Campaigning for change – part of our common humanity

I’ve just come back from running an advocacy workshop for the Red Cross in Nepal, and I know that I have written about this before, but I am yet further enthused that advocating or campaigning for change is one vital part of our common and shared humanity.

Despite having to rely on translation, the participants in the workshop showed an eagerness to define their key problem and solution, to debate the realities of their own external context, discuss how they might influence their target, analyse the most effective response to opposition, and bring it all together in one strategy.

We may speak different languages and have different cultures, but that common human desire to challenge the status quo and push for change to help other people cuts across our differences and shows our common uniting humanity. All I did was to offer some tools and a framework – they then did the rest to take ownership of their issue and debate how they might go forward to push for change. This gives me such a sense of hope for our world – working together we can make a difference!