Vision :
Governance From Below (GFB) is all people engaged in the well-being of all people around (the “common good”). Every neighborhood should be a nice place to be!
Mission
Promote implementation of substantive child-adult mutual leadership throughout the world. One such development is the World Children’s Parliament, http://www.wcp.earth/ (site constructed by children). Focus on:
- Connectivity from neighborhood to neighbourhood for inclusive sustainable development (“Neighbourocracy”)
- Everyone in the thinking and doing using such methods as sociocracy, including the fragile and disabled.
- Child and adult mutual leadership, advocating for talents of children and the inner child of adults.
Logo
Reflects Gandhi: “True democracy… has to be worked from below by the people of every village.” It shows an everywhere tree coming from the ground, growing upwards & bearing fruit. People and the living creatures and plants around them are the raw material of development, an inclusive neighborhood.
Board Members of Governance From Below
EDWIN MARIA JOHN
is from the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. As a Catholic priest he has been pastor of three parishes, Director of a Diocesan Pastoral Center, and the coordinator of diocesan commissions, for two terms.
- He pioneered neighbourhood-based organizing, beginning in a parish in the southern tip of India in late 1970s.
- The initiative inspired the organization of nearly 280,000 neighbourhood groups of poor women, beyond religious identities, as a State-sponsored move aimed at poverty eradication and empowerment of women.
- He initiated the movement for Inclusive Neighbourhood Parliaments of Children. He has been a part of a global team to prepare modules for child-led evaluation of child participation. In the Indian State of Tamilnadu- Pondicherry, the Parliament of Children won the UN-San Marino Alexander Bodini award in 2009 for best child rights organization for child-led action.
- Very recently, the State of Tamilnadu-Pondicherry announced that it would implement children’s parliament methods in all of its thousands of public schools.
- He promotes neighbourhood parliaments using methods that include sociocracy, in India, Portugal, Spain, Peru, Chile and South Africa. He has evolved a new blueprint for global governance in terms of multi-tier global federation neighbourhood parliaments, governed by the principles of smallness, numerical uniformity, subsidiarity, re-call scope, and convergence. See https://childrenparliament.in/ and his book Hello Neighbourocracy! Governance Where Everyone Has A Say.
- He has addressed meetings at the UN on good governance, universal inclusion and empowerment.
- A graduate in journalism, he has directed a news agency and edited a monthly magazine for health action.
STEVE ROCHA
is a child rights advocate who has been engaged in this field since 1990. He is the Founder Director of PRATYeK, an organisation that envisions every child being trained to advocate for every right for everyone.
He is also the National Convener and founder of the ‘NINE IS MINE’ campaign, an initiative of, for and by the children to advocate for appropriate public investment in children.
Steve is the Asia level Advocacy Coordinator for Edmund Rice International based in Geneva. He has facilitated child-led interactions with policymakers and leaders at village, state, national and international levels including the United Nations in Geneva and New York.
Other roles include:
- Facilitator for CCBI Province Advocacy and Justice Facilitator
- Steering Group member of Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (Global Call to Action Against Poverty- India)
- Member St Columba’s Community
Academic Qualifications
- Masters in Social Work, Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai (1999) (Second Place in Mumbai University)
- Bachelors in Arts (Geography Honours), NEHU, St Edmund’s College, Shillong (1993)
- (Second place in North East Hill University)
- Pre University: St Edmund’s College, Shillong (1986-88)
- Schooling: Salvation High School, Mumbai (1975-86)
Training
- International Human Rights Training Program – Montreal, Canada (2017)
- Green Schools Training Program Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi (2012)
- Edmund Rice International Training on Human Rights – Geneva, Switzerland (2011)
- Inclusive Education workshop NIMH, Mumbai, (1999)
- Sports for Social Responsibility Workshop, German Olympic committee and SAI (1999)
- Youth Counselling Course – Kristu Jyoti College , Bangalore (1997)
- Teacher Training and Practice -St Joseph’s College and St George’s (1990-1991)
- Teacher Orientation Program -Business English Certificate Examination – British Council Mumbai (1988)
Personnel Development
- Shadow to Gold – Dehradun (2018)
- Basic Labs on Human Processes – ISABS (2018)
- Certification as Laughter Yoga Teacher (2009)
- National Vocation Service Centre – Pune (2008)
- Mini Sadhana – Lonavala (2009)
- Ashram Experience – Kolkata, Bolpur, Rishikesh, Bijnor, Varnasi, Mysore (2008)
- Dhamma Experience – Kolkata, Karnal, Dehradun, Delhi, Jaipur, Jodhpur
- Eco Centre Training – Taru Mitra, Patna (2008)
- Spirituality Gathering for the young – Johannesburg, South Africa (2008)
- Spirituality and Human Development – ERTI, Shillong (1988-1990)
Professional Experiences
- Justice Facilitator in Residence, Seymour College Adelaide South Australia (2012, 2014, 2016)
- Community Leader and Executive Committee Member, St John’s School, Chandigarh (2010-12)
- Spirituality and Justice Trainer – Edmund Rice Novitiate, Bhopal (2009-10)
- Community Leader and Teacher – Saraitoli Teacher (2007-08)
- Manager and Community Leader – St Mary’s Orphanage and Day School (2002-2005)
- Governing Body Member – Loreto Entally (2001-2005) , Auxillium Convent (2002-2005)
- Director – St Mary’s Orphanage (2002-2005)
- Community Engagement Facilitator – Ane Moriam Arunachal Pradesh (1999-2000)
- Ujjala Coordinator – St Columba’s School (1995-96)
- Teacher and Value Educator – St Columba’s School, New Delhi (1995-96)
- Teacher – St Mary’s School, Mount Abu (1993-1995)
- Province Spirituality Coordinator – (1994)
- Teacher – St George’s School and St Joseph’s College, Kolkata (1989-90)
SWARNALAKSHMI RAVI
is the Program Coordinator at PRATYeK handling 5 states and 1 Union Territory of the Southern part of India. She previously served as the DEI Consultant & Livelihood Advisor (Learning & Development) of VVNT foundation between 2023 and early 2024.
She also supports the World Children’s Parliament as a Global Convener networking with children from across different continents.
A motivational speaker, she holds two master degrees, one in Political Science from the University of Madras in India and another in international relations and global governance from Aston University in England, where she received one of ten scholarships for academic excellence from over 1000 applicants. She was the first person from India ever to receive one of Ashton’s International Vice Chancellor scholarships.
She is a certified facilitator in the sociocracy governance method and participated in building an app called Circle Weaver that helps users efficiently organize and conduct meetings. She participated in making two pitches on the app to venture capitalists.
As a child, she served for 13 years in various positions of responsibilities in the Inclusive Neighbourhood Children’s Parliaments movement of India, gaining experience in networking and team building. She served the India Children’s Parliaments National Child Prime Minister. In that role she spoke at the United Nations in New York and Geneva at the ages of 13, 14, 16 and 17, advocating for inclusive education and for the prevention on violence against women and girls. She lobbied with the ambassadors and diplomats of about 20 countries.
Alphonse MEKOLO
Alphonse Mekolo is a senior consultant in Management and Governance with a special focus on Public sector institutions and civil service reforms as they relate to Decentralisation and local development, institutional development design, Policy making, Human capital Strategic management and Leadership coaching.
Alphonse Mekolo has actively worked with the United Nations systems for more than 20 years, where he served at the United Nations Secretariat Headquarters in New York as a senior interregional adviser in public Administration and governance systems, from 2003 to 2015. He also served in the Cameroon public Administration as the acting director of the Advanced Institute for Public management (ISMP), from 1989 to 1994; and as Chief of service for international economic multilateral cooperation within the Ministry of Economy and Planning, from 1980 to 1985.
As a governance consultant and public management adviser, he brought professional support to government officials and public authorities for different countries in the world including Rwanda (1997-2001), Algeria (1999), Morocco (2000), Mauritania(2004-2007), Togo(2006-2013), Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Haiti, Benin, and Timor-Leste, to name a few.
Mekolo keeps doing practical research, professional in-house training and consultation for government institutions, business organizations, and local government entities around the world. He wrote technical papers and delivered Keynote talks at conferences. He facilitated international workshops and developed meaningful professional training materials including ‘Public Administration Reconstruction after conflict’, and ‘Human Resource Policy making and implementation’. Among his several publications, he contributed to a major UNDP publication entitled ‘Governance for the Future – Democracy and Development in the Least Developed Countries’. The recent book he has just published is ‘Governance From Below: Can Children Lead the Way? ‘
Alphonse Mekolo is the Founding Director of ‘Mekalfone Consulting Group’ engineering governance and innovation for sustainable development; in other words, ‘MEG & Partners’.
Alphonse Mekolo holds a Masters Degree from Quebec University (ENAP) in Canada. He also obtained professional certificates in the areas of (i) public policy making and the formulation monitoring and evaluation of development programmes, from Bordeaux International School (EIB) in France; (ii) conflict management and negotiation, from the UN training center at New York; (iii) Public Administration Consulting Skills, from the Royal Institute of Public Administration (RIPA) in London, in (iv) Public Sector Finance Management, from the Economic Development Institute (EDI) of the World Bank at Washington; and of (v) Project Analysis and Financing, from the African Development Bank (ADB) in Abidjan.
JOHN BUCK
is the CEO of GovernanceAlive, LLC, an international consulting, training and facilitation firm specializing in the methods of sociocracy as well as such related methods as Beyond Budgeting, Open Space, and Agile.
He is also Director of Governance From Below, Inc., a USA 501(c)3 charitable nonprofit. It envisions all children exercising their rights to participate fully in the many political processes around the world. Those rights are spelled out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
He mentors, trains, consults and conducts workshops around the globe for both businesses and nonprofit organizations, including schools and children’s parliaments. He has presented workshops in the United States, Canada, Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Romania, Germany, India, Korea, Spain, Portugal, Chile, and New Zealand. He also conducts online workshops with a global audience. In India, he has worked extensively with such organizations as Neighbourhood Community Network (NCN) and PRAYTeK, both of whom are UN-recognized NGOs with consultative status.
John is certified as a consultant by the International Sociocracy Certification Board. His publications include: We the People: Consenting to a Deeper Democracy, Company-wide Agility with Beyond Budgeting, Open Space & Sociocracy: Survive & Thrive on Disruption, and an almost complete book: Governance From Below: Can Children Lead The Way?
He has a TEDx talk on sociocracy. He also addressed the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration about the need to move away from strategic thinking to complexity thinking. (Note: his comments start at minute 2:13:35.)
John has a Bachelors Degree in English from Brown University and a Master’s degree from George Washington University in Quantitative Sociology. Earlier in his career, John had leadership experience with government and corporations, including managing large teams on information technology projects.
BRUCE BAKER
is a Senior Consultant at Governance Alive. He is the founder and former Executive Director of Community Health and Empowerment through Education and Research (CHEER), a community based nonprofit working in Takoma Park and the Long Branch area of Silver Spring, Maryland.
CHEER’s work includes working with local schools to empower the children to make meaningful contributions to the community.
His experience includes community strategic planning, facilitating community improvement efforts, and building collaborations and partnerships. Prior to founding CHEER in 2010 he worked as an independent consultant on public finance, housing, and community development and served as an Evaluator at the US Government Accountability Office.
He earned a master’s degree in public policy from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in history from Brown University.