I
recently read a 2014 report by the International Youth Foundation on “What
Youths Want”. I was fascinated by the findings reported, and quite surprised
because it was very much alike with the findings of a “2015 Millennial Survey”
conducted by Deloitte. If I were to summarize these reports into the top three wants
of young people today, they will be as follows:
- Well-paying
jobs
- Opportunities
to start their own businesses, and be their own boss
- Opportunities
to make a difference and leave a legacy in society.
Does
that sound like something you want? If yes, then this article is for you. I
shall focus on the third point.
As
a leader who looks to create tremendous value and bring positive change to our
society, learning how to work from grass-root level with civic communities, and
collaborate with both companies and government to drive change is imperative.
It is also a great 21st century skill to learn. This was the bottom line of my
experience in Bario. 90 percent of what we did was building trust, and 10
percent was hitting our goals. From my interview with Daniel, the project
coordinator, as well as from my personal experience, I am convinced that 90
percent of making an impact in any community is about building trust, and 10
percent is achieving your goal. Here’s my story:
The
Community
Bario
is a mountainous community. We presume it is sited on millennial old volcanic
crater, and was covered with water probably thousands of years gone by. The
people there are very lovely. Although a small ethnic group (Kelabit) of less than
seven thousand people scattered across several small villages, they have big
hearts.
Our
project was primarily with two villages namely; Bario Asal and Arur Dalan. Both
of these villages sum up to about 46 – 50 families. A very small population as
you can imagine. Even smaller, because the youths are nowhere to be found in
the village. For the same three “wants” that drive us, they have been driven to
bigger towns and cities, leaving their parents and grandparents in the village.
They desire better well-paying jobs. They want to succeed in the modern world.
They want high quality relevant education. For these reasons, Bario Asal and
Arur Dalan comprise of two age groups predominantly: the older Tepuqs (Boomers
generation), and the grandchildren (Generation Z). From our perspective, these
are the two demographics that need the most support from the Millennials and Baby Boomers. But where are they?
The
Project
This
has inspired the initiation of Project WHEE! in this community. Yet there is another
issue to look at. It is the gender issue. What roles do the men and women play
in contribution to their sustenance and socio-economic life?
The
men are mostly contractors, and as you know contracts are not secure jobs. They
are only temporal. The women work mainly in the paddy fields (rice fields). And
sadly, like in many communities around the world, the women may struggle when
their husbands spend their little earned bucks on leisure activities outside before returning home. Thus, the mission of Project WHEE! is to
improve the socio-economic life of the women in the community. This is done by
teaching them English Language to become better community guides for the increasing
number of tourists visiting the village for its rich environmental and natural heritage.
My
Role
As
you can already decipher, my role in Bario for three weeks was to help certain
Tepuqs learn and improve on their spoken English, and to document trail
highlights for them. By this I mean, visiting all her farms and the villages
tour sites e.g. the hydro dam, tapioca farm etc. During the long walk
(usually between 45 minutes to 2 hours), I look carefully around me to spot
highlights worth talking about. I document them and also extract more
information about it from my Tepuq by asking her questions. After documenting
these trail highlights, I shall then guide her on how to tell these stories to
her tourists when they arrive.
Like
you can begin to imagine, it is not easy to get into a community in one day,
and begin to get some success with this task both for the project initiators
and for volunteers as myself. How do you convince them that you’re there to
help? How would you show them that you’re sincere and you care, and as a
stranger why should they open their arms, farms and homes to you?
The
answer is this: Build Trust! There’s no short cut to it. Don’t even try to look
for any shortcut. You just have to master the ABCs of building trust:
- Accept Rejection
as normal. In fact, welcome it!
- Build your ethos
by leveraging from situations or people they are comfortable with.
- Cultivate that feeling of trust,
and always repeat step 2.
My
Rejection Story
My
first Bario experience was a painful rejection. For the record, I was the
second international volunteer on this project, and the first African. Here we
were at the Meet and Greet, getting introduced to our Tepuqs and expecting a
warm embrace, or at least a smile at first. But I didn’t get anything close to
that. Rather, my beloved Tepuq looked at me, without the trace of any relaxed
muscles on her face, and then she
began to speak in Kelabit, pointing at me and pointing to the right.
The
interpretation I perceived was “Why is this one with me? He should be with
someone else.” I looked around me. Everyone was having a conversation with
their Tepuqs, with smiles and butterflies in the air. But here I was, trying to
say “Tepuq, how are you?” and she wouldn’t even listen. I almost gave up. Well,
I think I did give up. I called on the project coordinators to handle the
issue. Then I walked away.
As
I took those steps away from her, that little fellow inside all of us (you know
him, right? They call him Mr. Inspiration) began to speak to me. He said “David,
persistence!” That’s all he said. And he simply repeated those words until I
was fed up of hearing it. Then I said to myself “I must persist through this
rejection”. I think that was the best decision I made throughout my trip. Immediately,
I turned and said to my partner, Nurul Iman, we must persist. Iman, quite
surprised by Tepuq's reaction, also garnered courage.
Soon,
it was tea time. Sited around the long table in the longhouse were my batch
mates with their respective Tepuqs having a good time, chatting and laughing
and exchanging presents. Where was my Tepuq? She was sitting with another group
talking and laughing with them. This went on for a while, until that small
fellow came to harass me again. He said “Do you build trust sitting here? Go
and sit with and speak to her!” I obeyed. Again, I called Iman, and we squeezed
ourselves to the small space around her. “Te-p-u-q…” we began a conversation.
With the presence and help of another batch mate (Kylie), with whom she was
previously speaking with, we managed to have some success; perhaps 1 gram of
trust if it could be weighed. Yikes! Mr. Inspiration was right, you persist
through rejection to build trust.
Building
My Ethos
To
end the night with joy, we offered to walk Tepuq back to her house. She resisted
but later obliged. I invited Kylie to come with us. I figured she likes Kylie and
was comfortable around her. My strategy was to maintain that comfortable atmosphere
around her, and then capitalize on that to build my ethos. By “ethos” I mean
the presentation of character as a person to be trusted. Like Aristotle
believed, ethos must arise from speech than from preconceived ideas. Dressing
is part of ethos. One of the first observations is respect. How respectful are
you, what’s your response to anger, abuse, unkindness, misrepresentation etc.
All these contribute to building ethos, and were my focus.
The
three of us, Kylie, Iman and I dropped her at her house, gave her a casual hug
(at least for me) with a smile, and walked back with a wide grin on our faces.
“At last she is able to smile back at us!” Iman and I basked in joy. But that
wasn’t the end of the journey. I must have to work on the other aspects of
ethos on a daily basis.
Cultivating
Trust
It
was 7.55AM, Iman and I dashed off to Tepuq’s house. She had asked us to be
there at 8AM. The culture in Bario is this: If you arrive late, you’ll have to
find your own way to the paddy field. No hard feelings. It’s just the way it’s
done. You do not want to be late, in that sense. You do not want to erode your
ethos on your first day. Being there on time as part of reinforcing that 1 gram of trust we had built yesterday. Iman and I passed the test!
Although
Tepuq wasn’t prepared for paddy yet, we waited for her. She exclaimed “You come
so early!” and we went like, “Yes Tepuq, you had asked us to be here at 8AM,” and she laughed. I was glad because we were scoring more points. Every moment was
crucial for me, especially during those first days. We brought more gifts
for her. Thanks to the project coordinator who had informed us that she likes
cookies. She was so excited to receive those cookies from us. Again, we scored
more points!
At
about 9AM, after she made us breakfast we set off for the paddy field. I rolled
the wheelbarrow as we walked. Here’s the interesting part. After we got to her
small farm hut, helped her spread out the rice grains, we expected to go with
her to the field to work. But Tepuq told us not to come today. She said “stay
here and watch the rice for birds”. At first we wondered why, but later came to
understand that we hadn’t built trust enough for her to take us to work on her
field. It was another day to reinforce on our ethos. We did just that, through
sharing our stories with her, asking her questions, being kind to her, making
her laugh and not being too careful about being stained with mud. All these
helped in cultivating trust, and the next day, she took us to farm!
Conclusion
For
the next 17 days, we had to repeat this process in different ways, until
she began seeing us like her own grandchildren. This begins to happen when they begin
to give you Kelabit names, they begin to wash your feet for you after working
in the paddy field, they begin to initiate conversations with you. You feel
that love arising. The Great Wall of China has been broken. Then, we chase the
goal!
In
the last few days, we went on several trails with her. Telling her that now we
want to document her highlights for her. Because we have earned so much
trust, she listened to us. In terms of meeting our goals, for the first 13 days,
we were 2 percent. It was during those last days we shot to 100
percent. Why? – we mastered the ABC of making social impact.
If you want to achieve the same results in your communities, you also need to master these
simple ABCs. I look to hearing about your story as well.
