Were we too selfish during the pandemic?
This is my first post and blog ever!
I started this blog as friends, colleagues, and family supported me to share my life experiences in leading, inspiring, in service of others and caring about them. This is why I have created the Bring Your Best with Cas.
The purpose of this blog in Bring Your Best is to inspire you to create a better world by sharing my volunteer, leadership, and service of others’ experiences in creating an outlook of abundance, alleviating scarcity so that we can live a brighter future.
One of the most outstanding leaders of the 20th century – Nelson Mandela – inspired me. During my tenure of 6-years in South Africa, I learnt about the human being and the leader, the way he inspired South African’s and the African continent to dedicate 67 minutes of their life to the service of others on 18 July when the International Mandela Day is celebrated. The service to a country, a continent, and people inspired me to serve others.
“I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people.”
Mandela, N. (1990)
In 2010, I moved to South Africa due to work-related reasons. This move would change who I was, create a better version of myself, make me a father, and finally lead me to understand what servant leadership was and is.
I started to volunteer together with my partner on New Jerusalem Children Home, a private and state-owned orphanage sponsored, at the time, by Orange Babies, a Dutch NGO. We were acquainted with Orange Babies as we had lived in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. While my partner volunteered almost every day, taking care of the children, watching them in the playground, playing and nurturing them, I could only volunteer on the weekends due to my work. As time passed, we started bringing food and goods to the children to improve their comfort and life. It was there that we met our little boy, who today is our son, during a Mandela Day celebration with other volunteers to make the day unique to the children of the orphanage. So now you understand the importance of this day to our family.
Fast-forwarding 16-years, we are back in Europe with our son, now a teenager. I continued to volunteer in water-related matters, continuing my work in South Africa. Water is who we are, and, according to the CDC, there are still 2.5 billion people without access to water, sanitation and hygiene. As we struggle to understand and control the COVID-19 pandemic by using masks, keep physical distancing and washing/sanitizing our hands, and vaccination campaigns, we forget that without essential hygiene, without water, 780 million people in the world are prone to be contaminated with this virus.
Thoughtful Insight
This is the primary thought of this post, were we so selfish that we forget that are others in need? Do we worry too much about what we do not have instead of what we give for granted?
Let me know in the comments below, I am curious to understand your views.
DISCLAIMER. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author, and they are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organisation, company, individual or anyone or anything.