April 1, 2011 | Read Time: 3 minutes
Oxford, England
A discussion of the internal struggles that social-change leaders face drew a lineup of humanitarian heavy hitters here at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
The Archbishop Emeritus Desmond M. Tutu talked about facing very low points during the fight against apartheid in South Africa— weeping, and being angry at God, asking how he could allow such terrible things to happen.
One of the things that sustained him, Archbishop Tutu said, was being part of a larger community of faith. He talked about meeting a nun who lived in the woods in California, who often started to pray at 2 a.m.
“She said, ‘You know, I pray for you by name,’” recalled Archbishop Tutu. “And I said, ‘Here I am being prayed for at two in the morning in the woods in California. What chance does the apartheid government stand?’”
Joe Madiath, the founder of Gram Vikas, a nonprofit organization in India that works with poor villages to improve living standards, told the audience that as a young man, he thought that he would change all of India in a few years.
Mr. Madiath said that when he becomes frustrated by the slow pace of change, he goes back to villages the group has worked with in the past, that had already come together to develop agriculture programs or a water and sanitation system.
“Living in their ambition, while they’re dreaming up new plans, that would give me a complete battery charge,” he said. “Usually a battery gets a good charge in a few hours, but my battery is a very poor battery, and so it needed two to three days. But I came back a new person, fully charged up, and I could go on.”
The work of a social entrepreneur should change over time, Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, an international medical organization, told conference participants.
“If I in my sixth decade am doing the same things that I was doing when I was 22 or 23, I don’t think that’s progress,” he said.
Teaching is one way to reconcile the tension between direct service and the need for whole systems to change, Dr. Farmer told the audience.
“This is how we solve some of the problems between the great need we see — whether we’re talking about global health or social injustices or trafficking— building up an entire army to do this work,” he said. “You can’t do that without fresh blood. You can’t do that without the enthusiasm that comes much more naturally to a 22-year-old than it does to a decrepit 52-year-old.”
Partners in Health recently built a state-of-the-art hospital in northern Rwanda. Ten Harvard University doctors, former students of Dr. Farmer’s, had come to Rwanda to work in the hospital.
When the Minister of Health visited the facility, he said, “‘You know, it’s really great that there are 10 Harvard doctors in Butaro, but if they’re only seeing patients and they leave in a year, what is it exactly that they’ve done?’” recalled Dr. Farmer. “And that’s a fair question.”
