ONE MAN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD – Reflections from New Orleans

Why Should I Care – It’s not my Job.

What would you do if the park in your community was overgrown with vegetation, causing hazard to your children or to your little sister who should be playing ‘catch’ without catching pollen irritating her allergies? Or, God forbid, what if there was no park in your community at all? What would you do if the drains in your neighbourhood needed cleaning, blocked by debris – plastic bottles and junk causing an unsightly pile and offensive odour? Would you protest, block roads or blog about it, following countless pleas to ‘relevant authorities’ whose response does not equate to the immediacy of your problem? Or would you just do it yourself? You may in fact be contemplating the challenge, but flinch by asking yourself, why should I do it? After all, I’m paying my taxes. Comforted in that assurance, would you satisfy yourself with the fact that, hey, it’s not YOUR job?

On the face of it, these may appear to be simple questions, but their implications are far reaching. They speak to the core of an ideal called ‘civic responsibility’ and they resonate with proponents of service and volunteerism. These questions force me to confront not just those local issues that are of vital importance to community building, but bigger questions relating to poverty, conflict or the protection and preservation of our planet – questions that demand global answers. I believe however, that if we are not sufficiently willing or prepared to ask ourselves and answer the call to deal with practical issues that directly affect our local communities, then we will not be prepared to face or answer the urgent questions that confront us as a global community. It is from this platform that I wish to share a very practical, but most profound and moving story of a ‘Champion of Service’, that I learnt of at the National Conference on Volunteering & Service, held in New Orleans June 6-8, 2011.

How Did I get here?

Before I share the story though, permit me to give you a brief background. The annual National Conference on Volunteering and Service is hosted by Points of Light Institute (http://www.pointsoflight.org/) and the Corporation for National and Community Service (http://www.nationalservice.gov/). It is the world's largest assembly of volunteer and service leaders representing government, corporate and non-profit sectors. The conference ‘provides attendees with an opportunity to learn, connect and be inspired through a wide range of exciting and informative plenary sessions, workshops, special events, service projects, exhibits’ and to share stories of Champions of Service.’ For the 2011 hosting, I was invited as a Board Member of the global service leaders’ network, VOLiNTEER (http://meridianserviceleaders.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network), along with two of my colleague members of VOLiNTEER to participate. We were also invited based on our work in our respective organizations in our home countries – in my case, as General Manager of the Stella Maris Foundation whose tremendous work has contributed to the socio-economic improvements of one of Jamaica’s historically challenging communities. Our invitation was received through the instrumentality of Meridian International Centre’s Global Service Leaders Initiative headed by Meg Clifford-Pool; additionally, the US Embassy in Kingston Jamaica was instrumental in sponsoring my stay during the 3-day event in New Orleans.

One Man Can Change the world

Among the many well received workshops and sessions, no other experience had a profound impact on me as did the session ‘Champions of Service, Leaders in Innovation’, during which the phenomenal story of Chad Pregracke’s was shared – ‘One man's mission to clean the Mississippi’. This Illinois native simply became frustrated when officials didn’t take his environmental concerns seriously enough to act expeditiously. He had long traversed the Mississippi and became increasingly concerned about the extreme levels of pollution in it. He could no longer endure painful images of junk in all forms, sizes and shapes that have come to dominate the river and its banks. This river needed cleaning and it needed to be done at once! Perhaps he contemplated the questions that I posed earlier. Perhaps he considered talking about it – that he did, but he went further. Instead of mounting a road block or standing aside with placard in protest, Chad simply decided to do it himself.

He started at age twenty two and has spent the last seven years cleaning the Mississippi river. Since then, he has travelled the Mississippi on a barge, from Kentucky to Minnesota, removing refrigerators, 55-gallon metal barrels, chunks of polystyrene foam and all manner of refuse that has been dumped in the river. He now runs a full-time non-profit organization with a team committed to continuing this mission of cleaning the Mississippi; and those that did not move when they should, have now joined in. If you were there, would you have stood by and thought to yourself, ‘is he crazy; what is he trying to prove’? On the other hand, would you be among the few to join in? You can read more on Chad’s story here http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040902&a....

So what are you going to do now?

Essentially, I was forced to reflect on the many instances of people elsewhere whose reflex is often a knee jerk response involving street protests or road blocks in the face of local problems – such as, a drain whose cleaning is overdue or a parcel of public land overgrown with vegetation etc. How many of us are willing to contemplate the questions that demand us to answer ‘if not me, then who – if not now, then when’? Indeed, Chad is not the only man/woman that has acted courageously to deal with a problem that affected him directly and whose solution benefitted many – but do we have enough?

While I celebrate and laud the many civil society groups and voluntary organizations even in my own country, I believe that we need more people who are willing to rise to the occasion and simply do something that needs to be done – whether or not it is YOUR job. We must be so moved to embrace problems as opportunities for solutions. Our energies must be genuinely directed to resolving practical challenges that confront our communities and not merely play for the public in photo ops on ‘labour day’ or during media tours of a ‘pre-planned service projects’. Let us be inspired to mobilize people to action, whether or not it is our job to clean that drain, patch that hole in the road or organize a beautification project.

I always contend and will continue to suggest that it does not always require lengthy proposals, meetings or formal ‘feasibility studies’ to do something that needs to be done. While I hold true to democratic principles, I am also of the firm view that a government policy or some kind of ‘committees’ endorsement are not pre-requisites for simple action to be taken to solve simple and obvious problems. To be effective at problem solving, will require us to go back to simple solutions-based action that applies to local, national and global challenges – it will require us to take a page from the book of Champions of Service!

Omar C. Frith