Simply Nirvana

From: Mr David Mugah
Subject: todays update
To: “Nirvana Cable”
Date: Friday, December 18, 2009, 7:54 AM 

We created a miracle. On the Barclays Bank draft program we were slotted for a 1 hour to do our presentation. While on the stage the mood was getting charged and soft. We saw the Barclays Bank CEO pass a note to the Master of Ceremony. At first we thought the time was running out fast. But lo! To our surprise the note was informing us to continue for the next remaining 3 hours. At this point we knew we were just about to crack the code, this rejuvenated more strength within the GCA team.

After the skit we led the 160 participants in the room, among them being the Branch Managers and Top Management of the Barclays bank, into a conversation of identifying their time bomb ideas. This included: Mistrust, limited communication, Bitterness, nepotism, fear, uncared for, among others. The mood shifted to aggressiveness and eagerness. Equipped with the three laws of performance, the Mr.  Momanyi prudently calmed down the audience by asking them “what they thought will happen if the above mentioned time bomb ideas were not be fixed.”

For a while, a dead silence ensued. Then one by one like the “popcorns scenario” they started shooting up their hands. One Branch manager from Kilifi said “the bank will continue loosing its clients which in return will threaten our job security”. Another one from Malindi said “there would be unbearable hatred and bitterness and we would not be able to raise our families”. The branch manager from Mombasa added that if that trend continues for the next 10 or so years then “some branches would close down, which would be a scaring scenario, even to think about”. In agreement with the rest, one branch manager from Nairobi said that “millions of shillings would be lost giving our competitors a cutting edge”.  He added that this is something that must be stopped at all possible ways and costs. Many others added their voices to the discussion and all unanimously agreed they needed to urgently address these issues. This led them to being light even as they embraced GCA’s ATT concept.

Though slightly relieved, they still stared at us expecting more. At this point, Mugah wrote on the flip chart “what do you have to let go or drop in order for you to boost your performance”. We divided them into 5 groups and gave them a 20min break after which they were to discuss the question. When we resumed, interesting points were shared. One branch manager said “I would let go my pride and perception that the community members can’t pay borrowed loans”. Another said “I drop my mistrust over my fellow colleagues and clients”. He demonstrated this by rolling his handkerchief and threw it down hard, causing a loud laughter in the room. “Oh, so my withholding of information has led us to this stagnant position”, another said with teary eyes.

The Barclays Bank CEO broke his silence by saying that “maybe what we need to drop is our business as usual strategy of marketing – using huge bill boards, expensive television adverts, etc – which are largely extravagant  and monotonous, and adopt GCA’s concept which seems irresistibly attractive and productive”. “Actually I recommend we partner with GCA especially in our market strategies”. The CEO added amidst heavy applause from the branch managers who felt effectively and largely relieved of tough tasks of pulling more clients to the bank. “Further, I request the director of finance to factor in two pilot projects to be conducted by GCA in Voi and Malindi in Coast Province before the end of January 2010. I commit myself to table this to the Board of Directors for approval,” the CEO said.

As we came to an end, everyone present was excited by the content we had shared. The Director of finance said that “our institution is vigorously enriched. We feel you have restored us back to our wholeness”.

The CEO, in his vote of thanks to us said “you have helped us discover that we have an inside that doesn’t match our outside. Personally I feel ageless and unlimited. Your training is brilliantly simple and simply brilliant! I see us engaging with you more and more in future.

This is the best Christmas gift we’ve ever received”.

Following the unprecedented show, and results, the team is preparing to live at 6.00pm for Nairobi. The Barclays Bank group will also check out tomorrow in the morning and disperse for the Christmas holidays.

This marks yet another milestone in GCA’s history. While we celebrate this triumphant trip, we are most grateful to Diane and you for boldly stepping forth and facilitating our trip to Coast. We dedicate our victory to Diane and you and the rest over their.

Asante Sana!

Love

Working in Kenya, I’ve gotten real about corruption. It’s a patronage business model. When compared with the capitalist business model, patronage occurs as corruption.

Kenya directly invests money in constituencies through a Community Development Fund (CDF). While giving workshops in Karachuonyo Constituency, I noticed that the majority of CDF projects were unfinished. Viewing this from my investment mindset, I saw egregious abuses of capital.

One day, while looking at the four walls of a long-stalled classroom project, with a flash of clarity, I suddenly saw what the community saw, the patrons had not forgotten their village. Sure, the classroom was unusable, but that wasn’t the point. The four walls represented the village had not been forgotten by its elders [patrons]. Turns out, CDF monies are, in fact, a “Cake Distribution Fund.”

In Kenya, everyone wants to know their elders have included them in the distribution of rents/the sharing of the cake. Given they also know themselves as poor, little fish, they are happy with crumbs. Big Fish [elders] get to eat first. They can have as much as they want. When they are done eating, everyone else shares the leftovers.

Capitalists don’t get it about corruption. We don’t see it for what it is. When we do, we can get development done.

The Choice Is Ours Now

by Melissa Etheridge
Oscar and Grammy Award-Winning Singer/Songwriter

Posted December 22, 2008

This is a message for my brothers and sisters who have fought so long and so hard for gay rights and liberty. We have spent a long time climbing up this mountain, looking at the impossible, changing a thousand year-old paradigm. We have asked for the right to love the human of our choice, and to be protected equally under the laws of this great country. The road at times has been so bloody, and so horrible, and so disheartening. From being blamed for 9/11 and Katrina, to hateful crimes committed against us, we are battle weary. We watched as our nation took a step in the right direction, against all odds and elected Barack Obama as our next leader. Then we were jerked back into the last century as we watched our rights taken away by prop 8 in California. Still sore and angry we felt another slap in the face as the man we helped get elected seemingly invited a gay-hater to address the world at his inauguration.

I hadn’t heard of Pastor Rick Warren before all of this. When I heard the news, in its neat little sound bite form that we are so accustomed to, it painted the picture for me. This Pastor Rick must surely be one hate spouting, money grabbing, bad hair televangelist like all the others. He probably has his own gay little secret bathroom stall somewhere, you know. One more hater working up his congregation to hate the gays, comparing us to pedophiles and those who commit incest, blah blah blah. Same ‘ole thing. Would I be boycotting the inauguration? Would we be marching again?

Well, I have to tell you my friends, the universe has a sense of humor and indeed works in mysterious ways. As I was winding down the promotion for my Christmas album I had one more stop last night. I’d agreed to play a song I’d written with my friend Salman Ahmed, a Sufi Muslim from Pakistan. The song is called “Ring The Bells,” and it’s a call for peace and unity in our world. We were going to perform our song for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a group of Muslim Americans that tries to raise awareness in this country, and the world, about the majority of good, loving, Muslims. I was honored, considering some in the Muslim religion consider singing to be against God, while other Muslim countries have harsh penalties, even death for homosexuals. I felt it was a very brave gesture for them to make. I received a call the day before to inform me of the keynote speaker that night… Pastor Rick Warren. I was stunned. My fight or flight instinct took over, should I cancel? Then a calm voice inside me said, “Are you really about peace or not?”

I told my manager to reach out to Pastor Warren and say “In the spirit of unity I would like to talk to him.” They gave him my phone number. On the day of the conference I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn’t sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with proposition 8 because he didn’t want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife’s struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine.

When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.

Brothers and sisters the choice is ours now. We have the world’s attention. We have the capability to create change, awesome change in this world, but before we change minds we must change hearts. Sure, there are plenty of hateful people who will always hold on to their bigotry like a child to a blanket. But there are also good people out there, Christian and otherwise that are beginning to listen. They don’t hate us, they fear change. Maybe in our anger, as we consider marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands. Maybe instead of marching on his church, we can show up en mass and volunteer for one of the many organizations affiliated with his church that work for HIV/AIDS causes all around the world.

Maybe if they get to know us, they wont fear us.

I know, call me a dreamer, but I feel a new era is upon us.

I will be attending the inauguration with my family, and with hope in my heart. I know we are headed in the direction of marriage equality and equal protection for all families.

Happy Holidays my friends and a Happy New Year to you.

*****

“Every stuck tribe is a movement waiting to happen.” - Seth Godin

Go, Melissa!

My friend and colleague, Lynne Twist, in her book, The Soul of Money [p 237], shares about a time Buckminster Fuller came to dinner:

During this pivotal time Bucky was central to my life and work, and one night we were honored to have him come to dinner at our house. Our children were six, eight, and ten years old, and Bill and I, Bucky and our kids sat at our kitchen table. Bucky was often referred to as the ‘Grandfather of the Future’ and it was so exciting–such a gift–seeing him there with our children sharing a simple, home-cooked meal. At one point, my eight-year-old daughter, Summer, said something that was profound in the way children do, speaking a deep truth with their innocent insight. Her remark was a kind of showstopper for the three adults at the table–Bill, Bucky, and me–and we looked at each other, touched by the wisdom of this child.

Then Bucky said something that changed my life and my relationship with my children forever. He said to Bill and me, ‘Remember, your children are your elders in universe time. They have come into a more complex, more evolved universe than you or I can know. We can only see that universe through their eyes.”

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The following Youtube video captures Severn Suzuki in a “showstopping speech” to the UN at the Earth Summit in 1992. From the intro to this video on Karmatube.org, “Born and raised in Vancouver, Severn Suzuki has been working on environmental and social justice issues since kindergarten. At age 9, she and some friends started the Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They traveled to 1992’s UN Earth Summit, where 12 year-old Severn gave this powerful speech that deeply affected (and silenced) some of the most prominent world leaders. The speech had such an impact that she has become a frequent invitee to many UN conferences.”

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My daughter sent me the link to Servern’s speech.

Susie and I arrived Friday morning after a 14-hour journey due to flight delays. Nairobi is 5000 feet, same as Denver. The fatigue of traveling combined with the high altitude did us in. We slept most of the day and night only rallying enough to meet with our team leader, David Momanyi, for an hour in the afternoon.

Yesterday, we had a team meeting with five key team members of GCM/Global Community Movement’s (the name they gave themselves). GCM members are all in their twenties. I met David in December 2005 on a trip to Nairobi with my then 15-year-old daughter, Rebecca “Angel,” who had just been appointed the US Country Coordinator for the Youth Employment Summit/YES Campaign. David was one of about 30 youth we met at a YES Kenya planning meeting. Some days after the meeting, we met with a UN youth leader. (In Africa, youth is a distinction meaning all people aged 18-35.) The UN youth leader, Robert, brought David to the meeting. He reintroduced David to me as a potential leader. Who knew?

Last May, on my way to Tanzania for a TEDGlobal meeting, I stopped in Nairobi. With David’s leadership, we spontaneously convened a meeting of 60 youth. Thus began GCM. At one point in this initial meeting, I became absolutely frustrated with the Kenyan culture of silence. During my first visit to Kenya in 2000, I led a workshop for 300 slum dwellers to address the mindset of poverty. During a discussion, I said that it seemed when someone stepped on their toes, they didn’t say, “Ouch.” The culture was encapsulated when a man responded, “What toe?”

Kenya is a chronically passive culture. So during the first GCM meeting, when I could feel a conversation wanting to happen and instead silence reigned, I got creative. I put them into small groups and had them come up with skits to say what they wanted to say. Magic happened. When safely “hiding” behind a role, their wisdom and profound social commentary emerged. Muttered confusion had been transformed into animated participation.

Of the 60 initial participants, 20 have been trained to lead GCM. Most would have continued with me, and I chose only those youth who were not attending university. I work with “idle” youth. Some are university graduates who have been un/under-employed since graduating. These youth created a powerful skit called The Time Bomb Machine which they have used to kick start four-hour conversations with communities around Kenya.

The skit starts with a man holding a watch. The viewer quickly learns that the watch must be reset back one minute, every minute. If dropped, the watch will kill everyone. The skit shows how hard it is to do everyday tasks while tending to the watch. Every “year” or so, the watch is pawned off on someone else, until one woman refuses to take on the responsibility for the watch. A scuffle ensues and the watch is dropped. Everyone falls to the floor expecting to be dead. They don’t die.

This skit leads into an extraordinary conversation about the community’s “time bomb” ideas. Leadership is discussed. Most Kenyans are seriously fed up with the status quo of political life. They put their faith, and fate, in leaders that are self-serving. During the discussions, every community has come to the same conclusion: They are the problem; not their “leaders.” For the first time in most communities’ lives, they realize they must work together if they are going to increase their standard of living. In four hours, communities take their first steps out of victimhood. They have also learned about representative democracy. Elected leaders are hired with votes to represent the community’s agenda. The transformation is awesome.

This work to transform the mindset of poverty is the first of three stages of GCM’s community development work. We have identified two main behaviors which, if transformed, will make the biggest difference towards fulfilling lives — first, is the behavior of the culture of silence and, second, is the behavior associated with the belief that one can get something for nothing (the legacy of an aid-infused economy).

Phase One is transforming the culture of silence into Stand Up/Speak Up/Act Together. My definition of poverty is the perceived inability to create what is meaningful. “Poor” people’s thinking blinds them to resources at their very fingertips. The poor wait for someone to notice their plight and rescue them from their situation. The biggest industry, and the only one they understand, is government. Government is expected to create jobs and solve their problems. So they wait for the people “in power” and “in the know” to come to their aid. Hence, they are entrenched in waiting for something for nothing.

Phase Two replaces the behavior of waiting for something for nothing by teaching the mindset of investment. Several months ago, during a community meeting at Sofia Market, a typical “light bulb” went off. The community has vast sand pits. which are mined by local youth who are paid KS 200 (around US$3.25) per day to load sacks of sand. 5 men usually load sacks of sand that are trucked to Nairobi and sold for between KS 40,000 - 50,000 (US$655 - 820). How GCM knows the community has understood the lesson is we hear something like, “We are so stupid!” This community woke up to the cost of their poverty mentality. They realized they could take an available plot of community land and set up a sand depot where they can sell their sand at a fair price and use the proceeds to pay themselves better AND fund community development.

It takes so little to empower people once they have stepped away from the poverty mentality. The quarter-trillion dollar international development industry has a vested interest in keeping the solution to ending poverty very complicated and very costly.

Phase Three, which we are now entering, will provide capital to entrepreneurs. The first investments will be extended to entrepreneurs who will own Community Empowerment Centers. These centers will include Renewable Energy Kiosks where energy can be sold for both consumptive and productive uses. Rural communities currently rely on charcoal, wood and kerosene as their energy sources. These sources are harmful and more expensive than the micro-hydro, solar power, or bio-fuel powered generators being used to power Sustainable Energy Kiosks. UNIDO has expressed interest to partner and provide this technology.

These kiosks will also power entrepreneur-owned Digital Media Centres. These Centres will provide access to information and communication technologies; empower primary, secondary, and university education; deliver training; access financial and governmental services; enhance medical services; provide agricultural extension services; and serves as business incubators. Community Empowerment Centers will give rural communities access to the 21st Century and make it attractive and financially feasible for youth and men to remain in their communities.

This week our mission is to meet with prospective partners and governmental ministries to take the program national.

What in the world is happening to me?

Who knew that checking a silly box on a 3″x 5″ enrollment card could cause such upheaval?…

During a four-hour presentation on the cause of world hunger, I committed to change the global mindset that allows hunger to persist. I realized that changing the mindset that allows hunger would also change the mindset that allows poverty, war, dis-ease, and all the other things humanity complains about.

I was 27 and needed something to sink my teeth into… Since that October 1977 event, consciousness has had space to work through me. I have become God’s pencil.