Category Archives: Kindness

Charity and Community – Hand Outs and Cheapskates

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I was just approached in the office to buy a raffle ticket for $10, three for $25.  The prize was a trinket that I’d never keep.  The reason for the raffle: a guy who works here was just diagnosed with prostate cancer and was headed into surgery today.  One of his friends/co-workers was collecting money for his family, just a bit extra to cover take-out and gas back and forth to the hospital.  It probably won’t amount to much, but it’ll help.  I’m sure it’ll be really, really appreciated too.

It’s Movember this month and I didn’t carve a moustache from my beard.  I probably should have and now feel a stab of guilt for not raising money for finding a cure.  Prostate cancer.  Life’s great kick in the balls. I’m really lucky; I haven’t been forced to think about cancer very much.  All my friends who have had cancer have survived and are still surviving.  Invincibility is still attached to my aging youth.  But cancer, or whatever fate, is out there and none of us know if or when we’ll have to face our battle.  Will your community be there for you when it happens?  Is giving now just flimsy good-karma insurance?

When I consider the raffle, my mind moves to the big campaigns – the posters and runs, pink ribbons and testimonies from survivors.  All this to encourage society to search for a cure.  I’ll admit to not giving as much money as I should.  Logically, I know how important it is.  Emotionally, I feel for the millions of people this affects.  But when I see the campaign by the Canadian Cancer Society I don’t feel connected.  I don’t know the people.

Ah, and there it is.

There’s the problem.

My problem is the problem so many face.  We don’t know people in Mogadishu who are struggling with drought and joblessness.  I don’t know anyone in the favelas of Sao Paulo either who don’t have clean running water.  There are so many people in need, so many folks on the street in urban Canada, struggling communities in our north…the list is overwhelming.  Who gets my charity dollars and how much should I give?

I’ve chosen to buy the raffle ticket this time.  I felt moved to do so.  It was direct.  It was for a guy who works with us.  If I didn’t give, I don’t think I’d be doing justice to my community.  It was real.

But what of the others?  Where do I go for these answers?  I feel like I’m there, ready to give.  Now what?

–

Awesome masthead photo by derekp

Trusting Community

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Last Thursday I was playing in my weekly Tier 2 Men’s Basketball League game. We won, but that’s not what this story is about.

This story is about trust.

As I sat on the bench during the game (I get tired quite easily when games begin at 10pm), a young man came over and said the following:

Young Man: “Forgive my interruption, sir, but I was wondering if I could trouble you with something.”

John: “Sure thing, what is it?”

YM: “My friend and I would like to shoot around on the next court over. Could we please borrow your basketball? We will just be nextdoor.”

John: “Yes, certainly.” [Hands over the ball]. “Wait a sec. I’m going to need some collateral from you. Give me your hat.”

YM (somewhat taken aback): “Okay, sure.” [Hands over hat].

The two guys took my ball and bounced it over to the court nextdoor. As they left, I was overwhelmed with disappointment in myself. Where was the trust in my community? For years, I have prided myself on being a person who shares and gives more than he probably should based on the principle that people are inherently good and that anyone who receives what I give (secrets, ideas, money, food, drink, trust) would never use it for evil. The interaction above was not reflective of such a philosophy.

While sitting on the bench with my teammates, I reflected on what just happened. And – as I’m known to do – I told a story as part of my reflection. In the above photo from Kigali, Rwanda in 2007, my friend Edouard is wearing headphones (attached to my iPod). And it was the story of my iPod that I told last Thursday night. As with the basketball – my possession – I was so nervous about leaving my iPod with a kid who was sitting on the bench while my team played that I implored some of my teammates and expat friends sitting in the stands to “watch him to make sure that he doesn’t go anywhere.” This was such a fail. No one anywhere near the court would’ve let someone steal something from me. More importantly, no one would’ve thought of taking something from me.

As with the guys who borrowed my basketball, I quickly learned that stealing something from a member of the community just isn’t done. Yes, I learned a lesson about our North American perceptions of possession, ownership and trust during my 2007 adventures in East Africa. And, yes, I need to remember its application going forward.

Because, clearly, I need to work on trusting my community.

Masthead photo courtesy of Acidpix, Flickr.

Love, Equality and a Small Island

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There’s a little place right down the bottom of Australia called Tasmania. It’s the tiny island that everyone always forgets about when they draw a map of Australia, and it’s the state that Australians love to publicly ridicule for being a little bit backwards when it comes to, well, everything.

But this week, Tasmania surprised us all when it became the first Australian state to have parliament formally pass a motion in support of same-sex marriage. Tasmanian Greens Senator Nick McKim summed up the motion by eloquently stating “we should value difference and diversity, and devalue discrimination”. Not a bad motto to live by.

There’s absolutely no legislative force behind the motion, primarily because marriage is legislated by the federal government in Australia, but it is arguably a very important gesture. To put the motion into context, homosexuality in Tasmania was only decriminalised in 1997. That’s right, 1997.

The same-sex marriage debate has saturated the Australian media and political debate for most of the year, and there has been an outpouring of commentary on the issue encompassing everything from the ridiculously detailed to just plain ridiculous.

The debate has illustrated that despite a considerable amount of Australian law mandating that there should be no discrimination against sexual or gender minorities, there is still considerable political reluctance to afford same-sex couples the same symbolic rights as heterosexual couples.

Recent polls have shown that up to 68 per cent of Australians are in favour of formalising same-sex unions, which is a pretty good indicator that the politicians are (shock-horror) out of step with the will of the Australian community.

I’d say that most of the 68 per cent of Australians that support marriage equality understand that the debate is not about religion or the institution of marriage, it’s actually about community and our democratic choices.

In a democratic secular society, if we are all going to participate equally in the community, then we all need to be able to exercise the same choices. And the choice to get married to someone that you love regardless of gender seems like a pretty damn important choice to me.

Hacking for Humanity: Random Hacks of Kindness

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What are the first words that jump into your mind when you think of a collaboration between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank?

If you’re like me, the first few words that entered your mind aren’t publishable on such a mild-mannered blog, and the subsequent words mostly started with evil.

But a few weeks ago, I was forced to re-evaluate my position when I was invited to Random Hacks of Kindness Melbourne.

According to the slick press release I received, Random Hacks of Kindness is a global community of innovation focused on developing practical open source solutions to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation challenges. The initiative began as a collaboration between all the organizations listed above, aimed at solving humanitarian issues through technology (and no-doubt with a secondary aim of looking less evil).

As part of hacking competition events across the world, coders from various organizations, industries and backgrounds work directly with subject matter experts from the emergency management sector to find solutions to ‘problem areas’ in disaster management technology.

When I did a bit of research into Random Hacks of Kindness I quickly realized that some of the solutions that have come from past hack-a-thon events have been good. Seriously good.

Last year, Random Hacks of Kindness was responsible for the refinement of the Google PersonFinder app that ended up being used extensively in both the Japan and New Zealand earthquakes, and was also behind the development of FoodMovr – a geo-location app that connects businesses that have excess food with organizations that help feed the needy.

As part of the Random Hacks of Kindness Melbourne event that I was lucky enough to attend, coders worked on everything from an app that allows users to create customized disaster plans, through to the development a unified platform for aggregating public alerts from all emergency services in Australia.

This event not only gave the Melbourne developer community a chance to give back and work on rewarding projects, it also provided much-needed innovation for the Australian disaster management sector, which is notoriously behind the eight ball when it comes to technological innovation.

In a year when stories of hackers stealing credit card numbers and crashing websites are abundant, it was pretty amazing to see some of Melbourne’s best IT minds working together on projects that directly benefit the community in some incredible ways.

And it made me hate Google a little bit less. Just a little bit though.

Got Lost in the Andes, but Found Community

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[Editor's Note: this article is from a Daily Gumboot spinoff blog called "Steph Bowen: Girl on the Run" - as you can imagine, it's from one of our favourite guest bloggers, Stephanie Bowen. The words below were originally published on March 26, 2011, but they are truly timeless. Thank you for the story of self-finding, misadventure, balls-out-adventure, and community, Ms. Bowen. Safe travels home.]

“When one is lost it is not the number of days that matter, but the absolute uncertainty that claims every moment.”
-Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow

Roughly two weeks ago I arrived in Bariloche, a mountain town at the northernmost tip of Patagonia. Bariloche is at once eerily familiar and totally foreign: it incorporates German architecture, Argentine food (and the Argentine party ethic) and Vancouver Island-esque scenery. It’s beautiful, but only a shadow of what the surrounding wilderness has to offer.

After a mellow tester-hike, my newfound partner in crime (a sunny Californian girl with a similar appetite for the extreme) and I decided it was do-or-die: time to launch ourselves into a three-day mountain trek and hope for the best. We loaded our packs with -15 sleeping bags, dried food and canteens, consulted our map, and hopped a bus to the trailhead.

Our first day, we had been told, would consist of a simple 5 hour trek to a refugio, a small mountain cabin heated by wood stove, with bunks for rent for roughly $12 CAN a night. It was explained that the last quarter of the hike was challenging (a 900m climb in 2 km), but nothing we couldn’t handle.

Those canyon walls? We hiked up ‘em. No big deal. 

After 6 hours of bushwhacking, slogging through marshland, and scrambling up loose scree slopes, we’d yet to encounter anything resembling a refugio. We were, in fact, at 2000 meters in an unmarked valley in the Andes, with night coming on rapidly. By now our party had swollen to 5, to include two Dutch boys on the third hike of their lives, and a Swiss optometrist.

At the base of yet another shaky ascent to a narrow traverse between valleys, we decided to stop and take stock. Grudgingly, as the wind picked up and the landscape shifted under the receding sunlight, we admitted that we were lost.

To put this into context, Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi is 7500 square kilometres and boasts hundreds (maybe thousands) of trails of varying difficulty, not all of which end with a refugio. Or even exist on a map. Also, temperatures in this part of the Andes routinely drop well below freezing. Getting lost is not just a nuisance – it represents legitimate danger.

Lost in an unmarked valley with night coming on? Time for a photo shoot! 

After much discussion and a totally necessary group shot, we decided to double back along the valley and look for the original trail markers we’d been following. There was a good chance we wouldn’t make it to the refugio before dark, in which case we would break out our sleeping bags and spare food (and the two bottles of wine the Dutch boys had brought along), make a fire in a no-fire zone, and attempt to stay warm as the temperature went down. It was a mildly alarming prospect, but the only reasonable plan of action given the circumstances.

Luckily after a further 3 hours of haltingly retracing our steps, we arrived at our intended destination. On shaky legs, we settled in for dinner and conversation in the toasty mountain cabin.

I come from city stock: my first camping trip occurred at the tender age of 18 and true hiking only made its way into my life 5 years ago. I have little experience with the peculiar sensation of being at the mercy of the natural world, but I will say this: I kind of love it. The soaring adrenaline and immediacy of the problems you face bring out your most essential self. In those moments, nothing really exists except your surroundings, and your survival.

The next two days passed without (negative) incident, and describing the sights I saw is virtually impossible. We climbed towering peaks, contended with gale-force winds, made a (planned) detour to a mountain-top lake, drank wine from plastic bottles while huddling around a wood stove, forded streams using guide lines, woke up in the snow, and bonded in a way only the woods can inspire.

Sunrise at Tronador 

And at every crossroad, with every step, we witnessed the splendour of the Patagonia Andes.

On the second morning, while new friends and fellow hikers slept on, I woke to see the sun rising. Shimmying to the window in my mummy bag, I pressed my nose to the cold, cold glass and watched the sky move from blue, to pink, to brilliant red over the silhouette of a thousand peaks. It was so profoundly beautiful that I couldn’t speak, or reach for my camera, or even breathe. It was so beautiful it made me ache.

The last year of my life has been replete with change and all kinds of wonder. Moving to Vancouver was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time, and even from a distance the life and friendships I’ve built there inspire me on a daily basis.

But being in the quiet of the mountains, surrounded by the natural world, powered by sheer determination, has brought me back to myself in a way I couldn’t have anticipated.

I have lost, and found, myself in the Andes.

Etiquette Builds Community

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Given that my official Daily Gumboot title is Etiquette and Australian Safety Correspondent, I thought it was about time I wrote a post on etiquette to counter the many posts I have written about Australian safety, which let’s face it, is a fairly niche area.

So, I thought I’d share some thoughts on office manners, which far from disappearing in to their predicted obsolesce, are actually making a comeback in the business world.

1. Hold the Door Open

When I was working at the highly regarded Sauder School of Business, I was consistently mortified at how many doors were slammed in my face by Vancouver’s future business leaders. I definitely don’t expect to have doors held open for me based on my gender, but I do expect it to happen based on my status as a fellow human being. It’s pretty easy to do a quick head-check to see if there’s anyone behind you before you swing the door like it’s an iron gate in a hurricane.

If we’re getting pedantic about it, the person who reaches the door first should open it and usher the person behind them through, and only then should they walk through themselves and shut (not slam) the door behind them. This kind of precision etiquette is clearly not going to happen when you’re in the bathroom line at the hockey, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen in your workplace.

2. Be Punctual to Meetings

Quick tip: five minutes before the start time of your meeting is not the right time to print a copy of the 400 page tender document for each of the 12 meeting attendees. And the printer won’t print any quicker if you stand there looking at your watch and forcibly pulling out each sheet of paper as soon as it dares to poke an edge on to the feed tray.

Quite simply, being on time to meetings shows respect. Respect for the person who organized the meeting, respect for the attendees and respect for yourself. I guarantee that if you are always on time people will naturally assume they can count on you. Your boss and co-workers will think of you as a dependable person. Who do you think the boss will assign to handle the next important project? Not someone who is always late.

3. Keep the Kitchen Clean

If you are lucky enough to have a shared kitchen/meals area in your workplace, respect it. Do your dishes, clean up your spills and fill up anything you empty. It’s simple stuff, but it is truly incredible how many people have homes that look like Ikea catalogues, but leave the office kitchen looking like a war zone.

And by the way, trash goes in the trash can. Take a look around the kitchen and I’m confident you’ll find one. It’s the large container with the trash bag in it.

Yassaman Nouri – World Changer

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Who are you?

So many ways to answer such a short question… My name is Yassaman Nouri and I am compassionate about helping people in anyway I can. I love life and love to spread happiness to the people around me. I believe that every single person in the world has unique talents, skills and passions and if given the opportunity, can achieve greatness! Hence, I listen to people, and help them discover their own greatness and encourage them to use it in creating a positive change in the world around them.

What do you do for fun?

There are lots of things I love to do for fun. More than anything else, I love to do sports. I swam competitively for many years so that is by far my favourite thing to do. I also love to run, bike, hike, dance (flamenco and salsa), play my piano for hours, read books, go to movies, spend quality time with friends and family, people watching and randomly starting conversations with various people. Aside from that, I LOVE traveling! My goal is to visit 200 countries before I die and speak 5 languages fluently. My guilty pleasures are long walks in the middle of snow and having a large ice-cream cone!

What is your favourite community? Why?

There are so many communities that I love, can I pick the whole world? If not, I will pick the social finance and community development community. I am fascinated by how people from all social, economical and educational backgrounds can come together and design innovative ways to develop communities around the world.

What is your superpower?

I love helping! I love listening to people, asking them questions to learn more about them, and help them to improve the quality of their lives and put a big smile on their face. I enjoy analyzing situations, getting opinions of all sorts of people and then coming up with out of the box ideas for create positive changes.

How do you use it to build community?

I believe my current job sums this up. I am on an internship with Canadian International Development Agency as a Credit Union Development Officer in Africa. My placement is with Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives. I visit new credit unions and talk to board of directors, management, staff, credit union members and various people in the community to asses their needs. Then I look at the programs and products that are available at the credit union for all these stakeholders. I then compare the two together to bridge the gap. I recently received approval from the Bvumbwe Savings and Credit Co-operative (the first credit union that I visited in Malawi) to commence implementing programs such as mentorship and entrepreneurship programs for post-secondary school students, youth savings accounts for 12-18 year olds to teach them the culture of saving and hence them with school expenses, workshops for women to learn how to start and run their own small businesses, workshop for farmers to learn best practices of farming and learn how to run their farms as successful businesses, organizing credit union days to connect the people of the community with the credit union team and many more exciting projects that I am motivated to work with various amazing individuals on!

My Three Favourite Things About Yassaman are…

1. Giant Hair. It overflows. Stands tall. Twirls and blows in the wind. And probably has a life of its own. I’m sure quite how Yassi manages the flowing curls, but the fact that she does it is a true indication of her organizational skills.

2. So much Kindness. A heart of gold this one has. Whether it’s ridiculously nice thank you gifts to the Business Career Centre team (I first met Yass when she was a BCOM student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business) or or the general nature of her micro-finance work in Africa or that she has arranged bike rides around the world to raise awareness for different global issues or the fact that she never says no to anything, ever, Yassaman Nouri is truly one of the nicest people that I’ve ever met. She brings this kindness to workshops that she facilitates, social events and the people with whom she connects. It’s a pleasure to know Yass and call her my friend.

3. World Changing Business Education. Nothing against investment bankers or operations analysts for Shell, but Yassaman has taken her technical and professional toolkit into a part of the world that quite frankly needs a break from hardship. She is applying her skills in the most meaningful way possible and truly making a positive difference in the world. Stories like hers are inspiring and I hope that many more folks follow in her footsteps.

…as told by John Horn

Kreston’s Monastic Community of Beer

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Hax’n, Rollbraten or Leberkäs? What would you answer to this question? This was the very question posed to me when I walked up to the cafeteria counter. I was in search of
something to satiate the hunger that had built in me while wondering the monastic grounds of a monest- dammit.

I was visiting what is said to be one of the most important monasteries in Bavaria, Andechs. It was everything that I thought a monastery would be: religious, old, and with a world class… Brewery! I started by doing the regular tourist stuff, such as taking pictures, which I will probably never look at, staring at (and pretending to understand) plaques written in German, and sitting completely silent in the church for a few minutes. The tourists and I filled the pews; all of us lost in our reverent thoughts (notice I don’t consider myself a tourist, I see myself as more of an adventurer like Indiana Jones, Laura Croft or Tin Tin). [Editor's note: Kreston is absolutely Tin Tin]. I was thinking what any man from a young western country thinks when confronted by the awesome wonder of an ancient cathedral that has the soul purpose of making you feel closer to God: “how the heck did they build this place hundreds of years ago using nothing more than elbow grease and what is considered primitive tools?” (Side note! If you want some good fiction on this subject, track down Ken Follett’s The Pillars of The Earth; Its all about building cathedrals. I worn you though its a big frickin book!)

Once I accomplished the required amount of touristing, it was time to get to the real business of why I was drawn to this site in the first place, which had to do with my almost religious worshipping of beer. Andechs boasts the best beer in Germany and when I heard this I came running. See, this wasn’t just a touristy day trip for me, it was a religious pilgrimage to the Good Beer Mecca. When I entered the hall my senses were overwhelmed by the sights and smells of the place. I stood for a minute just drinking it all in (pun intended). Like a father who first lays eyes on his new born child, I loved it instantly. [Editor's question: Kreston, how do you know what this feels like? What aren't you telling us, man?] The more that numerous Bavarians filled the place with their raucous laughter and deutsch conversation the thirstier I got. The crowd was seated at long oak tables that ran into other oak tables, giving the impression one might feel when they first gaze on the great hall at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I was mesmerized by the activity and all the different characters and, for a second, began searching for Waldo amongst all this chaos. A small part of my heart did break, however, when I realized that with all of these people crammed in here, I couldn’t spot one pair of leederhosen. It healed, rather quickly, when I saw the size of the beer steins everyone was drinking out of, and paused to calculate if I would even be able to lift one. I gathered a beer and some local eats, found myself a spot and prepared to slowly soak in the experience.

My late afternoon lunch was about to consist of one mighty pretzel, a plate of sauerkraut, one Swine Hax’n, a liter of Weissbier, and a liter of dark beer, which was so thick and black that if BP spilled it near the Mississippi Delta, environmentalists would be scraping it off birds.

Too soon?

[Editor's note: yes, but everyone has already forgotten about it, so I'm glad to remind the world of such things].

“Yes, yes” you are thinking impatiently, “but what is Hax’n?” Well my friend, it is the leg of a pig, slow cooked and looking extremely mid-evil. Eating haxen was like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, intense from the first page (bite), often I found my forehead sweating, and I couldn’t put it down until I was finished. Throughout my “Epic Meal Time” I sparked up a conversation with the couple beside me. We were soon close friends enjoying each others’ company as they explained to me some of the finer points of the food they were eating, which to me was simply a full trout on a plate. I must admit it was an amazing feeling, being a part of this community, even if just for a moment. I say community because of the difference of this drinking establishment and what I am used to, coming from North America. At home all serious drinking establishments are exclusive; with limits on the amount of booze they can serve you at one time, age restrictions on admittance, and tables far apart so each party can have their own island of independence. Here it is all about community. You are able to have as much booze as you can muscle back to your seat, people are allowed to have a picnic in the restaurant, plus children and dogs are welcome patrons.

In Andechs, in sight of the alps and framed by a backdrop of stained glass windows, it is all about the social.

The Blessingway – a non-kitsch alternative to the baby shower

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Last week, I had the privilege of attending a Blessingway. Don’t worry if you have no idea what a blessingway is – until I received the invitation, I didn’t either.

Just so we’re all up to speed: a blessingway is NOT a religious ritual or a gathering of folks with allergies. It IS a ceremony based on ancient Navajo tradition, celebrating a woman’s transition into motherhood. There were many things I loved about the blessingway. In no particular order:

1.      It was a non-commercial celebration. Unlike its newer and kitschier counterpart, the baby shower, this celebration did not focus on the giving and receiving of store bought items for a baby which will, in all likelihood, have too many toys and clothes. Instead, guests were encouraged to bring a small gift for the expectant mother, a gift she could use or enjoy shortly before or after birth. Like tea. Or a homemade, heartfelt card.

2.      It was steeped in ritual. While I guess you could say the ‘guess what chocolate bar is smooshed in the diaper’ game often played at baby showers is a ritual of sorts (what kind of ritual, I dare not even guess), this blessingway included many spiritually-rich activities, including sage burning and a candle ceremony.

3.      We sang. It’s not very often a group of strong, caring women get to hold hands and sing. While we were promised that we weren’t going to have to “go there” beforehand, in hindsight I’m glad we did. While I’m all for equality, there is something deeply magical and humbling about embracing and rejoicing in what it means to be a woman, surrounded by women. That sort of thing just needs to happen more often.

4.      The focus was on the mother-to-be. During pregnancy, everything is about the baby. This is certainly expected and wholly necessary. That being said, this ceremony gave us all the opportunity to celebrate not just the child that is about to be born, but the woman who is about to give birth.

So there it is. The blessingway. So often, a pregnancy is consumed by medical checkups, commercial purchases, and daily chores and activities that need to be taken care of in preparation of the birth. To be able to put all of that aside, if only for a few hours, was a wonderful gift to the mother and those closest to her.