I should warn you that I’m about to get all vapid up in here. I should also be more embarrassed to say this but I do believe that most people are basically good. There are, of course, those few who get all the attention and the downright evil but we – as people – seem to put all of our focus on the bad instead of speaking about the good. Then again here I am with my Pollyanna-ish views once again praising people for not being awful.
Anyway, it was this concept that ran through my head during my day at the Clinton Global Initiative; that we have a ‘moral obligation’ to help one another. This obligation has nothing to do with politics. It isn’t right and it isn’t left it’s a human thing to want to do more and better for the greater good. This is what stuck with me and I kept reaching for not just during the meeting but in the days after: How to help? How can any of us help?
So here we are with this responsibility that is impossibly massive but if we were to all chip in then we could at least put a scratch on the service of good needed not for now but for this planet and its inhabitants forever. It feels like such the cliche when typing it out. But when there, standing in that room full of leaders and thousands of men and women who have decided to make a commitment not just to their local community but to the world community, it can bring you to your knees. What seems like the most impossible, is possible. Human good is possible.
The members of the Clinton Global Initiative will tell you that they came to this place looking for an “organic”, “collaborative” space. They wanted to transform not only themselves as participants within the global community but they also wanted to transform and empower the place around them. We often look at ourselves as people who cannot make a difference alone and it is here with fellow members where commitments are formed and realized. But there you are, this seemingly insignificant person wondering how to help. During a conversation between New York Times columnist Nick Kristoff and President Clinton, a question was asked of the President what should people take away from this three-day discussion? Members responded with this:
You’re here among like-minded people to help. People to help form that commitment, execute your commitment. What do you want to achieve? Do you know the community that you are trying to serve? My personal favorite was this: “What you think you can do or dream you can do, begin it. This is a good place to start”.
I’m merely scratching at the surface here, you see. These people had already realized what they wanted to do and here I was only observer but racking my brain to find my place, to find something that struck a chord within me. It would be a man named Milton Ochieng, founder of the Lwala Community Alliance. His father dreamed of building a health clinic in Kenya but died before realizing that dream. Milton and his brother Fred fulfilled his father’s commitment to further maternal health in Kenya. The clinic is now thriving in rural Kenya and since 2009 has grown exponentially on their quest to serve 75,000 patients. The foundation not only gives access to antiretrovirals for AIDS patients but it also incentivized education for girls in 6th-8th grade where young women have a propensity to become disengaged.
There was also Reeta Roy, President and CEO of the MasterCard Foundation. The goal of which is to find ways to expand access to education and learning opportunities in Africa for young people to become employable and even create their own job opportunities. The Equity Group of Kenya expanded access to education for 5,600 young people. What was standing in the way of their educations? Poverty.
You can continue with stories like these for days and come away with the same line of thinking: What is harming us – not just globally but also domestically – is access. Access to proper healthcare and access to quality education. It is this that changed my line of thinking from a very individual sense of being to one that things not just bigger in terms of size but bigger in terms of what should and could be done. And for me that will be a commitment to education.
Someway, somehow. The question is what will you do?
Over
War became the new normal. The Mission Accomplished banner was bullshit and the finding of Sadam the most memorable. Found in a hole a former dictator thankfully knocked out at the knees. And knowing all these years later that there were never weapons of mass destruction. What was real and what wasn’t is something that will continue to be debated for years to come and while we can be sure of how it ended it is the beginning that gives me chills. But today it is over. Secretary Panetta declared it so and the last troops moved across the border into Kuwait.
(Photo via @richardengelnbc)
It’s over. There’s no elation just somber and continuous reflection. How do you feel?