“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”
― Mother Teresa
Amanda was looking out of her window on this grey autumn day, trying to understand how anyone could be sailing on the Geneva Lake on such a cold day. Then again, years in god-forsaken locations did tend to make one a little disconnected from nature’s regular cycle of seasons… not everyone’s comfort zone ranges between the not-so-cool tropical humidity of East Timor and the insufferable dry heat of South Sudan.
Amanda was an experienced humanitarian worker. She’d done the rounds in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Colombia. She’d flown in humanitarian goods to the most remote refugees, only to have them taken over by warlords; she’d funded life-saving medical projects that somehow only benefited the reelection of local chieftains; she’d even demonstrated great skill in winning those bidding wars for local government selection in large-scale disasters – those CNN disasters where the number of humanitarian actors seem to exceed the number of beneficiaries. And of course she’d had her share of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders, therapy and messed up distance relationships.
She finally decided to take a step back from conflict and disaster deployments and focus on the other humanitarian disaster she felt concerned about: global humanitarian policy and governance. She’d already participated in seemingly endless conferences on enhancing the global humanitarian response, to the point that she had become quite an expert at predicting global conference recommendations ahead of time (“One: We require greater coordination between humanitarian NGOs and Governments; Two: All sides must respect the “humanitarian space”; Three: All States must allocate in practice the financial resources that they committed to in previous conferences).
However, even caped in such protective cynicism, Amanda was unprepared for the intensity of humanitarian politics, that oxymoron that somehow justified the widespread organizational schizophrenia between laudable public statements and back-stabbing tactics to reach back-room deals.
But she had come to terms with the fact that her field work was over and that serving the greater good of “multilateral humanitarian conferences” would be her new calling. So it proved a natural fit for her when she was offered a job in the fancy headquarters of an international coalition secretariat in the de facto capital of the humanitarian world, Geneva, Switzerland.
***
“They should be here any minute,” thought Amanda as the clock struck ten o´clock. She looked down at her recently manicured nails. Manicures were probably the luxury she missed the most in emergency operations, in those remote refugee camps that always seemed to be set up in dustbowls or frozen tundra. It was nice to be able to look after herself, pamper herself, and re-learn how to dress to feel good…
The phone rang and the receptionist told her that her visitors had arrived. Right on time… Another nice change from emergencies.
Amanda walked to the reception and received her two visitors.
“Selamat pagi”, saluted cheerfully Amanda as she welcomed her guests.
“Selamat pagi,” they responded simultaneously as they reached out to shake her hand.
“Selamat datang, masuk!” she added as she guided them into a small meeting room. There was always an expectation in humanitarian circles that you could get by with basic Bahasa Indonesia and Arabic, possibly a little Tagalog and Haitian creole. Her Indonesian was rudimentary, but in an English-dominated world, this welcome was more a symbolic recognition of linguistic diversity, with all it implied about accepting other ways of thinking and seeing.
“Please, have a seat,” she pursued in English. They presented each other and exchanged business cards and pleasantries on the trip to Geneva. Siti Said was an elderly gentleman with a youthful face, wearing traditional Indonesian wear. Anies Parawansa was in his thirties, with a light sweater over a formal shirt and tie. Siti was the founder of the non-profit and Anies was his director. Comfortable that they would be able to understand each other fine, Amanda jumped right in.
“I realize this is a little awkward for both of us, not having much clarity as to what is expected of you. As you know, there is a discussion globally as to how we conduct humanitarian work, and I’ve been tasked to give a voice to those who are providing support locally around the world. In every country and every city, the humanitarian realities have evolved. The international support structure needs to offer different models of operations, to build local capacity, to help local partners work together and form coalitions with grassroots organizations, national platforms and international organizations. There must be a better way for us to support those in need, and that support is already available locally.”
Amanda paused shortly to make sure her visitors were comfortable with the speed of her speech.
“As you know, I received great words of praise from Bakar, my colleague in Jakarta, about your experiences in responding to disasters and how successful you’ve been in growing your organization over the last few years. I am very excited to receive you here and I do want to make sure this meeting is worthy of the long trip you had to make to get here. So why don’t you give me a bit of an overview of what you do and we’ll take it from there?”
Both nodded eagerly. She took that as a sign that they understood her fine.
The elder Siti cleared his throat and spoke in a clear and quiet voice, a truthful grandfatherly type: “Well, it never really started off as a project to establish an organization, rather a necessity to respond to need. I have always lived in Jakarta, and I had a successful career as an administrator in the municipality. Not very exciting, but safe and comfortable.
Siti handed over a glossy brochure presenting their projects. He started off slowly, explaining their presence throughout different suburbs of Jakarta. He explained briefly the history of his organization, showing the growth in their portfolio and budget, from the 2007 floods that had affected his neighborhood in Jakarta, which led him to form a local group that became their organization. The municipality gave them some resources, the Government some equipment, and a local company got them an office space. Siti ran local operations from that office on weekends with friends and neighbors and they kept running an annual event.
The floods that hit Jakarta again in January 2013 suddenly seemed to validate their grassroots approach and they got a series of grants from the Japanese Government to expand their work. He left his job in the accounting department of the Municipality and worked full time in scaling up the organization’s work in door-to-door preparedness activities. The initial grant, followed by a couple more, allowed him to expand the activities to neighboring organizations, and he had a strong core of volunteers who helped him out. He showed Amanda a couple more pie charts with their activities and budgets.
Siti wasn’t too sure what was wrong. He paused. He could sense that Amanda was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Maybe his English? He’d always thought it was good enough.
“So… how do you see the future?” asked Amanda cautiously.
“Well, we have done a lot of work in messaging and information. But the floods will keep on coming. So we’re thinking the next step is to start repairing or rebuilding the drainage system. We only work on the outskirts of the city, away from the main drainage system, so that is why we get so affected. We could be more active in managing some of the green areas around us. And obviously the access roads are in bad shape, and we don’t currently have the money to fix them. Good roads are very important for evacuation plans. So we’ve submitted new proposals to take on more infrastructure work…”
Siti watched Amanda carefully, not sure whether he should go on. Sensing interest, he pursued.
“The ‘resilience’ language that everyone is talking about, working across sectors, building roads, providing education, reforestation, creating jobs, that is very attractive to us. We realized there was so much more we could do, that our preparedness role should not limit us to messages when there are no floods. We want to have more impact, reach out to our donor and carry out much more work. We want to cover all the aspects of our flooding problem. And that is just the beginning. Because the flooding campaign has really shown the problem of transportation in and out of the area and the drainage, maybe even a pumping station. If we had these more ambitious actions, we would also be able to reach more people and do more for them, including creating jobs in the area…”
Amanda was listening carefully, but somehow her mind got stuck on the word “ambitious”. It seemed a perfect summary.
“Allow me to understand,” she jumped in cautiously. “You see great opportunities for trying new things in new ways?”
“Yes!”
“And you are looking at opportunities to engage with new partners who could help you achieve this broader resilience model?”
“Correct!”
“You currently receive funds from the Japanese Government?”
Siti nodded proudly. “And we expect to get more, if our large scale drainage project goes through.
Amanda read through the brochure, seemingly looking for numbers.
“And this allows you to reach an area of over 30,000 homes?”
Siti confirmed. Again, it was obvious that the dignified old man took great pride in the achievements of his organization.
“How many people work with you on these activities?”
“Right now, we have ninety – nine zero – full time volunteers and another fifty – five zero – when we have a lot of work.”
Amanda seemed to weigh her words carefully as she spoke.
“Of these ninety, hum, volunteers, how many will continue to work with you full time when your current grants runs out?” She seemed to stumble on the work ‘volunteer’.
Siti waved the concern aside with a quick movement of the hand: “Probably none, but we’re confident we’ll get another grant, and maybe increase it if we can make the case for our new focus.”
Again, Amanda seemed to weigh her words carefully. “And you are comfortable being a Japanese Government contractor in the foreseeable future?”
Both Siti and Anies straightened on their chairs, surprised by the bluntness of the statement. Amanda put her hand over the table, palm facing downwards, as a sign of appeasement. Her face was inviting and she obviously wanted to rephrase her thought.
“Accept my apologies if my phrasing is frank, I do want to understand what your work is about and how it can help us reach scale. I also understand the need for roads and drains. I understand your commitment, Mr. Said, I really do. And I appreciate your knowledge of public works and municipal responsibilities. But I find it hard to believe you left your job and started an organization from scratch just because you wanted to build roads and drains. Why didn’t you just start a construction company? Or join a foundation or an international donor that funds works in those neighborhoods that get flooded so often?
Siti was baffled. He was completely taken aback by her candor: Amanda had disregarded what all Westerners always seemed to ask him, what they seemed to care about: how many project he had, overall revenue, staffing, overhead rate, vision for growth…
Amanda continued. “Successful partnerships don’t reach scale because their members know how to build bridges, write successful proposals or manage teams. They can do all that on their own. Large coalitions succeed because they provide a platform where individuals can unite to accomplish tasks beyond the reach and scope of any individual alone. But coalitions also have to be pragmatic, coalitions of people who are passionate about a common cause, not an abstract cause, a tangible cause that they can take action on. Not Save the world or World peace. Those goals are great, but they don’t tell me where to start or what to do. So we look for people like you, who take action, who unite people. Tackle floods, dengue epidemics, factory closures, teenage pregnancies. Tangible threats that people relate to.
“Please tell me your story, not the story of the Japanese contractor who builds drainage and creates jobs. Bring me back to that 2007 flood for a moment. I’d really love to understand what motivated you to take on such a challenge. What were you hoping to achieve at the time?”
Siti leaned back on his chair and put his hands together. He went in deep thought for a moment. Amanda and Anies looked at each other, wondering whether Siti was all right.
Siti reopened his eyes and spoke with a slower, more poised voice.
“My story does not begin in 2007. I would have to bring you back a few years for you to understand this project of ours. I grew up in Cirebon, a few hours’ drive east of Jakarta, an only child with no relatives nearby. I had a very loving mother, always of ill health, and a very caring father, always taking care of his wife. He worked as an accountant, mainly because it allowed him to work from home, so he could help out whenever my mother had coughing spells. I was a bit of a wild child, but probably like all children. Those were nice memories.
Siti breathed in deeply.
“My mother passed away when I was 9 years old. That day my childhood ended. My father fell in a deep depression, with bouts of paranoia. He was a devoted father, but he had lost the ability to show emotions. He focused my entire education on academic results, getting violent if I ever brought back a bad grade. As you can guess, I became a good student, just not a very fulfilled one, living in the constant fear of one of his outbreaks. I spent all of my waking hours studying, focused on the task at hand and shying away from social contact or anything else that might have taken time away from studying.
“I left to study in Jakarta when I turned 18 and studied accounting. I chose accounting for my father, but once in Jakarta I had lost all contact with him. I finished first in my graduating class, but he wasn’t there to see me.
“I quickly got a job in Jakarta’s municipality and lived a quiet life with a stable job and a stable income. I swore to myself I would never have children of my own. It did not make sense to submit anyone else to live through the miserable childhood I had had to endure. I had also grown accustomed to being a bit of a recluse. So I took on a hobby, committing most of my spare time to reproducing miniatures of Indonesian monuments with matches. And I spent most of my spare time travelling the world to scale modelling conferences. I discovered the world through miniatures. That had pretty much been my life.
“My entire house became filled with scale models. Every single room was packed with boxes and boxes of miniatures. My living room in particular was the showcase of my greatest pieces, including several award-winning models.
“That is when the 2007 floods struck. They were a real disaster for me personally and for my entire neighborhood. I had only lived in the Cengkareng area for a few years so I really did not expect the amount of water we could get, nor did many of my neighbors. We were ordered to evacuate and had to spend 10 days in a makeshift shelter, in a nearby school. It was horrible, no water, only one latrine. We were at least 10 families in the classroom where I was assigned.
“Living a life of a semi-recluse, I had successfully limited my social contact for years to work-related requests and technical discussions on miniature modeling. So being constantly submitted to this level of interaction with people I did not know or care about soon proved to be the greatest ordeal I had been put through in decades.
“All of us in that classroom, maybe 40 people, lived in the same area, and we had no choice over those 10 days to know each other and share our stories and sorrows. I tried hard at first to get a spot in a corner, limit my discussions to my immediate neighbors, but I quickly realized there was no way I would make it through without some kind of a support network. The little money I had on me was of no use without a shop to go to, so I had to start reaching out to others and understanding the mechanisms that were being set up. That is where I discovered the camaraderie that this hardship was bringing on, and the neighbors helped each other out with food, sharing clothes, bartering books or toys, even joint expeditions to try to get some missing items from other parts of the school or from other shelters.
“To add to my ordeal, there were about 15 children sleeping in our classroom every night, from a three-month old baby to a couple of teenage girls. As you may have understood, I am not a big fan of children. They are noisy, dirty and smelly, but I can deal with that. More importantly, they are too innocent and too trusting – they live in an imaginary world that sooner or later we will shatter to pieces.
“Maybe that is why I took a particular interest in a five-year-old girl who would not stop crying the first couple days in the shelter. When she was not crying out loud at first, she would go on in a low plaintive voice for hours on end. Vania was her name. Her father was embarrassed, and spent most of those first days cajoling her or hiding outside. Her mother told us, obviously apologetic, that they had forgotten their daughter’s teddy bear in their house, and obviously it was now too late. Everyone in that shelter just wanted to make that girl happy, so they took turns singing songs and telling her stories. The other children joined in and shared their own stories and songs.
“By the tenth day we were given the go-ahead to head back. As I walked out of the shelter, I felt this strange sense of wellbeing. I realized I walked out in high spirits, perhaps because I no longer needed to be surrounded by people twenty four hours a day. But also perhaps because I had come to feel a sense of community with my fellow victims. I had come to like the night-long vigils at candlelight, the mothers singing in low voices to their children, the daily gossip on evacuations, the shared prayers.
Well, maybe all of this contributed to making the return home so difficult. I finally reached my house and what I saw made me feel physically sick. My world collapsed. There was twenty centimeters of silt and mud in every single room. Everything below a meter was ruined. Everything. Every single one of my models, even the Borobodur Temple, even the Prambanan Temple! Forty years of hard and dedicated work literally washed away.
“I stood there in shock, looking at the remnants of my life’s passion. I know it probably sounds pretentious, but I really thought I would donate all of my work to be exposed in some museum someday. A day that would never come.
“I eventually got over the initial shock and walked back outside with a profound sense of disgust. I wandered aimlessly down the street, or rather the shallow swamp that now served as a street, and I tried my best to find words of comfort for my shelter companions as I came across them. All looked desperate.
“By a strange fate of luck, I came across Vania and her parents and baby sister. They looked profoundly discouraged. I spoke to them, trying my best to tell them how amazing it was that all of us were well, but I am afraid my words must have sounded quite hollow.
“As I walked on, I could not stop thinking about Vania and her sad innocent eyes. It just seemed too young an age to lose one’s childhood. I met a couple of youngsters who had shared a corner of the classroom with me. The small house they were renting was in very poor state and they seemed just as demotivated as I was when I discovered my home. They seemed to have given up on this neighborhood, and told me they would look for a place to stay in another part of town.
“So I asked them to give me a last favor. They looked at each other and said yes right away. We grabbed some shovels and walked up to Vania’s dad, Amran, and asked him if we could help him for the rescue mission. He didn’t understand at first, he seemed a little dazed, but when we told him we wanted his kids to have a dry place to sleep he accepted. He rolled up his sleeves, found another shovel and the four of us started removing the silt and trash one room at a time. It took us a few hours, but we made good progress and had gotten most of the silt out of the house.
“As I continued to dump the silt into buckets from what was once a bedroom floor, I came across a black ball of mud, about the size of a flat football. It could have been a small pillow, but for its strange shape. I brought it to Amran, who tried to clean it a little more. He poured some water in the bucket and dumped the ball of mud into the bucket. Suddenly, a dirty, worn out teddy bear emerged. Amran erupted in laughter and tears. We all huddled around him to see the teddy bear. We formed a spontaneous delegation behind Amran as he marched proudly towards his daughter. When Vania saw us walking towards her, Amran holding the old doll proudly in front of him, she jumped in his arms and gave him the strongest hug I have ever seen. She cried with all her soul, but this time they were tears of joy. I think we cried as much as she did. We cried because Vania was happy, because we were happy, because we were tired, exhausted, because we had lost it all and yet we were alive and well. We cried because we could, because in that moment we were all five-year-olds hugging their rags. There was no one to judge us, we were just survivors sharing our common humanity, our common frailty.
Siti’s eyes were moist, but his quiet face showed a great inner peace. He went on.
“Vania was the one who was thankful, but we were the ones who had been changed. Without knowing it, Vania had given us a purpose. We all knew then that everything would be okay. As you would say, we were resilient. In that moment I knew that I wanted to give all of the Vanias out there the smiles that they deserve. I wanted to help children be children. I did not know it then, but that is when I found out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
“That was pretty much how we got started. We finished cleaning Amran’s house and the next day we moved on to another family with many children. More and more neighbors joined us and pretty soon we split into two teams, then three, then four. Spontaneous clean-up groups formed everywhere, joining once their own house was cleaned up. We tried to get a little more organized, and a group of women prepared food for us, cooking whatever the government was handing out. We got some youngsters to collect boards of all sizes and shapes and we pooled in some money to buy some tools. We started fixing some of the most damaged houses with whatever materials we could find, so that those families could also have a place to keep their children dry.
“After a few weeks we ran out of steam. The government and other organizations stopped giving out food and people had to start making a living again. I was expected to return to my job. I took a leave of absence and continued for a couple months with some very enthusiastic youngsters. Together we learned carpentry and plumbing and electricity as we tried to fix up some of the homes. We shared whatever little food the homeowners prepared for us. We got real smiles and real friendships.
Amanda was amazed by the sudden passion and openness with which Siti had told his story. His English seemed to improve as he gained more confidence, recognizing the value of his story even though it did not appear on any balance sheet. Amanda walked across the room and got him a glass of water. He took a couple sips and carried on.
“We formalized our organization and gave it a name. We wanted to keep the idea of neighbors helping neighbors; that is how we came up with the name Friendly Faces. And in Vania’s honor, we chose a teddy bear as the symbol of our organization. We collected some funds from the neighbors we had helped and the municipality gave us a small grant to pay an administrative assistant.
“We had a core group of volunteers, many of which were in that shelter with me in 2007. We would walk around the neighborhoods and talk to families in need. We would try to get a sense of their priorities and see how we could help them. And then, every other weekend, we organized house repairs or improvements. Usually it meant that they would end up volunteering later on as we helped another family, so we grew our network and organized a few larger events as well.
“Maybe once or twice a year we reached out to other groups, like the badminton clubs and the mosque, and we organized joint clean-up activities of the secondary drainage system that the city did not pay attention to.
“So when the floods hit Jakarta again in 2013, we were ready. Friendly Faces had a small office and our network of contacts in different neighborhoods. We had supporters who knew what we did. It didn’t mean we weren’t affected. My neighborhood was completely flooded again. We were still stuck in shelters for several days, but we had a lot of planning on our hands and we were already preparing our response. On the same day we were given the green light to return to our homes, Anies, four other friends and I got together in our small office and we sent out our very first alert on our volunteer database requesting support to form new response brigades.
“But 2013 was very different in many ways. First of all, everyone had technology, smartphones and internet, even in the shelters. Even before we sent out our first alert, people everywhere were sending us messages to tell us what their needs were, what the damages were. Within hours of our first message we were overwhelmed. We were receiving way more emails, text messages and Facebook posts that we could manage. On that first day, the messages came in faster than we could read them. We had raised expectations way beyond our own capacity.
“And since we had so confidently asked volunteers to mobilize, by 8 am the next morning we had probably a hundred youngsters outside our offices waiting to be deployed. It seemed everyone was eager to lend a hand, even though it was obvious they had things to attend to in their own homes as well. Past volunteers had brought friends. New volunteers brought tools and energy. All came with high hopes.
“For the five members of our small Friendly Faces team, it was horrible. We locked ourselves in what was left of the office and tried to assess where we had gone wrong. The messages kept on coming in on the laptop computer and our smartphones, the landline didn’t stop ringing. After a tense debate, I realized that all needed me to take a stance. For me, the introvert, suddenly having to decide on the destinies of others was harrowing. Somehow, on that day, I just went ahead. I took a pen and paper and assigned tasks. Anies to answer the phone, Imelda and Ardy to sort through the emails and messages, Alan and Susi to carry out the inventory of our tools in our flooded tool shack. As it was ultimately my responsibility we had ended up in this situation, I stepped outside to face the youngsters who had come to volunteer.
“Now our volunteers seemed overwhelmed to see me finally come out in the hot and humid morning air. They huddled quietly around me as I tried to explain the situation. That we did not have anything ready, that we needed to see what tools we had left and where to start. That people were desperate and were calling and messaging and trying to reach us however way they could. That many people were in very difficult situations but we were not in a situation to do anything probably for a few days.
“I really expected a rebellion to break out, particularly since we were the ones who had asked for them to show up and give us a hand. Well, those youngsters taught me a lesson. The large crowd stood there quietly, in their mud-covered sandals or boots, some whispering to each other. Some walked away, but most of them just stood there, not understanding what the problem was.
“The whispering increased to a murmur as I fielded individual questions. Small groups began to form and I saw some youngsters moving from group to group. Eventually a couple youngsters, who had worked with us in the past in repairing damaged homes, asked to speak to me in private. They pulled me to a side, under a mango tree and asked me something along the lines of: “We know you want to help us, but can’t we help you? Everyone here wants to help, many of us brought tools or can find shovels, buckets and brooms. We kind of know what else we need to clean up houses, we know what we need to fix furniture or build temporary beds and chairs. Can we organize ourselves into brigades and offer you a suggestion as to where each team can start? Can we ask our relatives on your behalf if they would donate mattresses and sheets and towels and clothes for those who need it?”
“I remained awestruck for a couple minutes. I had always seen the volunteers as my responsibility, as people who depended on Friendly Faces to be able to get anything done. To be quite honest, I had always seen them as cheap labor. It had never occurred to me that they were as much a part of Friendly Faces as I was. Surely, I had founded it, but in no ways did I own it. It was as much theirs as it was mine. Actually, it became clear to me that we only existed because of them.
“Obviously, I said yes to all of their requests. I assembled the crowd again, speaking as loudly and clearly as I could, and informed everyone that they were to form brigades of 4 or 5 people and organize themselves by area. And as soon as they had the necessary tools to carry out house clean-up efforts, we would get them to work. I also assigned the two youngsters to carry out a register of all of the teams, the tools they had and needed, and their proposed area of intervention.
“I remained dumbfounded by the energy and wisdom of those youngsters. In a way, it forced me to reconsider my own assumptions about human nature. If you trust in people’s willingness to get things done for others, if only you believe in their basic sense of humanity, give them a push and set them free. No-one needs handholding, these youngsters only needed the confidence that it is acceptable to offer help to others as much as it is acceptable to help oneself. Friendly Faces gave them the sense of legitimacy to go and knock on that neighbor’s door that they would not have felt acting on their own.
“Another thing Anies and I learned on that day is that success always depends on a good share of luck. Just as I was finalizing the briefing of my new volunteer management team, Anies came rushing out of the office in obvious excitement. He told me I had to come inside and answer this call. But I will let Anies tell it as he lived it.
Siti turned to Anies, who had been quiet throughout the meeting. He took over in a perfect British accent, punctuated with technical project management language.
“Well, as you know, I had been answering the phone and going through different messages with Imelda and Ardy. Our webpage had a small chat function that allowed people to register requests, but it had crashed because of the number of requests. The phone calls were from residents throughout the larger Cengkareng area, but also beyond. I also had a few people call from other cities to inform us of family members whose homes had been affected by the flood. I tried my best to sound reassuring, but also gave them the number of the Municipality and of the Red Cross, letting them know that it might take a few days or weeks for us to be able to reach everyone.
“Then I got this call from someone who introduced himself as a university professor in Yogyakarta who had family in Cengkareng. He had included a discussion about the flooding in his class, showing pictures of before and during the floods and his students had gotten very excited. They unanimously requested that their credits for the course include some activity to help the affected families. So he was calling to know if his students could help in the response.
“I explained as politely as I could that we were overwhelmed, that now was not a good time. I told him that maybe in a couple of weeks we could get back to him. The professor was very insistent, asked us what the challenges were. I was a little embarrassed, as much as I tried to cut the discussion short to keep on registering the endless flow of requests. I explained as calmly as I could that we were overwhelmed, that we had too many volunteers and too many requests, and that we simply could not receive more volunteers from another city. The professor – Wiranata is his name – was unrelenting. He asked us whether his students could help us from Yogyakarta. There were many things they could do: set up a call center, manage the flow of electronic messages, map out online the requests we were receiving, organize them by category and neighborhood, assign teams accordingly. He seemed to have an endless list of tasks they could help with, all from Yogyakarta, none of which required any support from our end. I suddenly jumped up from my chair with a jolt of excitement. I think I even shouted. He asked me if everything was all right. I asked him to wait a moment and I ran outside. There was a sense of excitement there as well, all of these youths clustered in different groups throughout the muddy street. As he explained, Siti was speaking to his new volunteer team leaders. I ran up to him, mumbled something about him having to come answer this call and I pulled his sleeve and dragged him inside. I was so excited I couldn’t explain anything to him. So I just picked up the phone and asked the professor to explain his offer again.
Siti and Anies exchanged a deep smile. Anies continued. “The professor offered us our first virtual volunteers. As it turned out, they progressively became our outsourced volunteer management team, for everyone who wanted to help but couldn’t necessarily carry a wheelbarrow or travel to Cengkareng. Other people contacted us to volunteer remotely, even from Malaysia when a TV crew ran a short story about the flood response and featured our work. We redirected them to the Yogyakarta team and they took on more work to help map the needs.
“Our local volunteers were tasked with registering needs and resources. Some families asked for cleaning equipment, others for help in cleaning their homes, others preferred to offer their time or even lend their own tools when they finished. All of this was registered on an App and uploaded for our virtual volunteers. Thanks to our database in Yogyakarta, we knew exactly what people needed, house by house. So someone with food could go straight to the family of eight still living in a shelter. The plumber could go help the neighbor down the street to pump out the water from her kitchen.
Anies seemed to get as excited as Siti as he recounted their response. His youthful face got redder and his hands moved more and more as he continued.
“It was fascinating, all of these dedicated youths, hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, so willing to help, wanting to make a difference, any way they could, even from another city or another country. They knew they could not actually go to the affected families, meet them, help them or hug them. They wouldn’t even get the benefit of a “thank you” from people they would never know. But they did not seem to matter. It really surprised us.”
Siti jumped in.
“I grew up in a different era, where things sometimes got difficult in Indonesia and we needed each other to overcome it. Even the most recluse like myself were expected to play a role. These youngsters are part of another generation, they have not known war, many won’t remember the hardships their parents lived in disasters like the 2007 floods. They have never gone hungry or homeless, so they have never had to work with others to overcome hunger. They see the world through their computers, where they are meant to be craving for things they cannot have or longing for lifestyles that make their own lives seem lackluster.
“Speaking to many of these virtual volunteers, I realized their longing to be part of a challenge, even from a distance, become part of stories of perseverance and recovery. These virtual volunteers were social bees, always online, constantly exchanging with their friends, yet never truly gaining that satisfaction of making a difference. From the comfort of their homes, they were looking for ways to connect with others in other, more tangible ways, their own search for meaning. Even if it meant logging data into a platform or matching dots on a virtual map. They were looking for that same purpose that Vania had given us, service beyond self. We unknowingly gave them the opportunity to connect real people and real actions, connect them to strangers they could actually help. I remember being amused by the irony: technology was finally giving them the opportunity to provide the meaningful connections that technology had taken away from them. Their anonymous, mindless, thankless work is what made the difference. Whether they realized it or not, they are the ones who allowed us to send out those brigades of volunteers to collect those smiles and hugs.
Siti paused. He turned to Anies to resume his recounting of their first day. Anies pursued.
“Another call I received that same day was from a local businessman in the printing business whose mother we had apparently helped a year earlier. He told me we had sent warm meals and friendly company when she was feeling ill and could not cook for herself. He asked us how he could help. Again, I was cautious, explaining that we really were struggling with the number of requests and the number of spontaneous volunteers who had showed up. He told us what he could send us quickly, including business cards, folders, banners, T-shirts. I remember he stopped on “T-shirts”. He asked me how many new volunteers we had. I told him probably a hundred. He offered to send T-shirts with the organization’s logo if we would email it to him. I did. The next day we received 1,000 bright yellow T-shirts printed with our Friendly Faces teddy bear and name. Believe it or not, we gave all of them out – two per volunteer – within the first month of our activities. As Siti pointed out, this simple gift made our volunteers ecstatic. They were now part of the organization. They were now part of something larger. They bore those T-shirts with pride and went knocking on doors day and night to register local needs, clean up homes and provide more help.
“The T-shirts also helped to work with other organizations. We now had highly visible joint actions with the military when they came to hand out mattresses. And with the Municipality when it distributed cooking kits. Little by little, other organizations were hearing about us and asked to work with us.
Amanda had been quietly scribbling away as Anies and Siti told their story. She stopped writing and looked up. Anies and Siti, always very attentive to their host’s responses, looked back.
“No, no, don’t stop,” she said. “I am very interested in this network that you have developed. I am trying to think how your core work helping flood victims was of interest to other organizations.”
Anies turned to Siti, who complied:
“Well, this networking, partnerships really, they weren’t really planned. They just came out of necessity. We are a neighborhood organization. We offer opportunities to people, we get small grants, but most of what we do requires partners. We never considered it a core function of ours.
“It got a little more ambitious when the flood response work finished. We decided to focus on the drainage system, since it continued to be an important reason as to why Cengkareng flooded. We decided to meet up with different partners who could help us find more permanent solutions. I asked my colleagues from the Jakarta Municipality, the Cengkareng municipal services, Professor Wiranata came in from Yogyakarta. I contacted a local contractor who had cleaned the drainage in previous years, other local organizations joined as well. We had a formal meeting to discuss the issue of flood prevention. We all knew there was no money for Cengkareng, it was not a priority area, but that was not the point. We wanted to know what we could do at our own level, collectively.
“The meeting took place in a meeting room of the Jakarta Municipality. Just as I was giving the opening remarks, the Mayor walked in. He saluted everyone, then sat at the back and did not say a word.
“I presented our progress, our previous drainage clean-up efforts, the number of houses reached after the flood. Professor Wiranata showed some nice slides on the digital platform for Cengkareng that he had developed with his students. He explained the different color dots, the principal needs and the trends. He explained how they analyzed the requests, grouped them and communicated them to us and to other organizations with other skills. We got a great response, most of the participants wanted to be able to formally join in the process, find a way to share what they did and get information as to where they could help.
“The Mayor stood up as we asked for final remarks. He gave us a long congratulatory speech. He explained that it was the first time he had seen such a systematic way for the people to tell the politicians what they needed, rather than having the politicians trying to express what they thought the people wanted to hear. He congratulated us on the great work accomplished and encouraged all present to take their commitments forward. Very touching. He also promised to task the Municipal local development services with engaging with the Professor and other universities to replicate the model in other districts of the city.
“Despite all of these encouraging words, the most tangible benefit that came out of it was quite unexpected. Friendly Faces was named as a possible grantee for Japanese International Cooperation Aid funding. We were requested to submit a proposal, which we did, and we got our first grant. As I explained, we have been spending much of the last three years building up our grant management capacity. We have been hiring specialists and venturing in new areas. We started by cleaning drains and got machinery, operators and engineers. Then we started designing and building new drains and early warning systems. Then we got more grants and more engineers…”
Siti grew quiet. He seemed to be reflecting on their increased role as a grantee of international funds and the unexpected turns that the organization had taken.
Amanda asked hesitantly: “Based on everything you have told me, what would you say your organization is ultimately about?”
Siti turned to Anies and asked him: “What is our mission statement?”
Anies responded: “The new one?” Siti nodded. Anies quickly went through his paper and extracted a neat brochure in Indonesian and English. He explained: “The new strategy document adopted earlier this year says that our mission is to, I quote, enhance the well-being of the residents of the greater Jakarta area. To this end, we will offer highly efficient and professional services to interested partners, particular via flood prevention and response programs. End of quote.”
Siti stood silent, his look was vague. He seemed lost in some far-away land. He mumbled “Yes, too many projects, too many staff, too many reports…” Amanda and Anies looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Siti continued mumbling in his train of thought, whispering finally, with a definite sadness:
“You were right, Friendly Faces has become a private company. We have failed our volunteers. We have sold our brand to the highest bidder.
Nothing seemed to be able to get Siti out of his trance. He seemed profoundly affected, disappointed with himself. Amanda continued with a few questions, which Anies quickly answered. But something had happened. Siti was lost in his introspective self. Amanda and Anies concluded the meeting and Amanda accompanied her visitors to the door.
There was a deep sense of sadness emanating from Siti as he walked out. The sense of unfinished business. Amanda shared her most honest thanks for the wealth of experiences they had shared, but she wasn’t able to overcome the deep-felt concern that Siti exhaled.
As he reached the reception, Siti shared these final cryptic comments with Amanda:
“I came here full of certainties that all was well with Friendly Faces. That we were on track to becoming a well-respected organization, managing a broad portfolio of projects. The envy of most organizations. Yet I now realize that we have lost our soul. We need to convince everyone that their neighbor’s problems are also their problems. That one child’s sorrow is everyone’s business. We need more smiles. We need more teddy bears. This is what Vania taught me. This is the gospel that Friendly Faces was created to spread. This is what it really taught me.”
****
Almost a full year had passed since that fateful meeting with Siti and Anies. Amanda was going through her notes for a presentation she was meant to provide in the afternoon. She had been invited as a facilitator and keynote speaker for a conference on “Bridging the humanitarian and development divide in an increasingly complex world” and she didn’t know if she feared most her tough crowd or her own stage fright.
It had been a rough day. She had participated on a panel in the morning, discussing the future of the humanitarian world. The discussion had been well attended and well received and she looked forward to a strong coffee. As she left the stage, she was approached by two representatives of a disaster quick response organization, specialized in search and rescue. Two muscular ex-military gentlemen in their late forties, regulation-trimmed hair and impeccable shirts, had asked for the opportunity to discuss with her in more detail what she understood by “community resilience”. They were obviously concerned as to how the traditional international response model fit into the trends she presented towards building the capacity of local partners. Amanda had been reluctant at first, but they seemed so genuinely interested that she found it hard to turn them down. They took a seat in the lobby of the conference center and Amanda tried to reframe the issue in their language.
Amanda explained how more and more risk management projects expanded their interventions to include local issues that were not related to disaster risk. When that was the case, it made little sense to focus on flooding or earthquakes, even those may be the demonstrated scientifically to present the greatest risks to life and property. Instead, the emphasis needed to be placed on the priorities of local residents, however extravagant or futile they may seem at first. Often, she explained, installing speed bumps or renovating playgrounds were the tangible actions that helped communities mobilize. In due time other interventions, such as training local response team for early warning and evacuation, should be discussed with committed local individuals.
Amanda felt uncomfortable restating what seemed to her to be such obvious principles of community work to such seasoned professionals, eager to put forward their credentials responding to emergencies in Ethiopia, Iraq or Syria. Basic principles to ensure the intervention was sustainable beyond the life of the project. But they did not respond as she anticipated. Her hyper-active listeners, uncomfortable staying seated for more than a few minutes at a time, continuously fidgeted with their pens and notebooks. When she finished, she could feel a sense of apprehension in the furtive looks that they gave each other. She realized that community work did not fit their humanitarian worldview, those life-saving interventions she had been part of during so many years. A few tense seconds passed before their response came.
‘Not sustainable’, they objected at first. Why would any humanitarian organization want to spend months working with a community, only to build speed bumps? How would the organization promote its work if it couldn’t demonstrate how many lives it had saved? What about local needs for the goods not available locally? Wouldn’t that justify establishing humanitarian bridges to fly in food or water? How about when governments collapse? Wouldn’t foreign aid be required to establish parallel structures in each town until services are re-established?
Amanda knew it made no sense to convince her humanitarian colleagues. She had been in their shoes, living off the adrenaline rush when the cargo plane door finally opens on the scorching airport runway in a recently devastated city. Finding functional trucks and loading crews. Organizing distribution sites and logos in such a way to offer the perfect viewpoint for foreign news crews. Basking in the glory of a 30-second segment of the relief effort on international news media. Exiting the affected area after a few weeks of intense work and preparing for the next deployment.
Amanda made the case that ultimately the goal was the same – ensuring that everybody could rely on impartial assistance in those most critical times of need. Avoid unnecessary suffering and provide whatever little comfort however possible – knowing the neighbor will be offering her shoulder to cry on when your child passes away, or seeing that the stranger offering you a bag of rice when you have lost it all.
To no avail. Community resilience was perhaps too much of a cultural shift for these humanitarian heroes. The gap was too broad and there was no mid-way point they could agree on. Both sides share pleasantries and mutual thanks as they returned to the conference sessions, knowing there would be no further discussion.
Then her lunch fiasco. Amanda needed a break after her morning panel and her side meeting. She had decided to leave the conference complex for some fresh air and new perspectives. She walked over to the old town and had the plat du jour and then a coffee on the sunny terrace of a bistro, walking mentally through her afternoon presentation.
She was finally starting to feel a surge of energy when a brash American stranger walked straight up to her table and invited himself to the chair in front of her. He seemed as confident of his sex-appeal as he was impervious to her reaction. By the type of shirt he wore, the expensive shoes, he could only be a banker. But things weren’t going according to plan. He seemed dazed, drugged, and his pick-up lines were obviously not coming out as he hoped. He was getting jittery and Amanda couldn’t help but wonder whether he realized. The not-so-subtle waving of his expensive watch in front of her, as if it possessed some magical hypnotical powers, pushed the limits of her already thinned patience. She sent a barrage of questions back to him, many of which she herself had been struggling with since her discussion with Siti.
She then got up and walked off, leaving the astounded banker in her tracks. She was upset, feeling disappointed with his behavior, for such blatant lack of emotional intelligence, but also with herself, for picking on such an easy target. As she had walked back to the office, further details from her encounter with Siti came back to mind. She wondered, amusingly, how Siti would have performed as a banker.
So it came a bit as a shock to Amanda to find an email waiting for her in her inbox from Siti when she reached the conference center. It followed a number of messages they had exchanged over the months in which he continued to reflect on the future of his organization, based on his personal experience and the lessons from the last few years. But this message was more thoughtful, almost philosophical. She read the message, and in particular the concluding remarks, a few times to make sure she processed them properly.
“Humans are the only species that deliberately demean, bully or torture other members of its species. It is the only species that has this ability to suffer in silence, often for years. It is also the only species whose members are capable, in extreme cases, of taking their own life to end this suffering.
“But it is also the only species with such a developed level of empathy, this unique ability to feel the suffering of others. This has always been our opportunity for redemption: feeling this compassion, not just for our kin, but for those we have not met, those we do not know and even, at times, for those we hate. Seeing in each other’s soul our shared humanity. Seeing that this shared suffering brings us together so much more than what separates us.
“Perhaps the main thought I took away from our meeting is a lesson in individual humility and collective power. Each one of us is insignificant on our own. This is our search for meaning. This is the real reason I dedicated years building hundreds of models, models I could leave behind for all to admire. Perhaps it is also this constant search for virtual vindication is what our younger generation looks for on social media.
“May Allah, or God, keep us away from the illusion that we can find happiness or fulfillment alone. May He keep us from the belief that with enough matches for scale modelling (or enough work, or enough high-speed internet), we can hide from our collective responsibilities and never have to face our demons, our fear of looking weak, our fear of looking compassionate or naïve, our fear of being judged.
“For years I thought that what Friendly Faces was offering were warm meals, a clean-up crew or a plumber to those in need. I thought we were building houses, drainage and roofs to the homeless. And if we became more efficient, hired more professionals, we could do so much more. I was wrong. Our real business is in building communities, where neighbors can share their difficulties and work together to find solutions. Knowing that I will be helped by my neighbor when I need it, and also knowing that she’ll accept my help when she needs it. Or logging off my computer knowing that I have helped someone, somewhere, by making sure that their needs are registered and mapped and people will be there when needed. As much a local community, neighbors working together, as a virtual community, that sense of responsibility for the wellbeing of someone thousands of kilometers away.
“It seemed surprising to me at first, that so many people would get together to help Cengkareng, especially after a disaster when there are so many other things they needed to do for their own homes. But it really is a fundamental human need, it helps us build bridges to those around us. In extreme cases, it may even be part of the healing process – it helped me overcome the trauma that my life’s work, my hundreds of award-winning models, had been destroyed.
“Collective action is not new, quite the contrary, it is very ancient. But it may be dying off, or perhaps we are unknowingly giving it a new shape and meaning. In Indonesia, traditional community cooperation is called Gotong Royong, in which neighbors get together to work for the common good. It is about recognizing that there are things that I cannot do on my own, such as cleaning drainage or rebuilding a burned house. But more importantly, it is about recognizing that I am responsible for my neighbor and her well-being, as much as she is responsible for mine.
“I thought that this concept of mutual support was specific to Indonesia, maybe because of our particular history, or perhaps the misuse many politicians have made of it. I thought that perhaps this ancestral tradition of mutual help was what unconsciously motived our volunteers, both local and virtual. But a Filipino friend of mine recently told me that in the Philippines they call it Bayanihan, something like the spirit of community unity. They also use this concept as the basis to support those most in need in times of emergency. This discovery tickled my curiosity, and I did some research, to see if it was limited to our South-East Asian culture.
“Well, I was wrong, as you probably already knew. Community action is pretty much universal, as much a part of our basic needs as shelter or admiration. In Sri Lanka it is referred to Shramadana, sharing time for the welfare of all. In Uganda they call it Ikibiri, the duty of villagers to help a needy person. In England, it was referred to as bees or been, help given by neighbors. The notion spread across British colonies, like communal events to raise barns or build roads in the early years of the USA.
“If collective action is universal, why are we not working together more, to get more done? Shouldn’t your efforts at global networks and coalitions in all communities resonate across all countries? Continue onwards, you have my full support.”
***
Amanda walked up the steps and crossed the stage to reach her presenter’s stand. As was always the case, her throat knot up in anticipation. She grasped all too clearly how unprepared she was for her talk, however much she had practiced. The crowd of a few hundred stood silent, the lights blinded her. She spoke in the microphone: “Dear fellow colleagues”. No sound came out of her mouth. She cleared her throat, tapped slightly on the microphone. All seemed well. She tried again.
“Good afternoon, most esteemed colleagues. It is extremely humbling to be here, following so many amazing presentations from such a distinguished crowd of experts. Experts who have spent years focusing on the critical issues that we struggle with globally. The very problems that impede the full development of our human potential – child mortality due to water-borne diseases, the access to HIV and AIDS treatments, cultural barriers to girl’s access to education, the impact of rising temperatures on flooding. I could go on and would still be unable to give proper credit to the level of talent and knowledge here present.
“It is quite mind-boggling what I have learned this afternoon on the power of clear goals and concrete indicators. I am pretty much sure that on any given subject of public concern, someone in this room can tell me with extreme precision what I should be tracking, which indicators I should focus on, how to define whether those indicators have been reached, how to consolidate and triangulate my data to clearly demonstrate that we have been successful at improving access to health or education, reducing vulnerability to disasters or germs, or eradicating measles.
“Perhaps this is why I feel humbled, perhaps even embarrassed. I am embarrassed because I am here to speak about our global coalition for resilience, yet I am unable to give you concrete indicators as to when we reach resilience.
“Resilience is misleading term, so broad and general that each one comes with his or her understanding. If I were to ask one hundred experts in this room how to measure a resilient community, I would most likely receive at least one hundred different responses. How can we effectively work together when we cannot agree as to what needs to be achieved first?
“For renowned monitoring experts such as yourselves, you will surely find this confusion amusing, unless, of course, you have tried to provide this definition. It is puzzling for sure. Perhaps I can give you an example of our fundamental contradictions, two questions I often ask humanitarian and development organizations alike.
“The first is quite straightforward. ‘Would you say your intervention makes local groups better able to address shocks or stresses?’ From pretty much any organization working with communities, the answer is a resounding “yes”. I am sure you will concur. Any project that makes communities ever so slightly better able to cope following a shock, any shock, is sold as a valuable contribution to resilience. A new latrine in the school reduces diarrhea; a new shelter reduces the potential loss of life in a disaster; a new pedestrian bridge helps evacuate vulnerable groups from a low-lying village. For many, resilience is business as usual, but hopefully with more money, since it is now all the rage in international circles.
“Yet when asked: ‘Are you confident that the community you have been supporting – for so many years – is now resilient?’ the response suddenly becomes a resounding ‘no’. All organizations, no matter how big or small, grassroots non-profits or international foundations, agree they are making great strides in helping communities become more resilient, one latrine at a time, yet no-one seems to have ever achieved this goal. They concede that they have not as yet produced a fully resilient community. I know for sure I cannot tell you when I see resilience and when I don’t.
“Yet we have been able to put this confusion to our advantage. The term is so broad that it allows very different people to come together around a lofty common goal. To oversimplify, the goal of safer, healthier communities better prepared for any unforeseen shock. The goal of a world better able to overcome the challenges of our time. The goal of working together to achieve what we cannot achieve on our own.
“So ‘resilience’ is a magical term, capable of uniting across countries and cultures without ever revealing what it aims to achieve. Always within sight yet never quite attainable. The modern quest for the Holy Grail for a world segmented into experts of all types.
“I realize it may seem a perilous strategy to ask rational number-crunching experts such as yourselves to close their eyes and follow me blindly down this road. To take a leap of faith into a world of unknowns, a world not so different from our own, yet, in many ways, so much closer to the way in which our human brain functions.
“This is the world that this Global Coalition for Resilience wishes to contribute to. More than anything, this is a coalition of coalitions, uniting like-minded individuals and organizations in the most ambitious network that has ever been attempted. Uniting organizations committed to social change, committed to solving issues that affect our everyday ability to thrive, whether because of disease, disasters or protracted conflict. But also because of less obvious motives, such as stigma or bullying, or specific social mores that exclude entire segments of society, whether because of their gender, religion, skin color, income or age.
“I can see some heads nod in disagreement. I can hear silent voices saying this cannot be done, that it is too ambitious, that each problem has a root cause that needs to be addressed individually. I agree. This is the broad purpose of our coalition of coalitions, a global platform where a few visionary leaders from a small number of innovative organizations get together to set the stage. Leaders who challenge us to say that it cannot be done and then force us to find the ways to get it done.
“This is where we come in, our global secretariat for the global coalition. Plant the seed, water it and see it grow in its own due course. Every plant is different. Every country is different. A coalition of coalitions on community resilience will take different forms depending on the context. Every seed carries its own DNA, and a coffee bean will never grow into an apple tree. Each country is different despite apparent similarities; all have national platforms for civil protection or disaster management; all have governmental entities delivering services in communities, whether in education, health or security; all have national networks of non-profits and universities; pretty much every country has chambers of commerce with corporate social corporate programs. But the relationship between each one will be different, there may never have been broad discussions on the synergies between these different bodies. There may never have been an opportunity to examine the complementarities, for instance, between the national reach and visibility of a consumer goods company and the technology of a research institute, so that they can work together to disseminate solar energy to remote villages. And perhaps solar energy is a key component in the strategy of the Civil Protection National Platform to mitigate power cuts affecting critical infrastructure in remote parts of the country.
“Yet the skeptical voices go on in my head. ‘This is old news’, I can hear them say. ‘Coalitions have existed for decades, effectively tackling one problem at a time,’ they tell me. ‘How else would we have eradicated polio, how else could we be replanting literally billions of trees, how else could we aim to address word hunger?’
“I don’t have all the answers, no-one does. But perhaps more than anything, this Global Coalition for Resilience relies on a common belief. That two persons are smarter than one, and that a million committed individuals will always find so many more solutions to their problems than two persons ever could, however rich or influential they may be. Technology is a big part of our answer, taking this thinking to a whole new level. The internet has already transformed our ability to find scarce collectibles, rent apartments around the world or campaign for the preservation of the Amazon forest. And technology has also offered us crowdfunding, the ability to pool in the resources of many to make a wild idea reality. Time has come for ‘crowd-thinking’, solving collectively our shared problems. Matching the demand for solutions to community problems with the supply of ideas, contacts and resources that every single one of us has in at least some capacity.
“Let us be clear that crowd-thinking will not work best in the storied hallways of Ministries or in the luxurious board rooms of multinational corporations. We will require a new form of social media, that all can take part in. We will require a national resilience platform, or at the very least a coalition of national initiatives for community resilience, including for instance representation from the national measles eradication coalition or the national disaster management coalition. But the main function of such a national coalition of coalitions is to establish the technological requirements for community groups and promote the creation of city-level coalitions to disseminate them.
“City level coalitions will replicate the national structure at local levels. Get local elected officials on board, the mayor, the dean of the university, the head of the chamber of commerce. They will build large-scale alliances with research institutions, local businesses, non-profits and others committed to addressing community challenges. In large cities, it may be necessary to form different coalitions in different sections of the city, to better involve all of the relevant partners and reflect the different realities that large cities include.
“You are probably getting a sense of the multiple layers that a coalition of coalitions takes in any given country. The seed will grow when we water it, but the DNA of the plant will determine what the plant may look like.
“Which brings me to the water and the soil that will ensure the seed grows. The water, falling from above, is this crazy idea, that together we can solve pretty much any problem, anywhere, as long as the ground is ripe and the soil is fertile. The soil, then, is the community. Any group of individuals who come together to address the challenges that they face collectively, yet are too busy, too weak or too frightened to address on their own. Any group of individuals, given the right tools, knowledge and connections, if they are able to work together, if they can rely on the support of this network of committed partners, can overcome any shock or stress. They will overcome anything that life throws at them. In our jargon, we say that they become resilient.
“So all of our coalitions, globally, nationally or at city level, ultimately, only serve to till the soil. Mobilize and engage with grassroots organizations that already support community mobilization and enhance community self-awareness. Help local groups understand that what brings them together is greater than what separates them. Nurture local leaders interested in collective action, provide legitimacy to locally-identified priorities, however strange they may seem from afar. In other words, give a voice to the voiceless, on the basis that the voiceless are always, I must emphasize, always the most affected when things go awry.
“Yet a voice is not very useful if no-one is listening. If a community of homosexual men in Jamaica tells me that they do not feel safe walking into the offices of the national coalition for gender rights because of the risk of being identified as homosexual and potentially being assaulted, I want to make sure that a representative of the national coalition is hearing that message. If a neighborhood representative tells me that current evacuation routes are great in the event of floods, but that no-one will use them because they require everyone to pass in front of the local gang’s headquarters, I want the mayor, the city’s civil protection representative and the local humanitarian organizations to be part of that discussion.
“Hopefully I have made it clear that these coalitions are not social events used to discuss the latest football scores. They are meant as mechanisms to support local solutions and address local needs that require additional resources. They are platforms to raise the profile of invisible groups marginalized because of who they are or how they live. They are platforms to pressure decision-makers to take the appropriate funding decisions, and for those same decision-makers to make the case to those coalitions and entities above them to adopt corrective policies.
“Once again, the soil that feeds our resilience plant is the members of the community. Every community has issues that remain unaddressed, issues that may determine at times whether a family will live in fear or whether a child will live or die. Our role is not to solve development problems that make people vulnerable. It is not our role to vaccinate children or repair schools, to distribute blankets or install speed bumps. That is the role of the local authorities, the role of transparent, accountable representatives working with local partners. But always on the basis of the priorities of most vulnerable groups – their collective understanding of the factors of stress that could jeopardize their precarious daily lives.
“Our coalition role, then, is to ensure that those untold stressors come to the fore, to work with those grassroots organizations best able to help identify those stressors, and gather all partners whose mandate or commitment is to address those needs.
“Perhaps it no longer is clear to many of you what all this has to do with the topic at hand. I was invited to present indicators related to success in large-scale coalitions. But I was asked to focus on the particular challenge of resilience programs. Allow me then, most distinguished colleagues, to translate what I have called this leap of faith into cold numbers. Three indicators to keep a coalition of coalitions on track.
“Community needs are the roots. The first indicator is the number of communities that have conducted self-assessments. Rough urban neighborhoods as much as flood-prone villages or communities of migrants in unwelcoming countries or communities made fun of because of their physical characteristics or behaviors. We all have multiple identities, but some of the communities we belong to may make us more vulnerable than others. Those are the ones we should focus on first.
“Usually community self-assessments take the form of a list of actions that need to be taken. Ideally the list is posted on a website managed at the city level, as much as a public commitment to take action and show progress as a mechanism to allow partner organizations to chip in.
“A good way to start local assessments is to map out the risks in my street. An actual paper drawing with houses and trees and drains. People need to agree as to where their houses are, where their street starts and finishes and what the main problems are. But more than anything, it is about getting neighbors to speak to each other, not arguing over the volume of the music but actually discussing what needs to change, what is it that really concerns them yet no one does anything about. Nothing revolutionary, simply taking tried-and-tested methodologies for community appraisals and replicating them in every vulnerable street in the city.
“As this process leads to a large number of maps, there needs to be the formal selection of locally appointed representatives who take their paper map from their street to a meeting with representatives from other neighboring streets and patch them together, combining through different scales and different styles how they see their world. Nothing more than a process to formally bestow on those committed individuals some level of authority. It is about generating local leaders who have the enthusiasm that gets others on board. They are tasked with identifying and including the important organizations in their area, from the local football teams, church or mosque groups, ministry agencies and non-profits with active projects.
“Together they agree on a list of priorities, reflecting their geographic environment but also the legacy of past experiences. The list includes both problems they can solve on their own and actions for which they need external support. It could be a drainage clean-up campaign, cleaning yards to eradicate dengue, sharing sanitation tips or organizing trash. Or it could be repairing a school, building retention walls or changing a policy. This is where the different resilience coalitions at city and country level come in to play.
“The second indicator is the number of communities benefiting from support of Coalition partners, to address the needs that they consider most pressing. The goal is for communities to take action on their own, but when their knowledge, capacity or advocacy efforts are insufficient to overcome a vulnerability, the coalition partners are expected to step in or find a partner who can help.
“We also include indicators on resources allocated, to make sure that organizations are taking their commitments seriously. How much money is being spent in these communities to address the concerns that they consider most pressing? How many hours have Scouts or Rotary or Red Cross volunteers actually spent helping the community improve?
“The last indicator is an attempt to link these levels. Can we actually reach the scale that would make this coalition unstoppable? Can we convince one person per family, in every family around the world, to be a part of something larger than themselves, in their community or for the benefit of some marginalized group? Could they perhaps even take part in something more ambitious, an annual global simulation exercise for instance, as a demonstration of our shared humanity?
“As you will point out, most esteemed colleagues, these indicators are not sector-specific. They look at process, not impact. They look at the mechanism to support change, but the change itself could be on health, education, violence prevention, whatever the community considers is important for itself. We do not choose for them, only they know.
“Ultimately, it is about local change, making sure people understand that they are the only ones who can solve their problems. We want to make sure people meet others who share the same concerns, whether they live in the same street or suffer from similar discrimination. We want them to design actions they can take locally. The founding principle is that all must be led by local processes.
“So community resilience will be hard to measure. We may never actually know how many lives were saved. But that does not really matter. It is about changing our way of living together, it is about realizing how every piece, every person is part of a whole.
“So I will ask to focus not on the numbers, but on the vision. A vision that has already been planted and that is already growing around the world. We have started watering it and we are finding that the 21st century soil is ripe in communities everywhere. Most of this is already happening and often the coalition only expands and enhances existing partnerships, existing coalitions with their own sector-specific coalitions. We will not replace them, we will look for complementarities.
“So continue your great work, every sector is important and more and more communities are recognizing this and willing to take the first steps on their own. But join us to do more. You can be a part of this, we all need to be a part of this, however small each organization’s contribution may seem.
“Finally, dear esteemed experts, I will appeal to your other self. The neighbor, the coach, the mother, the son hiding under that impressive résumé. And I will ask that you consider what each one of us can do personally as well for those around us. I know there will be a point in my life when I look back at those meals that my community and I prepared for those obnoxious neighbors when their house burnt down. And I might feel that was the most meaningful day I spent that year. Or perhaps I’ll remember when my house got completely flooded the following year and those same obnoxious neighbors showed up with tools and fixed up my home in such a way that it would never be flooded again. Wouldn’t that be a nice story to tell one’s grandchildren? Wouldn’t that be a nice legacy?”
One Billion Legacies 