Finding courage to challenge my existing paradigms
I don’t know where my passion for serving the most vulnerable emanated from. Perhaps it’s because I was at some point in life equally vulnerable and living on the edge but experienced how kind-heartedness can positively affect human lives. Or maybe God just planted a seed in my heart to care and support the less fortunate among us.
Many decades later, I have had the honor of working for humanitarian and development organizations that are doing great work around the world and in my country, Kenya. Usually, our ultimate mission, as practitioners is very clear: lift communities out of poverty. To achieve this mission, we employ different models and approaches to make the lives of those we serve better. As part of my work, I visit communities, listen to them, hear their concerns and try to adjust our programs and projects to meet their needs. For many, we have made a lasting impact that will likely last generations. I have seen incomes grow among women and men. I have observed some of our interventions changing the trajectory of children and communities from anguish and hardship to thriving and flourishing.
However, despite these efforts, there are instances where it’s just been hard to sustainably overcome poverty despite some well-designed interventions. Shocks and hazards such as recurrent drought, floods, conflict, entrenched cultural practices, mindsets and behaviors erode any progress made from a development perspective. And many times, as the humanitarian and development community, we have had to take a step back and grapple with our “ways of thinking” wrestle with questioning whether our interventions are effective. But this is not always easy given diverse interests and the urge to “keep doing something” to make the lives of those we serve better. Perhaps it’s time to allow for threshold concepts in the humanitarian and development sector. As Meyer states,
“A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even worldview.”[1]
In the case of the humanitarian and development sector, this internal view of subject matter would be the paradigm of how we view humanitarianism and development. A lot has evolved with various empowerment programs, Sustainable Development Goals and now Artificial Intelligences, but so have the issues in the world and specifically in the communities where we work (subject landscape). Crises have deepened and we now seem to live in a permacrisis. In the September 2024, Washington DC Advance, Dr. Clark, in one of the lectures, mentioned that we could be going through epochal change. More and more, I think this is the reality of the current age we live in. And in terms of worldview, could our view of “the poor”, that we have held for very long, be flawed? Do we approach humanitarianism from a deficit mindset or considering that there is latent value among the people we serve? Meyer in describing the examination of phenomena from a practitioner standpoint indicates that individual who “is inside the discipline”, who possesses “a way of thinking” sees and experiences phenomena in a particular way. [2]
As a humanitarian and development practitioner, this week’s reading pushes me to do the hard work of unlearning old paradigms and inviting new ways of thinking and practicing the good work we do to serve many around the world.
[1] Meyer, J., & Land, R. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practicing within the Disciplines. New York, Routledge, 2006. [GFU Library eBook]
[2] Meyer, Jan H. F., Michael T. Flanagan, and Ray Land, eds. 2016. Threshold Concepts in Practice. Educational Futures : Rethinking Theory and Practice, volume 68. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
About the Author
Alex Mwaura
2 responses to “Finding courage to challenge my existing paradigms”
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Alex –
I so appreciate how you tied your vocational investments to this week’s reading. As we enter more into a “permacrisis” status, I can’t imagine how fatiguing the work can become. I bring that up because, in my experience, those moments of fatigue are the very places where I slip most readily into the “muscle memory” of how something has always been done rather than being intentional and strategic in my engagement. How have you seen people successfully engage in new learning and adapt best practices in the midst of fatigue or rolling crises?
Thanks for the feedback, Jeremiah! I hear you and I experience the same when faced with fatigue and decisions that need to be made. In my current role, we spent time taking an honest review of our current state and asking ourselves if what we were doing (for those we serve) is effective in addressing their needs. We found that in some ways we were achieving our goals but mostly falling short due to external forces. We then decided it was time to shift strategy and approach and when faced with challenges along the change process, we kept clarify “the why”. This gave us fresh energy, encouraged new ways of thinking and we are still on that journey.