[ThinkImpact Post] Introspecting

[This post is a bit out of chronological order, but I thought y’all might want to read some of the posts meant to go on the ThinkImpact Blog. More next week on our Design Challenges and solutions: i.e. the businesses we will start building next week]

This week we completed the Identity Phase of the Institute here in Clare, South Africa. The goal of this phase is to turn many of the activities we did to understand the community, back on ourselves.

Entering the room from the bright sunlight, our eyes squinted to make out the dim room. With music from the vibrant dance we’d just watched still ringing in our ears, we sat with a collective sigh that we would now be spending the next few hours inside “exploring our own assets.” Spending a few days inside exploring your own skills and assets was less desirable than the interactive learning of the previous few days, but once we got into it, we found a treasure trove. “Proactive, Adaptable, Insightful, Language skills, Excellent at mathematical analysis, Authentic caring for others, Musical talent…” These were just a few of the many skills and personality traits that began pouring out as students described their peers.

As an undergraduate student, I’m not sure I could have listed for you my marketable skills in the context of international development in rural South Africa. However, these students impressed me. They were impressive not only for their diverse backgrounds—two years of high school in Italy, excelling in intensive New York City private school systems, multi-sport team captains, etc—but also for their humility in speaking about their accomplishments.

In retrospect, I was not so much surprised that they had these wonderful skills and experience, but that an organization like ThinkImpact could have the faith in young people to know that they would be prepared to take on a challenging international development initiative. ThinkImpact doesn’t assume or hope, but expects every student to bring something vital to the table. When you put that kind of trust and responsibility on a group of young people, they do an amazing thing…they rise to it.

Now that we have the Identity and the Immersion phases under our belts, we are well on our way to understanding the collective assets that our team and the community brings to the table. Next, we enter our Inspiration phase where students and community partners work together to develop Design Challenges and solutions. Stay tuned!