14 Jul 2012
In a talk during the Caux Forum for Human Security, Fijian development consultant Mosese Waqa, Initiatives of Change Human Security Coordinator in Australia, shared the following principles for effective work to advance human security.
Mosese at the 2012 Caux Forum for Human Security
1. Know yourself. Our identity frames our engagement with the world. With the art of knowing oneself comes the art of listening.
2. Convince yourself that your cause/passion is really necessary. Answer key questions first. Is the cause legitimate? Do we really need to pursue it? If you can’t convince yourself, forget about convincing others.
3. Research an issue before diving into a cause. Dig deep. Get to the facts. What’s happening in your community? With that information, you can justify the cause.
4. If you don’t like hard work, don’t get involved. There is no short cut to achieving one’s vision. It’s mostly perspiration aided by inspiration.
5. Maintain a sense of perspective. Overstating the cause can be damaging. Absence of perspective can lead to narrow-mindedness. A sense of priorities is vital.
6. Reflect your broader ideals in all you do – keep your vision alive. Create within you a space for an evolving reality by engaging in reflection on what you’re doing.
7. Be positive… we are not against, but for a cause. Transformational change is about sustained positive energies that come together, with the outcome bigger than the sum of the parts.
8. Keep your firepower for the real enemy – we do not battle against flesh and blood...Everyone is looking for their own angles, making sense of things. Identify key relationships and key people, beginning with those closest to you.
9. Involve those affected by the problem. When advocating on behalf of others, they know best about the problem. They live with it and can give the cause a sense of urgency and legitimacy.
10. Have faith, hope and love… never let anyone tell you that you don’t matter. We each have our own place to find in life – that gives us a sense of who we are and faith in where we are going.
Visit the new Initiatives of Change Australia Human Security website.
- By Mosese Waqa, Fiji, IofC Australia
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