Immediate, Relevant, and Concrete

Thursday, August 17th, 2006
Each opportunity to make a difference that we discover should be given the IRC test. Is the action immediate? You are ready to do something and putting off the action will not benefit you or those people that are impacted by the issue or problem. If an action meets the immediate criteria, it will also immediately cause ripples. Not all actions are going to make the same ripple and while we can never be sure how the ripples will grow, we can anticipate what the results might be.
The second criteria is relevance. We can get caught up doing things that are not relevant to the issue or a solution. In order to be relevant, the action needs to have significant bearing on or connection to the act. Don’t be fooled into doing ‘busy work’ just for the sake of doing something. Ask questions about the effect of your actions. “What difference does this acton make?”
The third and possibly most important criteria for choosing everyday action that the action needs to be concrete. While it is important to raise your awareness of an issue, attending an information session does not constitute concrete action. After your awareness has been raised the next step becomes action.
For example, everyday in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom children attend school without adequate nutrition. In these three countries, with so much wealth and government commitments to eliminate child hunger, this is unimaginable. It is also a huge issue that no one individual, organization, or government can tackle alone. So what can you do? It seems apparent that the solution to child hunger is to feed the children nutritious meals. Still a huge problem and a huge task. Let’s take a smaller bite. Are there children attending schools in your community that are not receiving a nutritious breakfast or lunch? Ask the school principal, teachers, or other parents. Are there existing programs working towards providing nutrition to these children? Are they effectively meeting the current need? If not, what can you do?
Some suggestions are to rally other parents and interested people to start a in-school nutrition program for children in need, drop off a case of tetra pack juice or a bag of apples at the school for distribution, or send an extra lunch to school with your child a couple of times each week. These actions are only suggestions and I encourage you to imagine local community-based solutions that are appropriate for your situation. Obviously each of these actions are going to require a different level of commitment. Let’s put them to the IRC test.
Start nutrition program
Will take time to plan and implement but once running the impact will be fast. Immediate 2/3 ( 1 low, 2 medium, 3 high).
Once the program is running it will have a significant bearing on the issue of child hinger in this school. Relevant 3/3
Kids are hungry and the program feeds kids. Concrete 3/3
Total 8/9
Deliver supplies or send extra lunch ( will likely have same score)
Either can happen today and have an impact today Immediate 3/3.
Both will mitigate hunger temporarily so action is relevant 3/3.
Supply of needed food mitigates child hunger 3/3.
Total 9/9
These are only suggested actions. Check your neighbourhood and talk to others about the issue. Persistent unimaginable issues require as yet unimagined solutions. Are you ready to imagine?