They call him The Great White Hope and when you meet David Patient it is easy to understand the nickname.  He is handsome, healthy, filled with vitality and vision despite his AIDS diagnosis nearly thirty years ago. To receive this diagnosis in 1983 on your twenty-second birthday was a death sentence.  The killer disease was just beginning to be seen and recognized in the hospitals of America. David beat all the odds and now crisscrosses sub-saharan Africa with his partner at Empowerment Concepts, research psychologist Neil Orr, to teach and inspire others to stand up and claim their future.

They began work with HIV+ people when they were one of the few real voices of knowledge and hope in South Africa in the late 90‘s. Their Positive Health workshops covered everything from how to grow vegetables to the need for friends but the emphasis was always on personal responsibility, choice and the vision of a positive future.  Having worked with thousands, they find their message is true for folks who are positive or negative, teenagers, grannies and everyone in between, corporate teams, government agencies and struggling communities. How do the lessons AIDS taught David figure into their teaching these days?

The first thing he did when given six months to live was to go out to buy a coffin and plan his funeral down to the last detail. He met his fear of death by facing it, then, quickly, turned his attention to the business of living. He bought a house with a thirty year mortgage, began planting trees and dreaming of sailing a yacht. He first bought a coffee mug with an picture on it of himself sailing a yacht at sunrise. Nineteen months later he was steering his own yacht in the waters off the San Juan Islands.

Holding a positive vision of your future firmly in your heart, is a central theme of David’s message and by this he doesn’t mean a whimsical day dream floating about in your mind. No, this is where he sternly instructs you to “turn your wishbone into a backbone.” You must have the capacity to envision yourself fully engaged in that future in a way that makes your heart beat fast. “Find a vision of yourself that blows your hair back.” See it, feel it fully and then begin to walk resolutely towards that future step by step, action by action, choice by choice.

The vision that has held his attention for years is one in which he is speaking to a huge crowd, telling the story of the time when there was a thing called AIDS. It is this vision that informs his instincts, his actions and choices. We haven’t  reached the moment yet when he can tell this tale but we are getting close.

At the world AIDS conference in July there they was the remarkable understanding that AIDS is now a treatable disease. It seems miraculous to hear that with proper medical care, an HIV+ person’s projected life span is in line with the general population’s.

As the AIDS conference occurs, I want to recognize David for all the wit and wisdom, information and inspiration he has offered to so many people for so many years. I look forward to being in the audience when his vision happens in real time for he is one of the true heroes of the thing called AIDS. He has given hope and tools to many and his capacity to merge vision with action is a message we can all take to heart.

About the author:

Judy Miller divides her time between Portland, Oregon and Limpopo Province, South Africa. In 2000, she left a private counseling practice in Portland and spent the next ten years working in community development in rural South Africa. Currently, Judy continues to support the Mapusha Weaving Cooperative and the Katlego creche in Rooiboklaagte while working in Portland as a writer, speaker and teacher. Her passion is to inspire and to help create a vibrant global community with ever-deepening bonds of connection and understanding between peoples.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

How do you help children from poor, rural communities to identify themselves as changemakers?

In order to break the cycle of poverty, people must be empowered to make change happen in their own lives. But in the rural community in South Africa where I work, change comes at a slow snail’s pace. I am always trying to discover new ways to teach children – many of whom who eat the same thing for dinner night after night and rarely leave their village – that they have the power to change things, to solve problems and to make a difference in their lives and in their world.

Bill Drayton, a renowned social entrepreneur and founder of Ashoka, envisions a world where everyone is a changemaker. And with his words in mind, I began to question people in the community.

Regina Hlabane, the thoughtful and articulate chairperson of the local weaving cooperative, likes the idea that children should learn that they can change the world. However, she adds, “First you must teach us how to change the world. We don’t know that, so how can we teach that to our children?”

She makes a good point.

Next, I speak with a local primary school teacher, Sonia Foure, who feels that children first must learn they can change themselves. They can learn to care for their clothes and their hair and their school books and then feel proud of themselves. “You don’t have to have money to take a rag and clean your shoes,” she says succinctly.

And Emerencia Mohlolo, the administrator at the local primary school, believes that success comes when children are encouraged to dream. She makes appointments with some of the poorest children to simply listen to them and encourage them to dream of what could be.

But it is as I watch children in an art class working with their teacher to paint the wall of the nursery school that my attention is truly captured. They are creating change in the most visceral of terms; an aged once-white wall is becoming a brightly colored mural of an elephant standing by a stream at dawn.

Walter Sibuyi, balanced on a rickety ladder with a can of red paint, begins the mural painting. But soon all the children have a paintbrush, a cut off plastic coke bottle paint container and an area to paint. They work hard with their teacher for three days and the completed mural is wonderful. The kids are proud of their wall and everyone who goes by notices the change and smiles at the elephant washing himself on the face of the nursery school.

Maybe being part of the team that transformed a white wall to a beautiful picture will begin to strengthen the changemaker muscle within these children. Maybe in art class they will have the experience of beginning with a blank white sheet of paper and ending with something bright and wonderful. Then they will get a taste of that heady creative power that effects change.

Just as Ashoka encourages finding innovative solutions to common problems, I am convinced we need to be just as innovative in finding new ways to give the future changemakers of the world the experience of creating change.

I watched art serve as an empowerment trigger. I would be interested to hear your ideas and suggestions for ways to help disadvantaged children understand their power to make things happen.

About the author:

Judy Miller divides her time between Portland, Oregon and Limpopo Province, South Africa. In 2000, she left a private counseling practice in Portland and spent the next ten years working in community development in rural South Africa. Currently, Judy continues to support the Mapusha Weaving Cooperative and the Katlego creche in Rooiboklaagte while working in Portland as a writer, speaker and teacher. Her passion is to inspire and to help create a vibrant global community with ever-deepening bonds of connection and understanding between peoples.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

It was a very hot day last April and I sat in a plastic chair under the shade of an old Amarula tree looking out over the land that will become the Ekurhuleni Center for Orphans and Vulnerable Children. The land was long ago stripped of trees and the dry autumn grasses gave a dusty feel yet beside me were four people with their heads bent over papers, working together intensely despite the heat. The newly formed board of the Ekurhuleni project had approached the director of a non-profit for help. She was working with them to polish their first attempt at writing a grant and honing their grant writing skills for the future.

I watched and wondered if these sincere and hard working visionaries would succeed. Would they be able to pull in all the pieces and help they would need to turn the three contiguous pieces of land in front of me into a center that would someday serve over 300 of the neediest, most vulnerable children in their community of Tintswalo Village, Mpumalanga, South Africa? If so what would be the magic bullet that allowed this project to succeed when so many others have failed?

The project began within the community. Talitha Mthethwa, a retired nurse who worked for 30 years in the local government hospital, saw firsthand the desperation of too many children in her community. She and other concerned residents of Tintswalo Village came together last year and elected a board of directors to address the problem. They had a vision for a center that would serve as a life line for the neediest children but they would need a great deal of help to make their vision a reality.

Now, after less than a year, the land has been acquired and fenced. The board has filed and received non-profit status. Nina Cohen, a well known architect, heard of the project and offered her services pro-bono. She has created a wonderful contemporary design, using indigenous materials, merging indoor and outdoor spaces with gardens and trees galore.

This week a drill will roll up to the land and begin digging the well. I want to  be there to see the first burst of water spurt up from the ground. Just as the name of the non-profit donating the borehole, A Spring of Hope, implies, this will be a moment to celebrate.

The center is becoming a reality because many people and organizations have joined forces, each bringing and offering their gifts and expertise to the project. Community members and non-profits, the local municipal government and local business all coming together to support the vision of a center for their most vulnerable children.

It fuels my sense of what is possible to see what is being accomplished here. So many people collaborating to create the Ekurhuleni Center proves to me that when the I’s and me’s and mine’s dissolve and people work in partnership that the great power of WE is harnessed. Success seems assured and the potential to create change unlimited when the vision inspires people to collaborate and cooperate.

This unfolding story is the type of good news we all need to hear. No one enjoys reading stories of AIDS orphans in Africa. It hurts to hear of a nine year old struggling to care for his younger siblings but it is the situation which has  given birth to this good news story. My vote for the magic bullet that is creating success here in Tintswalo Village goes to the the power of WE. If you would like to see the children of Tintswalo and hear and interview with Talitha, please click here.

Please help to inspire all of us at Mahindra Rise by sharing any good news stories you hear. I would bet that most of them will illustrate the power created when individuals move from the mind set of “I” to the larger “We.”

—

About the author:

Judy Miller divides her time between Portland, Oregon and Limpopo Province, South Africa. In 2000, she left a private counseling practice in Portland and spent the next ten years working in community development in rural South Africa. Currently, Judy continues to support the Mapusha Weaving Cooperative and the Katlego creche in Rooiboklaagte while working in Portland as a writer, speaker and teacher. Her passion is to inspire and to help create a vibrant global community with ever-deepening bonds of connection and understanding between peoples.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.

After ten years of doing community development work in rural South Africa, my curiosity has only grown over time: What is the essential ingredient of the entrepreneurial spark?

Is it a willingness to take risks or the capacity to envision something that doesn’t yet exist? I know it isn’t desperation or opportunity or education that makes the difference. It’s something else. And, when that entrepreneurial spark is lit in one person, the whole community benefits, for it enlivens all.

Gertrude Mbetsi, a sixty-seven-year-old mother of eight and grandmother of thirteen in Rooiboklaagte, South Africa, has this spark.  When faced with the return of two of her four sons, who had been unable to get jobs in Johannesburg, she came up with a brilliant plan to provide more income for her extended family.

Every grandmother in Rooiboklaagte would like to have a freshly-killed chicken for her family’s Sunday dinner, but chickens are expensive out here in the rural village and transport is dear. Gertrude found a young man who raised chickens and asked if he would come out to the village once a month, the day after the pensioners get their monthly stipend. When she went to collect her own pension she told all her friends about the fat chickens coming to the mission yard the next day.  She earned one rand per sold chicken and her friends happily came with their wheelbarrows to take home chickens for their Sunday stew.

Four-year-old Sampiwe Mololo is another example. I was there when she asked her mother please to buy her a bag of candy. When handed the 20-rand bag with thirty-five individually wrapped hard candies, she walked right into the women’s weaving cooperative and sold them individually for 1 rand a piece. She was delighted to show her mother her pocket full of change and all the women laughed and laughed about their four-year-old shopkeeper. Was she exhibiting an inborn gift for mathematics or the attraction to play with money as though it were a game, a form of mental gymnastics?

In an article for the NYT, Nicolas Kristof uses the term ‘grit’ to describe a defining character trait of a prostitute who became a successful seamstress by ripping up old wedding dresses to create fanciful children’s dresses. And David Patient, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1983 and has worked to empower individuals worldwide ever since, answered my query about the one essential quality of the entrepreneurial flare with one word: hardiness. “When you unpack the emotions and ethos behind their actions and way of being, you find they have a thing called hardiness,” he told me.

Maybe Gertrude herself answered the question when she chose the name for a group of unemployed women from her community. She suggested we call the group “Tiyiselani.” When I asked what the Tsonga word meant she said, “It is to be victorious over all obstacles that come in your way.”

I will continue to ponder this and would appreciate any input!

What do you think defines an entrepreneur? Is it a quality one is born with, or a trait that can be cultivated? How do you think we can encourage this entrepreneurial spirit – in India and abroad?

—

About the author:

Judy Miller divides her time between Portland, Oregon and Limpopo Province, South Africa. In 2000, she left a private counseling practice in Portland and spent the next ten years working in community development in rural South Africa. Currently, Judy continues to support the Mapusha Weaving Cooperative and the Katlego creche in Rooiboklaagte while working in Portland as a writer, speaker and teacher. Her passion is to inspire and to help create a vibrant global community with ever-deepening bonds of connection and understanding between peoples.

The views expressed above are those of the author, and not necessarily representative of the views of the Mahindra Group.