“Don’t walk away because you think you can’t make a difference. Pick a cause! Be a citizen! Vote! Tell your governments what you want them to do and what you will not tolerate that they do on your behalf!” Louise Arbour (former Canadian judge and chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda)
I was at an important session last night. The Calgary Foundation celebration was a follow-up on its Vital Signs report card where Calgarians indicated that they are unhappy and embarrassed by situations and issues in this prosperous city. Residents gave barely passing grades to issues as diverse as education, disparity, housing, health and wellness, arts, and environment. The report is meant to spur discussion and hopefully action in improving the 12 areas surveyed.
In the midst of the evening, Eva Friesen- President of the Calgary Foundation, gave a brief history. She concluded that in 2007 TCF had assets of $334 million had collected more than 445 million in 2006 and granted $33 million. I was surprised at the applause that this received because what I heard was that over $300 million dollars was tied up, accomplishing nothing, while the city was crumbling around us. Imagine what half the foundation's assets might be able to 'solve'.
“The most powerful people in a democracy are individuals.” President Jimmy Carter.
Showing posts with label concrete. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concrete. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
A Better Place
One of my favorite blogs - Mr. Besilly asks "If you could focus on one idea that would make your life a better place to live starting tomorrow, would you do it?
If that one thing had a positive effect not only on you but on someone else in direct proximity to your life, would you be even more motivated to do it?
Do you know what time it is?
It's never too late to get started.
Or is it?"
What if you started on August 2nd, determined to make a difference in someone's life?
Who would you choose? What would you do? What is stopping you?
If that one thing had a positive effect not only on you but on someone else in direct proximity to your life, would you be even more motivated to do it?
Do you know what time it is?
It's never too late to get started.
Or is it?"
What if you started on August 2nd, determined to make a difference in someone's life?
Who would you choose? What would you do? What is stopping you?
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Follow Your Passion
Friday, August 18th, 2006
Are you enraged by some injustice? Have you or friends/family been touched by an issue or illness? Have you recently become aware of an issue in your community, country or internationally? Has someone approached you to help with a project or issue? Did a news story shake you into action. Are you passionate about an issue?
There is a three link chain that should help you to find action that is immediate, relevant, and concrete. The links are connected like a chain where each one is important and dependent on two more links. The process isn’t linear but rather circular. When you complete the three links you are only temporarily finished because link three connects back to link one.
Link one : Raise your awareness of the issue. A little bit of time invested in researching what the issue really is ( 5,000 people are homeless), what the background situation is (2000 are suffering from mental health issues, 2000 are experiencing substance abuse, 1000 are catastrophically homeless because of job loss or illness), what is being done by individuals and organizations ( is the existing action helping), and can you join, cooperate or collaborate with existing action.
Link two: Gain respect and understanding for the impacted individuals, families or groups. Without link two, your well meaning actions will come from your perspective on the issue and be harmful, detrimental or not well received. Using the fictional example( the issue is real the numbers are fictional) from Link one, 5000 homeless - you may have personal values that suggest that the homeless just need to get a job and work harder. If you haven’t done background research you wouldn’t realize that 75% of the catastrophically homeless are already working fulltime and more than 25% of ill and addicted are holding down jobs. This is really the most difficult link because we all bring our past experiences and biases with us. Letting go of strongly held beliefs and being open to new possibilities can be challenging and requires us to be focused on what is best for others. Don’t panic, it may be difficult but this is a skill that we use everyday in relationships with families, co-workers, and friends (sometimes more successfully than others).
Link three: Take action. After raising awareness of the issue and gaining understanding and respect for the impacted individuals you are ready to find an action that is immediate, relevant and concrete. Remember to take a manageble bite of the issue. You likely can’t personally help all 5000 homeless people or even join the efforts of others to find a solution to the big problem. But, maybe you can look for action that would benefit the 1000 that are homeless because of family crisis or job loss. Maybe you can join a campaign to bring about a living wage and/or affordable housing.
After taking action and allowing the ripples to bounce around for a while, you can see what changes have occured. Did the action make a difference? Does it need to be modified a bit? Is there a better solution? Our best efforts and experiences to reduce or eliminate homelessness have left us with a growing problem. This is an unimaginable problem to have in wealthy countries like Canada, United States or Great Britain and will require as yet unimagined solutions. Keep imagining!
Are you enraged by some injustice? Have you or friends/family been touched by an issue or illness? Have you recently become aware of an issue in your community, country or internationally? Has someone approached you to help with a project or issue? Did a news story shake you into action. Are you passionate about an issue?
There is a three link chain that should help you to find action that is immediate, relevant, and concrete. The links are connected like a chain where each one is important and dependent on two more links. The process isn’t linear but rather circular. When you complete the three links you are only temporarily finished because link three connects back to link one.
Link one : Raise your awareness of the issue. A little bit of time invested in researching what the issue really is ( 5,000 people are homeless), what the background situation is (2000 are suffering from mental health issues, 2000 are experiencing substance abuse, 1000 are catastrophically homeless because of job loss or illness), what is being done by individuals and organizations ( is the existing action helping), and can you join, cooperate or collaborate with existing action.
Link two: Gain respect and understanding for the impacted individuals, families or groups. Without link two, your well meaning actions will come from your perspective on the issue and be harmful, detrimental or not well received. Using the fictional example( the issue is real the numbers are fictional) from Link one, 5000 homeless - you may have personal values that suggest that the homeless just need to get a job and work harder. If you haven’t done background research you wouldn’t realize that 75% of the catastrophically homeless are already working fulltime and more than 25% of ill and addicted are holding down jobs. This is really the most difficult link because we all bring our past experiences and biases with us. Letting go of strongly held beliefs and being open to new possibilities can be challenging and requires us to be focused on what is best for others. Don’t panic, it may be difficult but this is a skill that we use everyday in relationships with families, co-workers, and friends (sometimes more successfully than others).
Link three: Take action. After raising awareness of the issue and gaining understanding and respect for the impacted individuals you are ready to find an action that is immediate, relevant and concrete. Remember to take a manageble bite of the issue. You likely can’t personally help all 5000 homeless people or even join the efforts of others to find a solution to the big problem. But, maybe you can look for action that would benefit the 1000 that are homeless because of family crisis or job loss. Maybe you can join a campaign to bring about a living wage and/or affordable housing.
After taking action and allowing the ripples to bounce around for a while, you can see what changes have occured. Did the action make a difference? Does it need to be modified a bit? Is there a better solution? Our best efforts and experiences to reduce or eliminate homelessness have left us with a growing problem. This is an unimaginable problem to have in wealthy countries like Canada, United States or Great Britain and will require as yet unimagined solutions. Keep imagining!
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?
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?
Take Action Today
Take Action TodayThursday, August 17th, 2006
The world we live in is full of good people that have stopped trying to make a difference. The unimaginable tragedies of the 21st century may have left them overwhelmed. They may have experienced dishonesty, deceit, or negligence in a previous experience and are afraid that will be the case again. Maybe they have encountered barriers to assisting others from processes, procedures, policies, or bureaucracy from government, agencies or charitable organizations. Maybe they are just tired of banging their head against a wall.
There is hope. There are everyday actions that indivduals can take that will make a difference. Sometimes these actions will be small with a small ripple. Other times they may be bigger and generate a huge ripple. There are everyday actions that are being taken by small nonprofits and grassroots groups that are causing gigantic waves.
The purpose of EverydayAction.ca is to help you find opportunities in your area, to generate fresh discussions on the issues and encourage you to become part of the solution. The issues of child hunger, homelessness, death from preventable diseases, climate change, torture, abuse, violence and all the other tragedies we face are unimaginable considering our resources and experience - yet they still persist. These unimaginable problems requires many as yet unimagined solutions. Are you ready to begin imagining?
The world we live in is full of good people that have stopped trying to make a difference. The unimaginable tragedies of the 21st century may have left them overwhelmed. They may have experienced dishonesty, deceit, or negligence in a previous experience and are afraid that will be the case again. Maybe they have encountered barriers to assisting others from processes, procedures, policies, or bureaucracy from government, agencies or charitable organizations. Maybe they are just tired of banging their head against a wall.
There is hope. There are everyday actions that indivduals can take that will make a difference. Sometimes these actions will be small with a small ripple. Other times they may be bigger and generate a huge ripple. There are everyday actions that are being taken by small nonprofits and grassroots groups that are causing gigantic waves.
The purpose of EverydayAction.ca is to help you find opportunities in your area, to generate fresh discussions on the issues and encourage you to become part of the solution. The issues of child hunger, homelessness, death from preventable diseases, climate change, torture, abuse, violence and all the other tragedies we face are unimaginable considering our resources and experience - yet they still persist. These unimaginable problems requires many as yet unimagined solutions. Are you ready to begin imagining?
Everyday Action Reinvented
The former home for this blog was at everydayaction.ca I found using WP cumbersome when I have three other blogs residing on blogger. Over the next month all the everydayaction.ca posts will be moved here and new posts will only be posted here.
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