon for 10,000 refugees to arrive in a single night.  The war in Bosnia finished in November of 1995.
• The projects in Gornji Vakuf and Mostar, that I was involved in, dealt with sharply divided towns between Bosnian Croatians and Bosnian Muslims.  Our office in GV was located on the dividing line and we dealt with two distinct municipal governments in a town of 20,000.  Different forms of currency were used on the two sides.
•  Logistical support for members’ participation at the Pavorati Music Center opening in Mostar working with youth from both sides of the divided town.
• Secondary tasks involved coordination of activities with the Office for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Jablinica and Mostar "round table" of youth oriented local organizations both Croatian and Moslem.

·        Participation at Civil Service International’s Balkan Task Force conference in Slovenia in 1997.

• Participation and logistical support at Pax Christi’s youth seminars throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.  bringing mixed groups of youth together.

• I attended a weeklong interview process with the Balkan Peace Team in Holland. Eight candidates participate in workshops and “Long Role Playing” situations.  I was later rejected as a candidate due to my marriage to a Serbian woman.
• Our first daughter was born in Nis April 26, 1999.  I was the only American present in Nis during the NATO Bombing campaign (Working with the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Resolution).  I returned from Sarajevo the second day of the bombing began (international border crossing – avoidance of conflict).  I met with the Regional Secretary for the Global Board of Ministries March 23 (the reason for my trip to Sarajevo).  I witnessed first hand so called collateral damage when my wife’s grandfather was thrown out of bed and all his windows broken by the mistaken bombing of the apartment building across the street.  The hospital my daughter was born in was also mistakenly bombed the day before the Chinese Embassy was mistakenly bombed.  My daughter had been released the day before; I had taken my wife hours before to have her bandage changed for an infection she had received in the hospital.
• My work in Nis as an American involved dealing with a certain percentage of the population that believed International NGO workers were spies.  I crossed the Serbian border several times traveling to various seminars.  Each time I was held up a minimum of 30 minutes and forced to explain my situation.
• During the NATO Bombing campaign I was interrogated for over five hours by the Special Military Police.  Their main interest was my connections to a former American volunteer who had left the region the year before and my work within the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Resolution.
• Throughout the time I spent in the Former Yugoslavia I had to deal directly with refugee and displaced persons.  The majority of the Center’s members were refugees from other republics of the former Yugoslavia.

Managing Urban Diversity

• From March 1995 through December 1997 I worked with primarily Moslem and Croatian youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  These two groups were though harshly divided were part time allies against the Bosnian Serbian community.  The Republic of Bosnia represented a 94% majority Muslim population and the most integrated community in the Bosnia.  
• From January 1998 through September 1999 I worked primarily with Serbian Youth in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.  The majority of youth I worked with were refugees from other republics of the former Yugoslavia.  Nis, Yugoslavia contained large Bulgarian and Roma minority populations.  I worked closely with a Roma teacher in forming an alternative educational space for Roma youth, who were generally excluded from the main stream society.
• In both these cases, I worked very close with a generation divided by war.  While I interacted with all age groups, it was the university student lifestyle that I witnessed more directly.  I traveled with several groups of refugees on trips to visit their old homes.  In most cases, it was not possible for them to return in the short term and most believed they would never return.

Ecology and Human Affairs

• From October 1997 through September 1999, I worked with Eko Tim (Tim is the Serbo-Croatian spelling for team) an environmental project working within the Center for Conflict Resolution in Nis Yugoslavia.
• In January 1998, I was involved in the initial planning stages of a Local Agenda 21 Program formed by Eko Tim.
• The development of this project was made possible by direct cooperation with the Northern Alliance for Sustainable Development (ANPED) and the Regional Environmental Center for Southern and Eastern Europe (REC).
• Substantial materials on Local Agenda 21 were provided in English and I filtered through key materials for translation into Serbian.
• Key planning factors for LA21 include the following:

·         Multi-sectoral engagement in the planning process through a local stakeholders group which serves as the coordination and policy body for preparing a long-term sustainable development action plan.

·         Consultation with community groups, NGOs, business, churches, government agencies, professional groups and unions in order to create a shared vision and to identify proposals and priorities for action.

·         Participatory assessment of local social, economic and environmental conditions and needs.

·         Participatory target-setting through negotiations among key stakeholders in order to achieve the vision and goals set forth in the action plan.

·         Monitoring and reporting procedures, including local indicators, to track progress and to allow participants to hold each other accountable to the action plan.[i]

• I participated in the creation and implementation of a river cleaning and free concert to celebrate June 5, 1998; the 8^th anniversary of the creation of LA21 at the first Earth Summit in Rio Dejanero in 1992.
• I worked closely with local and regional government officials, local and international NGO’s, faculty and students from the University in Nis, and six other key members of Eko Tim.
• I served as internet specialist for the project; a developmental web site apeared at www.myfreeoffice.com/cnrsnis/
• The NATO bombing campaign in 1999 severely delayed the work of Eko Tim
• After the bombing campaign, I was part of a delegation invited to meet with the United Nations Environmental Program’s Delegation.  Eko Tim was the only local organization asked to join their meeting with the local government.
• In creating a LA21 project the following priorities were set:

1. To address economic, social and ecological needs together 
2. To include a public outreach to inspire a vision for a sustainable future 
3. To include a participatory process with local residents 
4. To establish a Stakeholders Group, including government, academia, experts, NGOs and non-expert concerned parties 
5. To prepare a Local Environmental Action Plan (LEAP) for Nis with concrete long-term targets 
6. To prepare a feasible Action Plan in the short-term 
7. To establish an evaluation and reporting framework 
8. To establish indicators to monitor progress

• Currently I am registering Eko Tim in Cleveland as a sister organization and key members of Eko Tim are committed to continuing the work we started.

---

[i] Local Agenda 21 Survey - A Study of Responses by Local Authorities and their National and International Associations to Agenda 21. Prepared by International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives in Cooperation with United Nations Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development. -February 1997- Retrieved from the World Wide Web http://www.ecouncil.ac.cr/rio/focus/report/english/la21_rep.htm

What Was Not Illusion

I once thought I had many great things
Then came a dream: none of it was to be mine
I knew not how this was to be only it was to be
I saw no reason why it was to be only it was to be

Then time took all the things I thought great
And what I saw in them was sadness
I am glad to see sadness leave; I did not know sadness
As I did not know happiness

I then saw a future that I could believe
To understand that I would understand
A vision from my past of a wish from my future
My ignorance trusted my wisdom
I wished I could be happier in the past
      I see myself happy in the future
I become happier through each present

Once I thought I had many great things
Then came the dream: none of it was to be mine
I walked away from everything I had and turned to look
Little remained; only what was not illusion

Time took great things, but nothing that was mine
I know not how or why only what is mine now:
      What was not illusion

Lake Erie Waters

The water is contained for now
In the wanning sun light the waves plow
I look over my field and sky
This crop of mine shall never die

I am farming the future now
Lake Eire waters showed me how
Content immense learning still
It says not long to the hill

This hill dreams of Lake Erie waters
And comes then goes never falters

Double Images and Strange Corners

We were shooting the bread line massacre. There had been several takes. We waited together as he tried a box full of ray bans someone brought him. As she left she took one last pass at the hair.

I had a pair of ray bans because I used to drive 600 kilometers a day over the Balkans. They were gone stolen in Dalmacia. 100 DEM Split UNPROFOR Base. There within my grasp 40 pair. As I day dreamed of those trees growing along the road as I circled; we were interrupted.

A very proud young man pointed to his car and informed us that he had driven his car the entire war. In one image amazing made it through all those hard times.

In another image he drove that car through the entire war and was now employed as was I to do something. We all waited on the corner. "Where did you get gas from?" We went back to our activities; we were uninterrupted.

I did not know, but was told. People carried furniture all day and night for food. On some strange corners people had gas to burn. There was no debate; he was found out and no longer proud.

It's a funny story I assure you, but has only begun. It's a moment in the real.

We were shooting the bread line massacre. The last scene I could do.

Made the trip to Trogir and the continuity person was the only person to notice. I still feel sorry I took that from her. Ran into them on the way to Macedonia at the airport in Split; where the casting director first invited me to a nicer part of Sarajevo then I knew existed. You'd be surprised what is wound in those hills.

Best part was being a featured extra. Got the good lunch. Had gas to burn.