 Global Integration UpdatesCommon Ground for the Common Good
Special News--December 2018
Global IntegrationA Framework for Engaging with Our World
The Global Integration Framework
is a grid to guide us and to goad us.
It supports us as we cultivate lifestyles
for doing good locally through globally.
In this Special News Update we step back in order to briefly reflect on the Global Integration Framework (GI) itself. We share a few points about GI’s development over the past eight years and finish with a sample template that you can use to apply the GI Framework.
This is our 50th GI Update. And so we thought it would be appropriate to pause, review--and celebrate!
Warm greetings from Geneva,
Kelly and Michèle
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Featured ResourceGlobal Integration Framework
"Global Integration is a framework for actively and responsibly engaging with our world–-locally to globally–-by connecting relationally and contributing relevantly on behalf of human wellbeing and the issues facing humanity, in light of our integrity, commitments, and core values (e.g., ethical, humanitarian, human rights, faith-based)."
Some GI Background—and some things you might want to know!--We began using the term and writing about GI in 2011. Initially GI focused on linking (integrating) psychology and theology both conceptually and practically in the global context. The first published reference to our GI ideas was in the Spring 2012 issue of the Journal of Psychology and Theology.
--We initiated a series of informal email updates starting in 2013 which included different events and resources related to the developing idea of global integration. We sent these updates to a group of 10-100 colleagues (20 updates total).
--We began to broaden GI into a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral framework that would include and be relevant for colleagues from a variety of backgrounds. We wanted to facilitate “common ground for the common good.”
--In 2015 we began to organize the updates more, calling them Global Integration Updates explicitly. We covered specific themes in each issue and did so in more depth, emphasizing the need for multi-sectoral engagements and updates.
--We also developed our GI thinking further and shared it via 60 weblog entries related to GI between 2011-2016: Member Care–Mental Health and Global Integration, Global Integrators, and Global Integrity.
---We periodically added key components to GI: relationships, responsibility, commitments, and integrity. Integrity in particular, defined as consistent moral wholeness, has increasingly become a core, inseparable part of GI (see the GI Update April 2017).
--GI has thus come a long way since its initial conceptualization in July 2011: “Growing Deeply and Going Broadly: Building on Foundations, Developing New Competencies, Breaking Bubbles, Crossing Sectors, Taking Risks, and Challenging the Status Quo on Behalf of Humanity in Need.”
--We continue to do presentations, training, and articles that focus on or include GI. Some examples are Global Integration: Charting Your Course (Connecticut College, 2014) and Global Mental Health: Sharing and Synthesizing Knowledge for Sustainable Development (Global Mental Health, September 2016).
--As for values and motives that have influenced our development of GI and which in turn guide and goad us...they are Ignatian/Jesuit: eruditio, probitas, and officum, ad majorem Dei gloriam. That is, cultivating lifestyles that integrate learning, virtue, and duty, for God's greater glory.
--Currently the GI Updates are sent to over 1600 emails/colleagues and then forwarded by several of them to others. Pass them on!
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And...
GI is not about instigating and imposing a system of global governance, neutralizing national sovereignty, and ushering in an authoritarian world order. Rather it is about fostering cooperation and good governance at all levels, from the local to the global. Nor is GI about pushing for human homogeneity, cultural conformity, or ethical relativism. Rather it is about embracing our common humanity, prizing our rich variations, and engendering responsible lifestyles. Global integration is a framework to help us invest ourselves in fellow humans in every sphere of influence in which we live.
The GI Framework--A Template for Staying Current
Source: Global Grids (GI Update October 2016)
"This grid is designed as an orientation framework to facilitate your global understanding across sectors and to help you track with your areas of emphasis. It is organized into two main sections. The first section, Context Resources (Global Multi-Sectoral, GMS) features several representative reports on global issues. The second section, Core Resources (Global Personal Emphases, GPE) includes several representative categories that you can adjust and fill in based on your interests and involvements."
"Colleagues can be both guided and goaded by their GI Grids via the specific context and core materials that they include. We think that the girds reflect the unfolding reality that ‘the context is crucial for the core’ – that is, understanding the global context (e.g., the 17 SDGs) is essential for working effectively in one’s core emphasis be it a discipline, organization, sector, country, specific issue, or an individual SDG or SDG Target(s)."
"We also note that both the reports and the materials listed in this section, many of which are available online in multiple languages, are just a sampling among the many excellent items that are available...We encourage you to read the overviews/summaries and more if possible as well as to identify the main newsletters-updates from each sector that interest you. We have gone over many of the multi-sectoral reports--often along with several colleagues--in order to consider their serious implications for our world, our work, and our personal lives (example, via our Trio Gatherings).
Member Care Associates Inc. (MCA) is a non-profit, Christian organisation working internationally from Geneva and the USA. MCA's involvement in Global Integration focuses on the wellbeing and effectiveness of personnel and their organizations in the mission, humanitarian, and development sectors as well as global mental health, all with a view towards supporting sustainable development for all people and the planet. Our services include consultation, training, research, developing resources, and publications.
Global Integration is a framework for actively and responsibly engaging in our world--locally to globally. It emphasizes connecting relationally and contributing relevantly on behalf of human wellbeing and the issues facing humanity, in light of our integrity and core values (e.g., ethical, humanitarian, human rights, faith-based).
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