Nakam? Bahna!

First of all, can I apologise to everyone who has been waiting for news in the last couple of days. The internet here in The Gambia is a bit hit and miss and over the last two days I haven't been able to get a connection either because of bandwidth speeds or powercuts. If anyone has been trying to email me, I haven't been able to access my account either - and still can't! The best way to contact me will be by sending a comment to the blog.

I am having a great time, working long hours, in stifling heat (Aw, bechod!), but having great job satisfaction.

On Tuesday I led the second of two community workshops based on the Outcomes Approach to Strategic Planning and yesterday I was working directly with the board of Aid for Orphans and the Disabled (AFOD) on their Organisational and Strategic Plans at their office at Bundung Borehole.

The board members as you can see from the picture are nearly all young people, their motivations for improving quality of life in their communities and commitment to action is fantastic. It is so refreshing to listen to them talking about their vision, the values they want to project and genuine desire to serve their people in the best possible way they can.

Travelling by bush taxi is quite an adventure and you see some fantastic sites. I have sat next to breast feeding mother a couple at times and the other evening I was in a small 12-seater minibus - and there were 20 of us in it! The level of material poverty here is huge, but everyone is so happy.










The title of today's post means How is it? It is good! I'm trying to learn a new phrase every day, but there is a choice of range of local languages - Wolof, Mandinga, to name just two. many people speak up to five and English.

Social responsibility is a joint venture in success

Regular readers of the Enfys Acumen eBriefs and blog posts will be familiar with our commitment to social responsibility and the initiative that has led to our work with Aid for Orphans and the Disabled (AFOD) in The Gambia.

We don't just see social responsibility as a good thing to do, but it really is part of our overall understanding of the kind of business and organisation we want to be and the quality life we want to live. We also try to encourage other organisations, businesses and people to become more socially responsible.

Earlier this year I read a book called "Success built to last - creating a life that matter" written by Jerry Porras and others. The authors interviewed over 200 people: some famous, some were not, they weren't geniuses or magicians, just ordinary human beings like you and I, but they all had one thing in common. All of the people they interviewed shared powerful patterns of lifelong success, patterns of thought, patterns we can all learn and deliberately weave into our own lives.

They found that every single successful person they interviewed had three things in common: an individually defined meaning; a creative thought-style and an effective action-style.

In developing the Enfys Acumen and coaching people in the develop of their organisations, businesses and lives, these three factors form the cornerstone of our own work. A commitment to social responsibility is a demonstration of the meaning behind the Enfys Acumen, our though patterns and particularly our behaviour.

We also encourage other people to develop the meaning behind what they do, how they think and their actions.

Taking on this project to support the development of AFOD in The Gambia is very much part of this ethos, both for our own success and the success of my new friend Lamin Fofanah, the Chief Executive of AFOD and his team of members and volunteers.

Our work in The Gambia has been supported by a host of special people who provided cash sponsorship, help raise funds, provide advice and donated gifts and needed equipment to support our work.

We are especially indebted to the representatives of the following:

Fellow coaches

Members of BNI Quinell Chapter

Members of 4Networking

Scouts

St John’s Youth Group

Members of the Voice if Wales Speakers Club (Toastmasters)

Friends and Family

What is this blog all about?

At the Enfys Acumen,we try our very best to be a responsible business and believe all businesses and organisations have the social duties to:

• Treat employees fairly, equitably and with respect
• Protect the environment for future generations
• Manage the impacts on society and the environment of business operations, products or services and through interaction with key stakeholders such as employees, customers, investors, communities and suppliers.
• Being a responsible neighbour by understanding the local environment and adapting to local needs
• Observing basic human rights

How do we we do this?

• We strive to be socially responsible in our own daily business practices
• We raise social responsibility issues in our development work with businesses and organisations

As one example of how we try to live up to these principles, we put aside every month, up to two days for pro bono organisational development and coaching support for charities that could not otherwise afford our professional fees.

Why have we offered pro bono support to small charities?

One of the central values behind our work at the Enfys Acumen is a commitment to the concept of giftedness. By this we recognise that no matter what kind of background, level of experience or skills people possess, we all have gifts we can use to benefit others.

One of the ways people can demonstrate their gifts is through community action, volunteering time for the benefit of our community, whether that community is geographically defined or a community of interest or need. We sometimes hear this referred to as active citizenship.

If we could we would dearly like to be able to freely support community action all of the time. Working with volunteers and community organisations can give a great buzz. Unfortunately we all have to make a living, we are already committed to regular voluntary commitments and we know from experience, that doing work for free isn’t always valued or appreciated as much as work that has been paid for.

We also know from experience that there are many voluntary and community organisations out there that would truly benefit from the kind of support provided by the Enfys Acumen, but simply do not have the resources at the present to pay us a fee.

We also know that good quality support for voluntary and community organisations can be a postcode lottery. This is unfair and a barrier to lots of people being able to use their gifts for the benefit of others.

So we have stated some very clear criteria that a charity must meet to qualify this support.

More details about our offer of pro bono support for community action can be found at our website www.enfysacumen.com

This initiative has proved very satisfying both for us at the Enfys Acumen and the for the charities that have received our support.

This blog chronicles an example of our pro bono organisational development and coaching support for one charity.