Elephant Tale

I am reading Better Together by Robert Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein and thought some of the quotes may be of interest to you, as they explore the questions of scaling trust to build social capital.

• …creating robust social capital takes time and effort. For the most part, it develops through extensive and time-consuming face-to-face conversation between two individuals or among small groups of people…It takes person-to-person contact over time to build the trust and mutual understanding that characterize the relationships that are the basis of social capital. (page 9)
• …social capital is necessarily a local phenomenon because it is defined by connections among people who know one another. Even when we talk about social capital in national or regional organizations (page 9)
• ….our investigations strongly suggest (as we have indicated) that trust relationships and resilient communities generally form through local contact (page 9)…for creating bonds of trust and reciprocity smaller is often better, but for extending the power and reach of social networks, bigger is often better. We believe that some of the cases also illustrate how this dilemma can be resolved, at least in part, by creating networks of networks, that is, by nesting smaller groups within larger, more encompassing ones. These cases also allow us to explore the challenge of reconciling cohesion (bonding) and heterogeneity (bridging), for many of the protagonists of our cases have discovered an impressive array of strategies for finding unifying themes in the presence of diversity. Storytelling itself turns out to be an unusually effective technique in this regard, as does the creation of common spaces, both physical and virtual. (page 10)
• The endeavours we have studied also suggest that social capital is usually developed in pursuit of a particular goal or set of goals and not for its own sake. For the most part, the people and groups we describe here seek better schools, neighbourhood improvement, better contracts with their employers, economic advantage, or some other particular good, with social capital a means to those ends and an important fringe benefit but not in itself their main aim. (page 10)

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http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_to_take_charge.html

Hi Everyone!

This is an AMAZING talk about the potential education has to enhance civic engagement among young people.

A MUST WATCH!

- Susheela

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Hi Everyone!

First and foremost, I apologize for not continually updating my blog since end of October, things have been crazy for a while, but now I have entered it as a part of my schedule, so hopefully you will now be seeing regular posts.

So this week I would like all of you to visit:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/majora_carter_s_tale_of_urban_renewal.html

Listen to Majora Carter’s talk about sustainable development and what it could look like, through her project, Sustainable South Bronx! The elimination of poverty and protection of the environment can go hand in and in, as it is economically feasible and improves people’s quality of life. Please watch It is an inspiring talk and project!

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• Our entire society is now based on fear, it  drives people to buy insurance, file lawsuits, be afraid to walk anywhere in the world alone. To enjoy aloneness in tranquility and peace is now difficult as live in a world driven by fear. Fear and thriving on fear, creates jobs, compliance and unconfidence. Fear drives materialism. How much stuff do we need before we truly feel secure? Do we want to lead our lives based on fear?
• We suspect everyone and everything, why? Our fear drives us to disengage from community and when we disengage from community, we lose trust and thereby continue living in fear.
• Yes, bad things happen. Yes, it is important to be careful, but how careful can you be, before it hinders your ability to be alive and truly enjoy the world?
• We cannot control everything The more we try to control things, the more damage we do to ourselves. We create stress, anxiety, suspicion. Be smart, but be flexible. Everything happens for a reason, you need the good with the bad.

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Hi all,

I apologize for taking a month to get the next post out, but will be updating weekly from now onwards.

Blog updates

* Canadian Politics *

The Prime Minister: Reign of Power

Today I was reading the required text from my Introduction to Canadian Politics course and was absolutely shocked. In pages 259-293, McIvor in Parameters of Power: Canada’s Political Institutions, I found out that our Prime Minister has what seemingly appears to be unlimited power.

For instance:

• There are no established limits to restrict the involvement of the PM and his or her senior staff in whatever issue they decide to take over and manage
• He/She is the only one who has a summary of official cabinet deliberations
• The Prime Minister can choose whomever he/she wants for the cabinet and if these ministers do not do his bidding, he can easily fire them
• [W]hen Canadian or British prime ministers and their courts wish to approve a new initiative, they move everything out of the reach of ministers, departments, and career officials and simply get it done. This approach can be described as policy making by announcements. That is, prime ministers simply deliver a major speech to unveil a new policy and then let the government decision-making process pick up the pieces as best it can. Given that the prime minister has a direct say in the career prospects of ministers, aspiring ministers, heads of departments, and aspiring heads of departments, everyone has an interest in seeing the prime minister’s initiative come to a successful conclusion.
• No Cabinet minister can enact a policy without the PM’s support; conversely, prime ministers can- and sometimes do- override ministers whose preferences clash with their own.
• PM gets to decide how big the Cabinet will be and how it is structured
• few members of the Cabinet are appointed because of their expertise in a particular field of policy.
• The criteria for inclusion in Canada’s political executive are based on four primary principles:
  • constitutional convention
  • regional and demographic representation
  • seniority
  • the minister’s political and personal relationship to the prime minister
• Cabinet Committees
• three types:
  • standing executive committees, which set the broad outlines of activity for the entire federal government
  • standing policy committees, which review proposed legislation and program changes within a particular area of policy
  • ad hoc committees, established for brief periods to handle a specific problem or issue
• PMs experiment with Cabinet committee structures and functions
• PM has huge influence on cabinet committees
• MPs not members of Cabinet, can introduce a private member’s bill- meagre time allotted for this
• responsible government- party discipline and cohesiveness
• weakness of Canada’s political party organizations- geared primarily toward fighting election campaigns
  • more about raising money, selecting candidates and contesting elections than about policy

Limits of the PM
- cannot act unconstitutionally

• • new mandate from electorate at least once every five years
  • submit annually to scrutiny of Parliament
• opposition in the commons
• use sparingly limits of political capital
• only has time to focus on a few priorities

While I do recognize that this could be noted as a biased view of the PM’s role, it nonetheless rests on a critical analysis of his/her role. It thereby raises the question of what citizens should do to keep the PM more accountable and whether we need to re-examine his/her role.

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About two weeks ago I attended a lecture by Jane Elliot (www.janeelliot.com), which discussed issues around diversity. Hearing her speak was one of the most eye-opening and life-changing experiences.

Here are some of my personal thoughts from her lecture

• Why is fairness cream a top selling product in India? Why do those in Bollywood dress now in “Western” clothes and why are our top models/actresses all fair? Why does having a Western accent make you cooler all over the world and why does that give you more power and respect? Are we reinforcing the stereotypes of colonialism? Why
• Why is this intense desire in me to learn my language or learn more about my culture, even though I have lived in Canada for 14.5 years of my 21 year old life? Shouldn’t I just be ok with being Canadian? What does it really mean to be Canadian?
• Am I Canadian?  Indian?  Middle Eastern? I was born in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates but brought up in an Indian community, yet immigrated to Canada and have been in a Canadian society for a while.
• Who is the majority and the minority? How are the labels I place upon myself or we place on others hindering our ability to address discrimination in a meaningful way?
• Do we have enough multicultural socials or events? Why do I feel odd when I don’t know all the words to those “well-known” songs in the bars, the ones that are on the Billboard charts or have been known for ages? Why do I feel upset seeing our culture dissipate? Is that ok? Is it just the direction the world will go towards and I need to be ok with it?
• Why is being called FOB funny? Why do we laugh at stereotypes? Is there such a thing as taking control of a word?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Sincerely,

Susheela

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A Friendly Planet Blog Feature:

http://friendlyplanetblog.com/fp-profile-susheela-grabs-the-elephant-by-the-tale/

Adrian Reif, the editor of the Friendly Planet Blog has featured an interview of me on his blog site. Check it out! He has asked some great questions, which I think all of you will benefit from reading the responses to.

Also, when visiting the site, please check out his sponsors’ links as he gives 50% of his revenues to a charitable cause.
Toodles!

Sincerely,

Susheela

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Here is an interesting article I found last week about society’s expectations of failure and its impact on our ability to create social change. http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org/blog/view/when_society_expects_us_to_fail_we_usually_do

I would love to hear your thoughts on the article and have a discussion!

Sincerely,
Susheela

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So to continue with the Elephant Tale story…

This realization about political inequality perpetuating world poverty and environmental degradation stuck with me. I realized that we needed the masses on board to address this inequality, but how? Thus, I decided to go to the classroom to start garnering their support, as it is in the classroom we do much of our learning and exploring.

But, what would this look like and how would I get there? Was I too inexperienced? Should I wait till I have my PhD? Enter Dev Aujla (http://devaujla.typepad.com/) from DreamNow (www.dreamnow.org). Dev was the conference keynote for a Social Justice and Social Entrepreneurship conference I organized on behalf of the University Students’ Council last semester. I pulled him aside after his keynote and told him about this idea I had. He encouraged me to do it now and work on it. After much hesitation on my part, encouragement on his part, I decided that I would do it. Dev has been a wonderful support system and has connected me with so many amazing people that Elephant Tale has started to pick up traction.

Though we are new and still exploring and developing our programs, from our pilots, the resounding answer has been YES we want to see more things like this, from the students and the educators we have worked with.

I think that we can really be the change we want to see in the world, what remains is the willpower, fearlessness, and mobilization. I cannot do it alone but I know with thousands of people on my side, anything is possible. And yes…I am shamelessly idealistic (as Craig Kielburger had so eloquently put it in one of his keynote addresses).

Sincerely,
Susheela

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