I remember reading about great heroes who changed the world forever when I was a kid – people like Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and I am sure you know there are many many others.
After doing some volunteer work, some people look at me as if I’m some kind of a selfless saint or something similar. Yes, of course I am volunteering because I want to see a positive and meaningful change in the lives of others but I’m doing it for my own needs as well – the feeling of seeing lives changed for the better is one that will last a lifetime.
But those comments of being a ‘selfless saint’ volunteer do worry me. Why? When I volunteer, I see myself as a tool to facilitate others that might need skills or experience I have so that they can help themselves. I often meet marginalized communities or collectives who lack the information necessary for them to ‘do it for themselves’, make strategic decisions to improve their own lives and participate in a more meaningful way in the society they belong to. So all I need to do is provide them with as much information and even ideas that I have access to, to help them that way.
So, how not to change the world? Is it possible for all of us to be saviors, heroes, Gandhis, Mother Theresas, Nelson Mandelas, and Martin Luther Kings? Maybe the answer is we don’t have to be.
Maybe there is just not enough people in the world who know/care about issues that are having a huge impact on a lot of other people’s lives? Maybe all we have to is create awareness and interest about these issues, share our skills, knowledge and experience, and hope that other people would repeat, replicate, amplify, improvise and expand what we are doing so that others can keep doing that too. Then we continue to focus on the issues or communities that we are involved in and constantly monitor, evaluate or do some impact assessment of our own effectiveness and learn as much as we can. All we have to do is to remember to keep sharing what we know with others. 8-)
