On Changing the World...

Someone recently told me, "do you actually believe that changing the world is as easy as ABC?"

This was a comment someone made right in the middle of my sharing my follow on project as well as that of my cohorts when we head back home after this fellowship program in the United States.

The person who made the comment is actually a new friend that I have been talking to for almost a year now.  She and I are still cool and still talking, but that comment has haunted me for days now.

You see, I am currently on a 4 months fellowship program in the United States sponsored by the State Department's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.  All 61 of us from 28 developing countries all over the world.  The goal is for us to learn more on community development and share developing communities perspective to US-based non-profit organizations or as we call them at home, non governmental organizations.  All expenses paid for by the good taxpaying people of the United States, and in return, we will implement a follow-on project in our respective communities when we head back to our respective countries. 

For my part, I am proposing to organize a self sustaining youth leaders' group in my home town that would initiate mass media information and education campaigns on environmental conservation and sustainable extraction of natural resources in their respective village communities.  My cohort in the fellowship that actually ignited this comment is proposing to train and mentor female politicians towards gender equality for conflict resolutions or something like that.  We have yet to finalize the wordings and the objectives and the goals as we are still in the proposing stage.

I took that comment personal, because unlike some of us, my follow on project is personal to me.  I am not applying for any masters or Ph.D and I do not wish to be credited for this to decorate my professional resume.  This is personal to me because I am part of my community and no matter where I am or will be, I will always come home. So perhaps it is but apt for me to just speak for myself in regards to a gut-wrenching one liner statement, "do you actually believe that changing the world is as easy as ABC?"

It had me thinking. 

I have been trying so hard to find an answer and all I could come up with are bad ideas.  Then it hit me, it really is just about finding the best bad idea.

At the risk of sounding self-glorifying or oblivious I cannot dare say, "I have a dream" as one Martin Luther King once said in an attempt to break the wall that divided the United States not too long ago.  I cannot dare say, "the youth is the hope of our motherland", as enunciated by our National Hero, Jose Rizal in an attempt to awaken the minds of the Filipino people to stand up and say we have had enough to our Spanish conquistadors.  I would sound hypocritical and delusional to some extent if I say that changing the world is my objective. There is a chance I would lose some friends every time this one liner should come up and I would feel the twinge, because indeed I have a dream and I believe that the youth is the hope of our motherland, as foolish as it may sound for some.

It is not about changing the world, because indeed we cannot change the world over night and truly it is not as easy as perhaps teaching a child the ABC.  As I reflect on it, I sincerely believe in my heart that it is about at least trying to change how we think in an effort to make a difference. 

In a poverty stricken community where education is but a star in the sky, the concept of climate change is but a story, and what a strange and ridiculous story it can be to tell its effects to the people whose community is built on houses on stilts since time immemorial.

Yes, this wont be easy and it is crazy, but perhaps someone as silly and crazy like me who have nothing to lose may initiate a move like this. I have realized in all of my failures in life and dreams, I have not really failed because I have tried despite the odds.  This time amidst all odds I will only fail if I quit trying.

I believe in my heart that all it takes is making that ripple effect to a small group of people, and hopefully the ripple can create waves of change eventually.  On changing the world as we see it, my best bet is not in actually changing, but in changing eventually.