How are we doing after #ProductTonic Retreat 2018, 2019 & Lab Cohort 1 and 2, Unconference 2018 to 2022 on the impact we are making for Baan Dada Education Fund?
Thank you 🙏 for each and everyone of you who have chosen to take part in this journey of giving as you learn more about yourself in the product leadership journey as a participant, facilitator and/or mentor.
For Baan Dada, the donations from Product Tonic directly impact 18 children receiving their university or technical education ranging in topics from music, nursing, humanities, teaching, medicine and veterinary.
I’m making a trip in February with Ar. Trecia Lim and friends to continue fund raising for this year’s education fund [goal to raise SGD 28k while riding 600km each].
I will also be making a visit to Baan Dada and Baan Unrak in Sangkhla Buri. IF you are interesting to know more about the cause you are giving towards, please drop me a message.
History about our contribution to Baan Dada
Why does Product Tonic Retreat and Unconference donate 100% of proceeds and Product Tonic Lab (PTL) donate 25% to a charity like Baan Dada?
For our 1st cohort of PTL, 12.5% of the proceeds was donated to Baan Dada and another 12.5% to Vipassana Meditation Centers. With our 2nd cohort of PTL, 25% of the proceeds are being donated to Baan Dada. (I’ve also donated my entire fee for Cohort 1 to Baan Dada and for Cohort 2 to Ananda Kuranja) Some of you might be wondering, Why does Michael put all this time and effort into PTL and give it away to Baan Dada or even Ananda Kuranja?
Baan Dada is an Ananda Marga children’s home on the Thai-Burmese border. It started in 1994 in an effort to protect the growing number of orphaned and disadvantaged children in the area. Many refugees and migrant families moved to this area due to poverty, disease and political repression by the Burmese military government.
I first met Dada Rama through friends of Ride for Rations with Ar. Trecia Lim via Ride for Baan Dada 2016 which raised funds for the university program for the children of Baan Dada. In the subsequent years, I was able to visit the home and understand a little more of the complexity of refugees and migrant families in border areas like Myanmar/Thailand. While funding the university program made sense, from a systems perspective, I wanted to further understand how things connected to each other on the larger whole.
Service to All
I’ve always wondered how the Dada and Didis run the different homes and what kept their mission going, usually twenty to thirty years in the making. In a particular visit in 2019, I felt a greater understanding through this vision from the founder of Anarda Marga :
“All my energy, all my mind, all my thoughts and all my deeds are to be goaded unto the path of collective elevation of human society, without neglecting other living and inanimate entities right from this moment until the last point of my living on this earth” — Baba (Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar)
Service means giving of oneself without expecting anything in return. In our present society we’ve been conditioned to think that the more we gain for ourselves the happier we’ll be. But in fact — as we are all realising — inner happiness lies in giving more, not taking more. Giving is indeed receiving.
3 circles — junor, senior and society
While this made sense from a personal point of view, I still wasn’t sure how to connect it to the greater body of work I was involved in the various communities of practices and client work. During Product Gin & Tonic Retreat 2018, I had mentioned to Mike Dickinson and Amy Huang during an open space topic on Community that I wasn’t sure how or even wanted to! While the proceeds of Product Tonic Retreats and Unconferences were donated to Baan Dada in the background, very little was done to highlight the cause for the majority of the participants involved.
Later on in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and speaking to a mentor Joon Chin Fum-ko who has been in public service for 40 years, she noted that I was struggling to connect my work in the community of practices and desire to connect it to the community work I was involved in. It was frankly causing me to consider dropping the work in product tonic altogether so that I could focus on Baan Dada instead. She mentioned that combining the 3 circles of junior professionals “what can help sharpen my skills”, senior professionals “what is next for me” and societal problems “what needs dialogue and co-generative action” were the key to a sustainable community so that it didn’t become a transactional marketplace for finding jobs and also cause a burn-out!
Mike also connected me with his mentor Ronald Stones OBE who gifted me his writing and lessons learnt from this time in education that inspired me for the work ahead.
We are not shining to compete with other stars;
We are doing it to brighten up those people’s lives.
When they see us shining, we make them happy.
Think about that the next time you try to shine.
~ the little star that so wanted to shine — a story by Ronald Stones OBE
Seeds for Product Tonic Lab
Through fate, client work in 2020 provided an opportunity to test a long-running idea of how meetups, retreats and the unconferences could be a singular experience through a cohort-based program. With 93 individuals across 4 client cohorts showing a positive result and encouragement from Joon and many others, PTL cohort 1 was started with Mulyadi Oey, Hazel Teng and Ignasius Tirta and later Cohort 2 started with Jocelyn Ke, Albert Hardy, Azri Rashid & Dominic Ong chipping in. Mentors and guides like Seri Tasripin, Sander Veraar, Nuno Jonet, Amy Huang, Mike Dickinson, YC Lian, Luo Ren, Steven (Shao-Hang) Huang, Michelle Ow and Thuy Pham have helped contribute to the overall knowledge of the group.
This time I wanted to make sure that the communities I cared about were part of the conversation so that I could focus and not feel so strained during the fund-raising periods.
So what’s Ananda Kuranja? Master Units?
Through fate, I was able to meet Dada P in Ubud, Bali during my visit in June’22 and got to know about the Bali Youth Camp being held at Ashram Ananda Kuranja under the care of Dada Sutapa. I was also introduced to Harideva (Balinese based in Jakarta) who had been the main organiser for the youth camp together with the children at Ananda Kuranja. During our conversation, the concept of Master Unit (MU) came up a few times and while I knew the concept from Baan Dada and Baan Unrak, it’s only upon seeing the effect of Ananda Kuranja on the Sangsit area in Bali that I understood better the effect of the MU for the surrounding residents living in harmony with each other and the environment.
I ran the opening retreats for PTL Cohort 2 (June’22) from the MU and later took part in facilitating an empathy circle for the teenagers to better understand the support they needed for each other. It was such a meaningful experience that I made a point to return in October’22 where I got to speak with Dada Sutapa and Pak Jit (retired in the 70s and living near the home).
What’s next after this?
After the PT unconference 2022 and PT Lab Cohort 2, I’ll move my attention to the next run of Cohort 3 through the PT Retreat in Bohol and improvements on connecting the 3 circles. I hope in doing so, this forms the basis of a “master unit” set in the virtual space for professional development in connection with communities like Baan Dada and Ananda Kuranja. The form is still in progress and I’m finding much energy from pursuing it as I hope some of you might be willing to move along this journey together at the same time.
More about Baan Dada
https://www.anandamarga.org/baan-dada-childrens-home-thailand/
(https://baandada.net/ is the correct link in the article)
More about Master Units
https://gurukul.edu/newsletter/issue-25/master-units-and-cooperative-communities/
Highlights from Bali Youth Camp June 2022 in Ashram Ananda Kuranja
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_k8lzBRzfw&ab_channel=VepoArtPhotographyandFilm
