SOLVING COMMUNITY PROBLEMS
An abstract:
The world today puts Africa and the rest of the world regions, in a conundrum of the recent oppression of colonial past, mainly under European domination and at the same time taking its old matters as the models to follow in economic, cultural and existential terms. These are factors that confuse the drive for an identity and a model to emerge from the scourges of poverty, education, and lack of effective health services (bringing about HIV/AIDS, TUBERCLOUSES, Malaria and others), EDUCATION, CONFLICTS etc.
After years of activity by many NGOs and Humanitarian associations, the situation on our 3rd world continents has not improved; Infact it has gotten worse! In the face of so much human suffering, many positions and organizations today encourage people to unselfishly help the dispossessed and those who suffer discrimination. Associations, volunteer groups, and large numbers of individuals are on occasion moved to make positive contributions. However, while the action of those groups does not focus on transformation of the underplayed structures that give rise to the problems, nothing important will change. The approaches of Humanitarianism have indeed failed in solving the community problems than a conscious humanism that is based on self-belief on guided principals of; (1) Placing of the human existence as the highest value and consideration, (2) Supporting the equality of all human beings, (3) Recognition of personal and cultural diversity, (4) Evolution of knowledge beyond what is accepted as absolute truth, (4) Supporting in freedom of ideas and believes, (6) Denying of any form of violence.
Solving community problems calls for the following considerations of;
1. Action in put with the citizens,
2. Selection of particular problems at each time By The Citizens,
3. Investigation By The Citizens,
4. The positive planning By The Citizens,
5. Skills development By The Citizens,
6. A sustainable future and vision development By The Citizens,
7. Evaluation as well as reflection By The Citizens.
If people are united as said by the Director General of UNESCO – Mr. koichiro Matsuura, my belief in Solving Community Problems becomes a common man’s philosophy of the shift from the sense of money kingdom to freedom of expression of Ideas and beliefs from all sorts of people.
The struggle for freed community should begin with an absolute mental emancipation of the African people and to them that are still laboring at the mercy of neo – slavery thus driven by globalized financial institutions whose epicenter is in US.
The believe in human being for personal and social change has to be re-structured upon volunteerism, belief and ideas with the action plan based on the concept of RECIPROCITY. This is a true human society developed on horizons of a strong Foundation and beliefs that would solve community problems.
The table of contents: pages
1. Topic ……………………………………………………………………………2
2. Introduction………………………………………………………..…………….2
3. What is required in solving community problems:……………….……………..3
4. Activities in solving community problems’……………………………………..4
5. Solving community problems would be guided;
6. With following humanists principals…………………………………………….4
7. Behavior values:…………………………………………………………………5
8. Solving community problems in Africa…………………………………………5
9. Wars and Conflicts:………………………………………………………………6
10. Solving the community problems against Corruption:…………………………..6
11. Solving the community problems against Terrorism:……………………………7
12. Culture in solving the community problems:……………………………….……7
13. Solving the community problem against Violence:………………………………8
14. Solving the community problems with Education:………………………………8
15. Education to solving the community problems against violence:………………..9
16. Individualism promotion and competition in solving the community problems…9
17. Conclusion:…………………………………………………………… ………..10
TOPIC:
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE SOLUTIONS TO COMMUNITY PROBLEMS PARTICULARLY ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT.(i.e. Education, HIV/Aids, Conflict, Employment, Literacy e.t.c)
Introduction:
In every culture, society or village problems almost assimilate especially to countries under the super powers. The fact remains that many cultures and beliefs or tradition in respect with ethnicity, tribe or language face more less the common problems that affect our society.
The world today is heading in swift of the history making into a one nation of globalization call it the global village or community. Many systems have isolated in the tackling of the issues called the problems that affect our society or community but only to watch always the increases of these problems as identified in this question. Our community really lives in apartheid of being left out on islands of life just because poor infrastructure education, lack of employment wars and conflict and so on.
Solving community problems calls for an action worth the humanist concern. The concern with the people we live with at all levels, the concern in respect of what they believe into, plus their livelihood and culture. The Director general of UNESCO- Mr.koichiro Matsuura believes in the unity of mankind as citizens with a strong unity for action themselves addressing the issues affecting them and their community.
After years of active service by many ngos and humanitarian association the situation on our continent as Africans has failed to improve. Thanks for the contributions and support rendered to various victims of circumstances. Their influences in one way or the other is respected but things are worsening despite the fact that these institutions and association are active with their contribution to the society. In fact their effort have only strengthened dependence of external help bailing out our internal confidence to self sustain our selves. Without them we cannot inter depend on our own.
In the face of so much human suffering, many positions and organizations today encourage people to unselfishly help the dispossessed and those who suffer discrimination. Nevertheless however volunteer groups and large numbers of individuals are on occasion moved to make positive contributions but if they do not focus on transformation of the underlying structures that give to the problems, then nothing important will change. Their approaches are more closely related to humanitarianism other than to conscious Humanism.
Humanism is a belief that all are volunteers who believe in human being in the possibility for personal and social change. This is a foundation of a true human society being built upon.
What is required in solving community problems:
Solving community problems requires a demonstration through volunteers from different cultures and countries ho organize themselves, grow and get stronger in order to perform and develop the great changes that can be fore seen in the horizon, in such a way that these changes can be oriented towards a truly human society.
A demonstration for anti-retroviral therapy was organized in may 2004 in Italy making Rome the capital city as an international crossroads for proposals and for a world appeal to start a new phase in the fight against the Aids pandemic. Remember that the continent of Africa is estimated to be with 30 million people that are being affected by HIV/Aids. A demonstration of such kind can bring the healing to our community, thus solving the community problems. I in particular used to organize such activities of the demonstration in the fight against our rights at the collage. One of the peaceful demostration was to counter understaffed lecturers and power failure through out the collage mainly because of administration reluctance to provide the campus with the generator. In two month’s time not even 60 days the community of the students became the victors.
Solving for community problems call for expression in practice of the ideal to humanize the earth and to build a universal human nation in which every human being has the same rights and the same opportunities because of the simple fact of being born human.
Solving community problems calls for self-organization that is highly structured to work simultaneously for personal development and social transformation.
Solving community problems is a behavior to be adopted as away to look a sensibility of human beings and the world, recognizing the intention of freedom of what is human getting involved in the fight against discrimination and violence.
Solving community problems with humanism is one way of expressing every activity needed to give value to the human being in the immediate environment, through concrete projects that are based on self financing, self organization reciprocity and human work.
Solving community problems is to centralize the conscious humanism in the increase of human organization and the reinforcement of social action. The most important thing is to change our situation, to give our environment a true human direction that could deeply renew the life of each man, of each woman and of each child.
Solving community problems rejects selfness to promote a great deal of independence, a great freedom of judgment. This might not be so easy for humanitarian institutions that have their own dynamics and that are in additon, dependent on economic and ideological matters.
Activities in solving community problems’
Solving community problems calls for skills and development to perform identified activities within the community. Some skills in technology usage of things like computers, sewing machines, soap production, artistic work, planting, breeding, nursing etc. literacy classes ought be organized in educating the masses of our communities. In many countries literacy program has been launched to solve the problem of under education amongst the grown up citizens. With humanism we find that an informal place either in schools during weekends or an abandoned half- destroyed houses are organized for literacy classes for free. Classes would be organized under a tree. The teachers are volunteers. This is a step to solving community problem.
The spirit of humanism once adopted by her citizens within the community different campaigns has to be organized in prevention against diseases and poor sanitation. We must do some thing against malaria Tuberculoses, HIV in our areas.
Solving community problems would be guided with following humanists principals.
If man is guided with the humanist attitude, a moral base, which guides his actions to other people, the following principals must be considered as factors:
· Placing of the human existence as the highest value and consideration
· Supporting the equality of all human beings
· Recognition of personal and cultural diversity.
· Evolution of knowledge beyond what is accepted as absolute truth.
· Support in freedom of ideas and beliefs,
· Denying of violence.
In principal humanism does not need for a large amount of knowledge or strong exercises for someone in order to be considered humanist, it would be enough to express the way he/she feels, this special sensitivity through his/her way of living.
Humanism should be viewed with the following and fundamental points towards community problems.
1. I think, I feel and I act forward the same direction and
2. I treat others the way I want to be treated.
There is no doubt that behind this so-called simplicity exists a new scale of values, a new morality on top of which is cohesion. With this in our hands we set for the true meaning of personal and social living. Whoever bases his/ her actions, for every thing is done in his/ her life, in this kind of sensibility, will evolve a way of living, becoming a very clear reliance for his/ her social environment.
Looking at our homes and families, our friends and the people surrounding us, we tend to realize and know some thing about their lives; some being well off and other Not. Their hopes and fears, their sadness, their weakness, their difficulties, and more than all recognizing inside them their enormous willing for life such questions should rest in our minds;
· What can I do in order to help them?
· What can I do in order to make them smiling?
· What can I do in order to make them feel joy?
The solution would be I intend to see them soon and talk to them for everything new! I have learned.
Whilst people are to get the idea of humanism right and tend to practice this value of behavior forming a networking of people in different groups like in my COUNCIL 71, empowering them with a sensibility to appreciate others much different from the one which is dominant in these days, community problems would become less burdened every day in and out.
Behavior values:
In this values of behavior there are two important things to observe.
a) The behavior that someone demands from the other and,
b) The behavior that someone is intended to have to the others.
The behavior that someone demands from the other:
The behavior that some one demands from others means to always accept a behavior without violence and to ask as for help in order to improve our lives. This was always valid among the most violet people and the exploiters who desire every one’s cooperation for their injustice interests. So behavior some one demands is much different from the one that someone is intended to offer.
The behavior that someone is intended to have to the others:
The behavior that someone is intended to have to the others means utilitarianistic or usual behavior; this is the behavior against extreme or cruel behavior. How do I use objects, money and animals in order to care about others in circumstances to become useful, in this everyday or the other?
This means that treating some one with solidarity and reliability to the beloved persons, the behavior to these strange people/or persons in which we identify ourselves, because there is a similarity in both our conditions or just because we assume that the strange person could support us, these are special conditions in which the beloved persons are not equals not to be referred as strangers.
Solving community problems in Africa
Africa’s a wakening to the new millennium is fraught with difficulties arising from its past and the challenges to the future in a world dominated by violence, wars and conflicts, lack of basics in education, economical wars, health difficulties and importantly poor infrastructure and the kingdom of money as the only recognized value in solving the community problems. Africans plus the continent have found us in a conundrum, trying to make away from the oppression of its recent colonial past, mainly under European domination and at the same time taking its old masters as the models to follow in economic, cultural and existential terms, Africa a state of confusion and a model to scourged poverty, lack of effective health services, education, pushing man on the walls of margin. That is why humanist activities promote various clubs for women and the youth to promote advocacies in the defense of their group rights, where the legal advocacy and justice has gone lacking. This ambivalence towards Europe opened the door to neo-colonialism and neo-slavery driven by the globalised financial institutions such as the World Bank, The IMF, The world Trade Organization etc with their epicenter in the US.
The globalization world Empire still has the so-called “Free Market” as its only proposed organizational system. This is just speculation to hide the gospel of truth underground against the black people, people still avenged with cuirmstances like famine, Education health problems etc to the so called donor community and other agencies. Speculative investment for rapid profit, without commitment to production or to the people and the one-sided abolition of trade restrictions but only for money and goods, not for workers, are increasing the north-south economic gap, contributing to impoverishing and disempowering African countries even more. International organizations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization purportedly created to bridge the gap act shamelessly as agents of the richest countries. Debt servicing locks the economy of countries dependent on foreign money into an ever-increasing spiral of poverty-further loans-corruption-decreased public services and higher debt servicing, from where few see a way out.
Wars and Conflicts:
Wars fuelled by the arms trade seek new arenas and new customers finding fertile ground in countries dominated by injustice where old tribal rivalries are re-enforced by the more recent introduction of fierce competition as part of the free-market model. As more and more areas of manufacturing industry move to developing countries, only hi-technology and weapons continue to be produced in the rich countries, needing in this way more wars (preferably away from their own territories) to balance their economies through these very restrictive markets. Often a poverty-stricken region rejoices at the arrival of factories from the North without realizing that this increases the need to find more areas of unrest to place the products of the arms manufacturers.
Solving the community problems against Corruption:
Much has been made of corruption as the leading cause of economic disaster in African countries. What people are less aware of is that international financial forces favor corrupt politicians, as they will impose policies that benefit those forces rather than the people who elect them. These “kleptocracies” sink their countries even further into the spiral of debt.
Another way in which rich countries benefit from maintaining others in a state of unrest and poverty is through the brain drain of professionals seeking better conditions in the developed world. In this way it is the poor countries that pay for their education and the rich ones that take advantage of their expertise. This is corruption proper derailing all the African and other related regions of the world with a similar opportunity. We can eliminate the policies imposed on our sovereignty.
Solving the community problems against Terrorism:
Confronted with this catalogue of disasters somebody may be surprised to see that the African media echoes the preoccupation with terrorism as the main concern. As Michael Moore so accurately depicts in his book “Dude, where is my country?” many millions more people die from other causes than through terrorism. Paraphrasing him we could say that not only are poverty and disease more dangerous to African people than terrorism but that public transport, public health, and even people themselves (through suicide) are more dangerous to African people than terrorism. The particularly malignant effect of African media adopting the views of their European and American counterparts is an unwitting promotion of the stereotypical image that whites are more capable and intelligent than the black population. This racist and destructive lie creates further impediments to African development through a lack of belief in its people’s own capacity.
Culture in solving the community problems:
Africa is also caught in the cultural conundrum in which many people feel that abandoning old customs to create a new society could be detrimental to their sense of identity. In his talk, “Globalization: A Threat to Cultural Diversity?” Salvatore Puledda reminds us that culture is not only a thing of the past but also a project that a community gives itself towards the future:
“I happen to be working for voluntarism with Humanist Movement (an international movement with improvements of humankind and I have helped my feel youth to take action of ideas if they are to sustain themselves and the result of work seems health and with a positive results”.
“I will now try to clarify what this evanescent concept of “identity” means. It is normally believed that a personal or cultural identity relates only to the past that it is a reflection of the historical accumulation of experiences lived by a person or a community of people.
It is as if layers of experiences are accumulated and deposited, and this is what forms identity. This belief derives from a larger belief in the passivity of the human consciousness, wherein the consciousness is perceived as a sort of mirror that simply reflects the world. In reality, things do not go this way. If we look at ourselves, we see that in the important moments of our lives, we make a correlation, a link between our past experiences and the idea of a personal project for the future. This image of the future—which we want to be-is always influencing our actions in the present. This image that we form of the future is as important as our past in creating our personal identities. We are not only what we have done or what has been done to us; we are also our projects, our desires, and our aspirations.
The same dynamic is true for a people, and in this case we speak of cultural identity. Cultural identity is not only the accumulation of ideas, customs, languages, and ways of eating and dressing that come to us from previous generations; it is also what a culture chooses to do with these things in a certain moment of its history. It is the project it gives to itself.”
Maintaining the rich cultural diversity of the African peoples, whilst finding the common objectives and needs of the continent seems to be the only way that Africa could protect itself from the assault on its people and resources.
Africa should not fear being as creative as it feels in how it plans its model. In fact it is the continent in the best possible situation to choose a truly original model that will put it in the vanguard of human progress. Whilst the Americas, in particular the north, South-East Asia and Europe are firmly married to the free market dogma, with all its dehumanizing side-effects, Africa could choose to create a truly humanist society based on putting the value of human beings as the central value of the new society, above money and power, to eliminate discrimination, celebrating the diversity of its people, to declare freedom of beliefs and ideas, to pursue the development of knowledge and to share it freely, and to eliminate violence in all its forms whether physical, economic, racial, religious, psychological, sexual, etc.
This would lead Africa to become not another trading and military bloc competing for hegemony but rather the first chapter in the creation of the Universal Human Nation, which is the objective of those who share an interest in the current of thought known as New Humanism.
Solving the community problem against Violence:
An impediment to progressing in this direction has been that many people who despair of their conditions attempt to escape through the road of violence. Violence cannot be the tool to fight the prevailing system, not just because it is morally wrong, but also because it is the very methodology of the inhuman system in which we are submerged. To justify violence for “our” side is to justify it for everybody else, and so the system thrives on guerrilla movements, terrorism, popular violent uprising and wars. With the justification of self-defence, the need to punish those responsible for atrocities or simply to “prevent” further violence military budgets become inflated and painfully achieved human rights legislation gets by-passed. True dissidents of the present brutal system, do not play its violent game but make a void to its violence. To oppose the present violent system through the imitation of its methods is tantamount to maintaining it.
Solving the community problems with Education:
One of the biggest challenges facing Africa today is education, which in turn would also help solve issues of health and infrastructure. But in the global world education refers to the acquisition of information and the production of academic and intellectual works. Education for a new world and a new model based on non-violent principles is imperative in order not to reproduce once again, the same society that has brought so much suffering to its people.
Education to Solving the community problems against violence:
Violence has already taken root in individuals, their relationships with their environment and the global system. A programme that promotes education in a different direction should address all these fields of human activity if it intends to produce deep changes rather than covering the situation with another layer of deception by pretending that simplistic solutions and more money are the answer.
Individuals today live in fear, feeling at the mercy of situations of violence over which they seem to have little control. This coupled with the progressive reduction of self-esteem and the contradictions between feelings, thoughts and actions conspire to create hopelessness and helplessness in people. We mentioned above, the lack of self-belief promoted by a Euro centric media. Nothing illustrates this point better than this quote taken from Nelson Mandela’s book, “The long walk to freedom”.
“We put down briefly in Khartoum, where we changed to an Ethiopian Airways flight to Addis. Here I experienced a rather strange sensation. As I was boarding the plane I saw that the pilot was black. I had never seen a black pilot before, and the instant I did I had to quell my panic. How could a black man fly a plane? But a moment later I caught myself: I had fallen into the apartheid mind-set, thinking Africans were inferior and that flying was a white man’s job. I sat back in my seat, and chided myself for such thoughts…”
Education for a new non-violent Africa must help individuals overcome their tensions, fears, contradictions and destructive self-deprecation.
Individualism promotion and competition in solving the community problems:
Although Africa is one of the few places that preserves a sense of community, the influence of the global system promoting individualism and competition as the most appropriate forms of human interaction are making in-roads and destroying the valuable solidarity still present. In addition, local cultures are still attached to their elements of violence for fear of losing; identity, spiritual guidance and a sense of belonging. Learning to differentiate between where culture ends and violence begins is essential in the process of educating the population into non-violent ways of relating to one another.
Our day-to-day, individual and relational work towards a new society seems dwarfed by the enormous task of changing the direction of the global system in which we are immersed. Institutions and organizations promote and perpetuate discrimination, inequality, social injustice and values that are alien to a world truly fit for human development. However each individual has the capacity to organise his or her immediate environment in the direction of neutralizing this influence. One of the (few) advantages of globalization has been to allow millions of people to network, interchange and strengthen each other’s resolve to carry out this task. The media echoes time and again, the litany from the powers-that-be “this system is not perfect, but it is the only one we have”. The shortening of distances through rapid means of transportation, the internet and the growing awareness that the environmental damage respects no borders have made this world truly one. We cannot take at face value that there are no alternatives because so many alternatives circulate and are known by millions of people, still trying to find their way into the global consciousness.
Africans have today, the possibility of either continuing to live by values and intentions not of their choosing or to start to wake up to the alternatives. This means to intentionally devise ways of changing the social structures that surround them at the same time as changing their own structures of thought and feeling. Neutralizing the years of learning and believing uncritically the output from both colonial education and subtle messages from the media as well as a cultural conditioning that was not freely chosen is absolutely necessary for the mental emancipation of the African people.
Conclusion:
Being an African is an identity meant to reflect just my home area where I feel to realize the work of humanism taking roots. Community work is about association of beliefs and ideas to let things happen. Our initiative as youth is to work for the future of our old age time with pension rewards of our own indigenous initiatives. The support would be the level upon which our local activities would receive outstanding audiences in the spirit of reciprocity. We must not realise our deginity and well being from just a corner of the money kingdom power donation to our soverinity. We have brains and hands to transform our own cause by our own selves. . The approaches of Humanitarianism have indeed failed in solving the community problems than a conscious humanism that is based on self-belief on guided principals of; (1) Placing of the human existence as the highest value and consideration, (2) Supporting the equality of all human beings, (3) Recognition of personal and cultural diversity, (4) Evolution of knowledge beyond what is accepted as absolute truth, (4) Supporting in freedom of ideas and believes, (6) Denying of any form of violence.
There is a step towards a more clearer, amore concrete and a more feasible option that takes into an account the human genre. The socialization of new humanist opposite to charity, upon which humanitarian is based; is done on the conceptual reasoning of the RECIPROCITY: this means “you learn in order to teach other” or “you received help in order to help others”.
Let Africans support their own initiatives by themselves becoming part and partial of their own history in making. Our zeal is one universal kingdom of a humanism nation
The world today puts Africa and the rest of the world regions, in a conundrum of the recent oppression of colonial past, mainly under European domination and at the same time taking its old matters as the models to follow in economic, cultural and existential terms. These are factors that confuse the drive for an identity and a model to emerge from the scourges of poverty, education, and lack of effective health services (bringing about HIV/AIDS, TUBERCLOUSES, Malaria and others), EDUCATION, CONFLICTS etc.
After years of activity by many NGOs and Humanitarian associations, the situation on our 3rd world continents has not improved; Infact it has gotten worse! In the face of so much human suffering, many positions and organizations today encourage people to unselfishly help the dispossessed and those who suffer discrimination. Associations, volunteer groups, and large numbers of individuals are on occasion moved to make positive contributions. However, while the action of those groups does not focus on transformation of the underplayed structures that give rise to the problems, nothing important will change. The approaches of Humanitarianism have indeed failed in solving the community problems than a conscious humanism that is based on self-belief on guided principals of; (1) Placing of the human existence as the highest value and consideration, (2) Supporting the equality of all human beings, (3) Recognition of personal and cultural diversity, (4) Evolution of knowledge beyond what is accepted as absolute truth, (4) Supporting in freedom of ideas and believes, (6) Denying of any form of violence.
Solving community problems calls for the following considerations of;
1. Action in put with the citizens,
2. Selection of particular problems at each time By The Citizens,
3. Investigation By The Citizens,
4. The positive planning By The Citizens,
5. Skills development By The Citizens,
6. A sustainable future and vision development By The Citizens,
7. Evaluation as well as reflection By The Citizens.
If people are united as said by the Director General of UNESCO – Mr. koichiro Matsuura, my belief in Solving Community Problems becomes a common man’s philosophy of the shift from the sense of money kingdom to freedom of expression of Ideas and beliefs from all sorts of people.
The struggle for freed community should begin with an absolute mental emancipation of the African people and to them that are still laboring at the mercy of neo – slavery thus driven by globalized financial institutions whose epicenter is in US.
The believe in human being for personal and social change has to be re-structured upon volunteerism, belief and ideas with the action plan based on the concept of RECIPROCITY. This is a true human society developed on horizons of a strong Foundation and beliefs that would solve community problems.
The table of contents: pages
1. Topic ……………………………………………………………………………2
2. Introduction………………………………………………………..…………….2
3. What is required in solving community problems:……………….……………..3
4. Activities in solving community problems’……………………………………..4
5. Solving community problems would be guided;
6. With following humanists principals…………………………………………….4
7. Behavior values:…………………………………………………………………5
8. Solving community problems in Africa…………………………………………5
9. Wars and Conflicts:………………………………………………………………6
10. Solving the community problems against Corruption:…………………………..6
11. Solving the community problems against Terrorism:……………………………7
12. Culture in solving the community problems:……………………………….……7
13. Solving the community problem against Violence:………………………………8
14. Solving the community problems with Education:………………………………8
15. Education to solving the community problems against violence:………………..9
16. Individualism promotion and competition in solving the community problems…9
17. Conclusion:…………………………………………………………… ………..10
TOPIC:
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE SOLUTIONS TO COMMUNITY PROBLEMS PARTICULARLY ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT.(i.e. Education, HIV/Aids, Conflict, Employment, Literacy e.t.c)
Introduction:
In every culture, society or village problems almost assimilate especially to countries under the super powers. The fact remains that many cultures and beliefs or tradition in respect with ethnicity, tribe or language face more less the common problems that affect our society.
The world today is heading in swift of the history making into a one nation of globalization call it the global village or community. Many systems have isolated in the tackling of the issues called the problems that affect our society or community but only to watch always the increases of these problems as identified in this question. Our community really lives in apartheid of being left out on islands of life just because poor infrastructure education, lack of employment wars and conflict and so on.
Solving community problems calls for an action worth the humanist concern. The concern with the people we live with at all levels, the concern in respect of what they believe into, plus their livelihood and culture. The Director general of UNESCO- Mr.koichiro Matsuura believes in the unity of mankind as citizens with a strong unity for action themselves addressing the issues affecting them and their community.
After years of active service by many ngos and humanitarian association the situation on our continent as Africans has failed to improve. Thanks for the contributions and support rendered to various victims of circumstances. Their influences in one way or the other is respected but things are worsening despite the fact that these institutions and association are active with their contribution to the society. In fact their effort have only strengthened dependence of external help bailing out our internal confidence to self sustain our selves. Without them we cannot inter depend on our own.
In the face of so much human suffering, many positions and organizations today encourage people to unselfishly help the dispossessed and those who suffer discrimination. Nevertheless however volunteer groups and large numbers of individuals are on occasion moved to make positive contributions but if they do not focus on transformation of the underlying structures that give to the problems, then nothing important will change. Their approaches are more closely related to humanitarianism other than to conscious Humanism.
Humanism is a belief that all are volunteers who believe in human being in the possibility for personal and social change. This is a foundation of a true human society being built upon.
What is required in solving community problems:
Solving community problems requires a demonstration through volunteers from different cultures and countries ho organize themselves, grow and get stronger in order to perform and develop the great changes that can be fore seen in the horizon, in such a way that these changes can be oriented towards a truly human society.
A demonstration for anti-retroviral therapy was organized in may 2004 in Italy making Rome the capital city as an international crossroads for proposals and for a world appeal to start a new phase in the fight against the Aids pandemic. Remember that the continent of Africa is estimated to be with 30 million people that are being affected by HIV/Aids. A demonstration of such kind can bring the healing to our community, thus solving the community problems. I in particular used to organize such activities of the demonstration in the fight against our rights at the collage. One of the peaceful demostration was to counter understaffed lecturers and power failure through out the collage mainly because of administration reluctance to provide the campus with the generator. In two month’s time not even 60 days the community of the students became the victors.
Solving for community problems call for expression in practice of the ideal to humanize the earth and to build a universal human nation in which every human being has the same rights and the same opportunities because of the simple fact of being born human.
Solving community problems calls for self-organization that is highly structured to work simultaneously for personal development and social transformation.
Solving community problems is a behavior to be adopted as away to look a sensibility of human beings and the world, recognizing the intention of freedom of what is human getting involved in the fight against discrimination and violence.
Solving community problems with humanism is one way of expressing every activity needed to give value to the human being in the immediate environment, through concrete projects that are based on self financing, self organization reciprocity and human work.
Solving community problems is to centralize the conscious humanism in the increase of human organization and the reinforcement of social action. The most important thing is to change our situation, to give our environment a true human direction that could deeply renew the life of each man, of each woman and of each child.
Solving community problems rejects selfness to promote a great deal of independence, a great freedom of judgment. This might not be so easy for humanitarian institutions that have their own dynamics and that are in additon, dependent on economic and ideological matters.
Activities in solving community problems’
Solving community problems calls for skills and development to perform identified activities within the community. Some skills in technology usage of things like computers, sewing machines, soap production, artistic work, planting, breeding, nursing etc. literacy classes ought be organized in educating the masses of our communities. In many countries literacy program has been launched to solve the problem of under education amongst the grown up citizens. With humanism we find that an informal place either in schools during weekends or an abandoned half- destroyed houses are organized for literacy classes for free. Classes would be organized under a tree. The teachers are volunteers. This is a step to solving community problem.
The spirit of humanism once adopted by her citizens within the community different campaigns has to be organized in prevention against diseases and poor sanitation. We must do some thing against malaria Tuberculoses, HIV in our areas.
Solving community problems would be guided with following humanists principals.
If man is guided with the humanist attitude, a moral base, which guides his actions to other people, the following principals must be considered as factors:
· Placing of the human existence as the highest value and consideration
· Supporting the equality of all human beings
· Recognition of personal and cultural diversity.
· Evolution of knowledge beyond what is accepted as absolute truth.
· Support in freedom of ideas and beliefs,
· Denying of violence.
In principal humanism does not need for a large amount of knowledge or strong exercises for someone in order to be considered humanist, it would be enough to express the way he/she feels, this special sensitivity through his/her way of living.
Humanism should be viewed with the following and fundamental points towards community problems.
1. I think, I feel and I act forward the same direction and
2. I treat others the way I want to be treated.
There is no doubt that behind this so-called simplicity exists a new scale of values, a new morality on top of which is cohesion. With this in our hands we set for the true meaning of personal and social living. Whoever bases his/ her actions, for every thing is done in his/ her life, in this kind of sensibility, will evolve a way of living, becoming a very clear reliance for his/ her social environment.
Looking at our homes and families, our friends and the people surrounding us, we tend to realize and know some thing about their lives; some being well off and other Not. Their hopes and fears, their sadness, their weakness, their difficulties, and more than all recognizing inside them their enormous willing for life such questions should rest in our minds;
· What can I do in order to help them?
· What can I do in order to make them smiling?
· What can I do in order to make them feel joy?
The solution would be I intend to see them soon and talk to them for everything new! I have learned.
Whilst people are to get the idea of humanism right and tend to practice this value of behavior forming a networking of people in different groups like in my COUNCIL 71, empowering them with a sensibility to appreciate others much different from the one which is dominant in these days, community problems would become less burdened every day in and out.
Behavior values:
In this values of behavior there are two important things to observe.
a) The behavior that someone demands from the other and,
b) The behavior that someone is intended to have to the others.
The behavior that someone demands from the other:
The behavior that some one demands from others means to always accept a behavior without violence and to ask as for help in order to improve our lives. This was always valid among the most violet people and the exploiters who desire every one’s cooperation for their injustice interests. So behavior some one demands is much different from the one that someone is intended to offer.
The behavior that someone is intended to have to the others:
The behavior that someone is intended to have to the others means utilitarianistic or usual behavior; this is the behavior against extreme or cruel behavior. How do I use objects, money and animals in order to care about others in circumstances to become useful, in this everyday or the other?
This means that treating some one with solidarity and reliability to the beloved persons, the behavior to these strange people/or persons in which we identify ourselves, because there is a similarity in both our conditions or just because we assume that the strange person could support us, these are special conditions in which the beloved persons are not equals not to be referred as strangers.
Solving community problems in Africa
Africa’s a wakening to the new millennium is fraught with difficulties arising from its past and the challenges to the future in a world dominated by violence, wars and conflicts, lack of basics in education, economical wars, health difficulties and importantly poor infrastructure and the kingdom of money as the only recognized value in solving the community problems. Africans plus the continent have found us in a conundrum, trying to make away from the oppression of its recent colonial past, mainly under European domination and at the same time taking its old masters as the models to follow in economic, cultural and existential terms, Africa a state of confusion and a model to scourged poverty, lack of effective health services, education, pushing man on the walls of margin. That is why humanist activities promote various clubs for women and the youth to promote advocacies in the defense of their group rights, where the legal advocacy and justice has gone lacking. This ambivalence towards Europe opened the door to neo-colonialism and neo-slavery driven by the globalised financial institutions such as the World Bank, The IMF, The world Trade Organization etc with their epicenter in the US.
The globalization world Empire still has the so-called “Free Market” as its only proposed organizational system. This is just speculation to hide the gospel of truth underground against the black people, people still avenged with cuirmstances like famine, Education health problems etc to the so called donor community and other agencies. Speculative investment for rapid profit, without commitment to production or to the people and the one-sided abolition of trade restrictions but only for money and goods, not for workers, are increasing the north-south economic gap, contributing to impoverishing and disempowering African countries even more. International organizations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization purportedly created to bridge the gap act shamelessly as agents of the richest countries. Debt servicing locks the economy of countries dependent on foreign money into an ever-increasing spiral of poverty-further loans-corruption-decreased public services and higher debt servicing, from where few see a way out.
Wars and Conflicts:
Wars fuelled by the arms trade seek new arenas and new customers finding fertile ground in countries dominated by injustice where old tribal rivalries are re-enforced by the more recent introduction of fierce competition as part of the free-market model. As more and more areas of manufacturing industry move to developing countries, only hi-technology and weapons continue to be produced in the rich countries, needing in this way more wars (preferably away from their own territories) to balance their economies through these very restrictive markets. Often a poverty-stricken region rejoices at the arrival of factories from the North without realizing that this increases the need to find more areas of unrest to place the products of the arms manufacturers.
Solving the community problems against Corruption:
Much has been made of corruption as the leading cause of economic disaster in African countries. What people are less aware of is that international financial forces favor corrupt politicians, as they will impose policies that benefit those forces rather than the people who elect them. These “kleptocracies” sink their countries even further into the spiral of debt.
Another way in which rich countries benefit from maintaining others in a state of unrest and poverty is through the brain drain of professionals seeking better conditions in the developed world. In this way it is the poor countries that pay for their education and the rich ones that take advantage of their expertise. This is corruption proper derailing all the African and other related regions of the world with a similar opportunity. We can eliminate the policies imposed on our sovereignty.
Solving the community problems against Terrorism:
Confronted with this catalogue of disasters somebody may be surprised to see that the African media echoes the preoccupation with terrorism as the main concern. As Michael Moore so accurately depicts in his book “Dude, where is my country?” many millions more people die from other causes than through terrorism. Paraphrasing him we could say that not only are poverty and disease more dangerous to African people than terrorism but that public transport, public health, and even people themselves (through suicide) are more dangerous to African people than terrorism. The particularly malignant effect of African media adopting the views of their European and American counterparts is an unwitting promotion of the stereotypical image that whites are more capable and intelligent than the black population. This racist and destructive lie creates further impediments to African development through a lack of belief in its people’s own capacity.
Culture in solving the community problems:
Africa is also caught in the cultural conundrum in which many people feel that abandoning old customs to create a new society could be detrimental to their sense of identity. In his talk, “Globalization: A Threat to Cultural Diversity?” Salvatore Puledda reminds us that culture is not only a thing of the past but also a project that a community gives itself towards the future:
“I happen to be working for voluntarism with Humanist Movement (an international movement with improvements of humankind and I have helped my feel youth to take action of ideas if they are to sustain themselves and the result of work seems health and with a positive results”.
“I will now try to clarify what this evanescent concept of “identity” means. It is normally believed that a personal or cultural identity relates only to the past that it is a reflection of the historical accumulation of experiences lived by a person or a community of people.
It is as if layers of experiences are accumulated and deposited, and this is what forms identity. This belief derives from a larger belief in the passivity of the human consciousness, wherein the consciousness is perceived as a sort of mirror that simply reflects the world. In reality, things do not go this way. If we look at ourselves, we see that in the important moments of our lives, we make a correlation, a link between our past experiences and the idea of a personal project for the future. This image of the future—which we want to be-is always influencing our actions in the present. This image that we form of the future is as important as our past in creating our personal identities. We are not only what we have done or what has been done to us; we are also our projects, our desires, and our aspirations.
The same dynamic is true for a people, and in this case we speak of cultural identity. Cultural identity is not only the accumulation of ideas, customs, languages, and ways of eating and dressing that come to us from previous generations; it is also what a culture chooses to do with these things in a certain moment of its history. It is the project it gives to itself.”
Maintaining the rich cultural diversity of the African peoples, whilst finding the common objectives and needs of the continent seems to be the only way that Africa could protect itself from the assault on its people and resources.
Africa should not fear being as creative as it feels in how it plans its model. In fact it is the continent in the best possible situation to choose a truly original model that will put it in the vanguard of human progress. Whilst the Americas, in particular the north, South-East Asia and Europe are firmly married to the free market dogma, with all its dehumanizing side-effects, Africa could choose to create a truly humanist society based on putting the value of human beings as the central value of the new society, above money and power, to eliminate discrimination, celebrating the diversity of its people, to declare freedom of beliefs and ideas, to pursue the development of knowledge and to share it freely, and to eliminate violence in all its forms whether physical, economic, racial, religious, psychological, sexual, etc.
This would lead Africa to become not another trading and military bloc competing for hegemony but rather the first chapter in the creation of the Universal Human Nation, which is the objective of those who share an interest in the current of thought known as New Humanism.
Solving the community problem against Violence:
An impediment to progressing in this direction has been that many people who despair of their conditions attempt to escape through the road of violence. Violence cannot be the tool to fight the prevailing system, not just because it is morally wrong, but also because it is the very methodology of the inhuman system in which we are submerged. To justify violence for “our” side is to justify it for everybody else, and so the system thrives on guerrilla movements, terrorism, popular violent uprising and wars. With the justification of self-defence, the need to punish those responsible for atrocities or simply to “prevent” further violence military budgets become inflated and painfully achieved human rights legislation gets by-passed. True dissidents of the present brutal system, do not play its violent game but make a void to its violence. To oppose the present violent system through the imitation of its methods is tantamount to maintaining it.
Solving the community problems with Education:
One of the biggest challenges facing Africa today is education, which in turn would also help solve issues of health and infrastructure. But in the global world education refers to the acquisition of information and the production of academic and intellectual works. Education for a new world and a new model based on non-violent principles is imperative in order not to reproduce once again, the same society that has brought so much suffering to its people.
Education to Solving the community problems against violence:
Violence has already taken root in individuals, their relationships with their environment and the global system. A programme that promotes education in a different direction should address all these fields of human activity if it intends to produce deep changes rather than covering the situation with another layer of deception by pretending that simplistic solutions and more money are the answer.
Individuals today live in fear, feeling at the mercy of situations of violence over which they seem to have little control. This coupled with the progressive reduction of self-esteem and the contradictions between feelings, thoughts and actions conspire to create hopelessness and helplessness in people. We mentioned above, the lack of self-belief promoted by a Euro centric media. Nothing illustrates this point better than this quote taken from Nelson Mandela’s book, “The long walk to freedom”.
“We put down briefly in Khartoum, where we changed to an Ethiopian Airways flight to Addis. Here I experienced a rather strange sensation. As I was boarding the plane I saw that the pilot was black. I had never seen a black pilot before, and the instant I did I had to quell my panic. How could a black man fly a plane? But a moment later I caught myself: I had fallen into the apartheid mind-set, thinking Africans were inferior and that flying was a white man’s job. I sat back in my seat, and chided myself for such thoughts…”
Education for a new non-violent Africa must help individuals overcome their tensions, fears, contradictions and destructive self-deprecation.
Individualism promotion and competition in solving the community problems:
Although Africa is one of the few places that preserves a sense of community, the influence of the global system promoting individualism and competition as the most appropriate forms of human interaction are making in-roads and destroying the valuable solidarity still present. In addition, local cultures are still attached to their elements of violence for fear of losing; identity, spiritual guidance and a sense of belonging. Learning to differentiate between where culture ends and violence begins is essential in the process of educating the population into non-violent ways of relating to one another.
Our day-to-day, individual and relational work towards a new society seems dwarfed by the enormous task of changing the direction of the global system in which we are immersed. Institutions and organizations promote and perpetuate discrimination, inequality, social injustice and values that are alien to a world truly fit for human development. However each individual has the capacity to organise his or her immediate environment in the direction of neutralizing this influence. One of the (few) advantages of globalization has been to allow millions of people to network, interchange and strengthen each other’s resolve to carry out this task. The media echoes time and again, the litany from the powers-that-be “this system is not perfect, but it is the only one we have”. The shortening of distances through rapid means of transportation, the internet and the growing awareness that the environmental damage respects no borders have made this world truly one. We cannot take at face value that there are no alternatives because so many alternatives circulate and are known by millions of people, still trying to find their way into the global consciousness.
Africans have today, the possibility of either continuing to live by values and intentions not of their choosing or to start to wake up to the alternatives. This means to intentionally devise ways of changing the social structures that surround them at the same time as changing their own structures of thought and feeling. Neutralizing the years of learning and believing uncritically the output from both colonial education and subtle messages from the media as well as a cultural conditioning that was not freely chosen is absolutely necessary for the mental emancipation of the African people.
Conclusion:
Being an African is an identity meant to reflect just my home area where I feel to realize the work of humanism taking roots. Community work is about association of beliefs and ideas to let things happen. Our initiative as youth is to work for the future of our old age time with pension rewards of our own indigenous initiatives. The support would be the level upon which our local activities would receive outstanding audiences in the spirit of reciprocity. We must not realise our deginity and well being from just a corner of the money kingdom power donation to our soverinity. We have brains and hands to transform our own cause by our own selves. . The approaches of Humanitarianism have indeed failed in solving the community problems than a conscious humanism that is based on self-belief on guided principals of; (1) Placing of the human existence as the highest value and consideration, (2) Supporting the equality of all human beings, (3) Recognition of personal and cultural diversity, (4) Evolution of knowledge beyond what is accepted as absolute truth, (4) Supporting in freedom of ideas and believes, (6) Denying of any form of violence.
There is a step towards a more clearer, amore concrete and a more feasible option that takes into an account the human genre. The socialization of new humanist opposite to charity, upon which humanitarian is based; is done on the conceptual reasoning of the RECIPROCITY: this means “you learn in order to teach other” or “you received help in order to help others”.
Let Africans support their own initiatives by themselves becoming part and partial of their own history in making. Our zeal is one universal kingdom of a humanism nation
posted by mwesigye herbert at 10:06 AM
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