Being voted the 2010 Unsung Hero in theMen’s Health Best Men Awards was an amazing accolade. I was up against some really credible and inspiring people who certainly deserved the award. They had both made huge contributions towards helping many people, both in South Africa and all over the world.
When I asked close friends why they had thought I would win, a common thread wove through their answers: “What is different about your approach to charity is that you empower people to help themselves instead of helping them”.
I like to believe them, because this was a lesson painfully learned over many years. Growing up as the eldest of five siblings in a family ravaged by substance abuse, I eventually had to understand that even with all the love and resources in the world, you cannot fix people. You can only support and assist them to help themselves. And this applies to most people in most situations, and victims of most kinds of disadvantage or injurious circumstance.
To “help” people in the traditional sense can not only be wasteful and patronizing but also dangerously counterproductive and usually unsustainable.
People that “get given” rarely use the gift to their own best advantage and subsequently realize their own full potential, because they always feel in a position of impotence and passivity, and not of power.
It’s the old story of teaching a man to fish versus supplying him with food.
This is also the reason why most countries that benefit from food aid never manage to achieve an improvement in socio-economic conditions, because the whole countries’ national identity has been victimized and the circumstances leading to famine in the first place are being maintained.
This might sound harsh, but if there are a million people in an area that has enough water for 100 000, food aid isn’t going to solve the problem. No political jargon and reasoning is going to change this natural fact. All too often humans believe to be exempt from the laws of nature, but what goes up must eventually come down.
Hence my work with children and adults alike is based on assisting them to achieve something out of their own strength, by giving them new perspectives and broadening their horizon. This way, they can own their achievements.
Most people that rise above their circumstances in this way end up not only making incredible and sustainable successes out of their own lives, but also end up inspiring others, paying things forward … and that is the most rewarding thing for me to watch.
I will never forget little Michella from Cradock, who received corrective facial surgery from Operation Smile SA, as a result of our Miles for Smiles Coastal Challenge Run in 2008, fixing her cleft lip and palate. She finally was able to attend school successfully after this and has since excelled academically, never taking a day for granted. She now studies to become a doctor to help other children that have been denied an education and a successful life due to birth defects.
I wonder how many Unsung Heroes are out there?
