The world today has come to be arrested in her development, facing barriers that are causing the system to crack. A barrier between conventional thinking and breakthrough action. The urge for change, as emphasized by the election of Barack Obama, has come. The world, at the same time as it nears collapse, is reaching the tipping point to creation.
Lessons from rural Africa
The world today has come to be arrested in her development, facing barriers that are causing the system to crack. A barrier between conventional thinking and breakthrough action. The urge for change, as emphasized by the election of Barack Obama, has come. The world, at the same time as it nears collapse, is reaching the tipping point to creation. An opportunity to take a momentous leap forward in evolution and bring back much needed development. But what does this mean? How can this change be realized? Answers to these pressing questions might be found in rural Africa.
Macha, a rural community in the Southern province of Zambia, in the last couple of years has seen major development from being a small rural village with no facilities and accommodations to a small rural town. Its development was accompanied by tangible progress in the form of economic growth and a higher standard of living, as well as intangible progress bringing hope to the local community and making them believe they themselves can be the change. However impressive these developments, the real impressiveness lies within the integral approach used to realize them.
Being of holistic nature the approach bases itself on two principles. Recognizing interior human development and taking notice on life conditions. In order for the local community of Macha to develop, the space was held for change to come. Focusing on the long-term, aligning activities to the local culture and intentions, changes were made in structure and systems to alter the life conditions in order to stimulate healthy upward development and realize integral transformation. From a ‘guiding’ instead of ‘leading’ role, with different horizontal projects simultaneously taking place, and ‘not telling people what to do’, local talent and initiative emerged. Macha transformed from being a community frozen in its own old thinking paradigm and beliefs to a community that opened up towards change and that today incorporates new technologies and beliefs in their way of living. Holding the space, local change agents in the community stood up and overcame barriers to change that enabled breakthrough development for the community at large.
Thus going back to today’s global challenges, in order for the world to take a momentous leap forward and bring back development, Obama and other world leaders should hold the space for change to come. They should focus on creating the life conditions that break down barriers for change and that transcend and include conventional thinking into breakthrough action. And although holding space does not give exact direction, it gives the advantage of not knowing and seeing things emerge that are really needed.
‘Everything we need is already there, we only need to hold the space for it to emerge.’
Luckily, this is what is slowly happening now.
M.Sc. Jasper Bets
Researcher, CHE School of Synnervation
Center for Human Emergence Netherlands
www.schoolofsynnervation.nl
jasper.bets@wise-insights.com