Hello all... please forgive the lack of updating. Things have been busy!
If you'd like to see some photos of life recently, click this link! It'll take you to my most recent facebook album.
My most recent email newsletter can be read here... the theme is appreciation! You can even read back issues of my email newsletter if you have a missed a few.
In bloggish news, life has been pretty good. Last week we had our first "open course", meaning anyone was able to attend. We had about 20 people, from a variety of groups. attend the 5 day program. Overall the feed back was very positive, but the team was pretty tired! I was very proud of 2 of our interns, Edmond and Patricia, who taught sections of the course for the first time. Joshua also pitched in and, of course, our ever awesome Carol carried her weight in teaching.
Our course is a pretty cool experience. People are challenged, but also empowered to actually start taking responsibility for their lives. It's a rare thing here. I know it sounds funny, but when living in or surrounded by poverty it's easy to give up and stop trying to make your life better. It's easier to blame your hardships, problems and situations on other people.
The course we teach is based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I don’t like the term “self help”… but I don’t really think that describes well what we do. I think it’s more about teaching people to use what they have, and to help them to see what is possible… painting a picture of a possible future beyond what they’ve allowed themselves to imagine.
Let me take “Be Proactive” as an example. It’s the 2nd principle we teach, and the core point is “Who I am, and what I become in the future is my responsibility.” Seems pretty basic right? But when someone who has not embraced that fact actually starts to think about it, understand it, and live by it, it makes a big change. In this lesson, and throughout the course, we talk a lot about creative thinking and give many, many exercises to help people start thinking in a new way.
One of the challenges we face is that often people see a problem, and then only one solution. Usually that solution is not a very positive one. They feel “stuck”, “forced by circumstances”, or “disempowered”. So one of the core things we teach is that for every problem or challenge we face there are “157 solutions” to that problem. This blows people’s mind. We take them through several real life examples, and encourage them to use our model to find these creative solutions. It’s amazing to see what happens when someone realizes that they have a choice in their life, and that they don’t have to do anything… that there are always different creative solutions.
This is just part of what we do. I love it. There is nothing that is more rewarding to me than to see the “light bulb” go off in someone’s mind as they realize they can take into their own hands their development, that they have everything they need to take initiative. Beautiful things come from this!
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| Me and Carol, my amazing partner in all this, in traditional wear at a Uganda wedding |
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| Carol Teaching |
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| My world these days |
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| Interns: the ones I love ooh so very much |
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