Nigel the Imam

For those of you not familiar with the Muslim religion an, Imam is the leader of a mosque - an Islamic preacher or minister.

Over the last few days I have been supporting some of the board members of Aid for Orphans and the Disabled (AFOD) to increase the organisation's profile by visiting some of the villages where they have been supporting orphaned and disabled children. But before I went I had to dress like a cultural gentleman!

Lamin Fofanah's family kindly gave me a fantastic traditional outfit made form a brilliantly floral patterned material. It was very comfortable to wear, but I did feel I was out of doors in my pyjamas!

When some the young members of AFOD saw me they immediately said I looked like an Imam. Some of you reading this post will appreciate irony of this!

The first group of people I met were some of women leaders of a community. We sat in a circle in the shade of a mango tree - the women sitting on a range of home-made wooded benches, plastic patio furniture and dining room chairs and I was given the place of honour sitting on a very comfortable armchair brought for me especially from someone's home. No doubt that when you see the pictures, I can expect comments about King Farouk or Idi Amin. I have to admit that when I saw them I felt I should have been given a fly whisk made from an elephant's tail or suchlike!

On a serious note however, it appears that Gambian communities are far more matriarchal than I expected, with the men, very contemplative and devoted to their faith.

At another community the meeting took place at the home of the Alkolos - the local community leader, an inherited role, and the couple I met certainly reminded of many of the old councillors we know and love so much at home.

Protocol demands that notices from outside the community should be given to the to Alkolos to disseminate his people. It reminded me very much of a certain community in South Wales, were I felt I wasn't allowed onto certain wards withou asking for the permission from the local councillor first.

After the AFOD members had brought the people up to date, the Alkolos formally welcomed me and when questions were opened from the floor - the poor old boy was harrassed for not telling the others, especially the women what was going on!

The third community I visited was very different, the majority of people were very young, in the teens or early twenties, and desperately wanted help to improve quality of life. I could have sat with them for hours sharing pearls of wisdom, discussing possible solutions to community issues and ways of achieving them. It was totally brilliant!

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.