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!
Showing posts with label solution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solution. Show all posts
Saturday, July 7, 2007
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?
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