dialogues, proposals, stories for global citizenship

History

This importance of exchanging on the subject of experiences

In 1986 the FPH (the Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind) and Ritimo launched the idea of an international network to exchange information on experiences and ideas that would be useful to action. It was called Dialogues and documents for the Progress of Humanity (DPH). dph is based on three convictions: the most useful information for field workers and actors is based on the experience of others. One of the challenges of democracy is not so much access to information as selecting reliable and relevant information from the ever-increasing mass of information that is available. We all gain from exchanging on our experiences.

Limited publication

Several realities co-existed under the heading dph: the philosophy of exchanging on the subject of experiences, a network of contributors to an experiential data-base that would be useful for actions, a working group of data-base and information technicians, as well as a data-base of experiences. The latter was initially only made available to contributors; it was later distributed as a CD-ROM, and most recently made available to everyone on a web site.

Unsuitable tools

The capitalisation of this adventure taught us the contradictions and limits of the approach. The technical tools that were available at the outset of dph, and up to the end of the ‘90s, did not enable the original idea to be implemented. (For a considerable length of time the updates to the data-base were carried out by sending out floppy disks). Mixing the people responsible for the projects and the technicians responsible for information management represented heterogeneous interests in the dph network, and did not allow a stable network to develop. Writing descriptions of experiences is not an easy thing to do. Finally, enhancing the rich content of the data-base by analysis and editorial content is of fundamental importance if it is to be of interest to a wider public than just the contributors.

A new period

In today’s world, the question of intelligent organisation is fundamental. The FPH is committed to long-term participation in the implementation and improvement of dph, as a documentary site that enhances the value of an experiential data-base, documents, proposals and stories around the construction of global citizenship.