The formula is simple, and the story has been written and rewritten a million times over. Take Scott Harrison from Charity: Water, who was so moved by his visit to West Africa that he was inspired to start an organization dedicated to providing clean water to people in Africa, and now, the world. Or the story of Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, who was raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and went on to lay the foundation for the environmental movement of the 60’s and 70’s.
These stories share one common thread–empathy. Those inspired to make change connect with their cause empathically, by having immersed themselves in the environment they ultimately choose to support. Their drive and their accomplishments are sustainable because they are empaths.
“I’m only a child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realize, neither do you!
You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
You don’t know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
You don’t know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
And you can’t bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.
If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!”
-Severn Suzuki, 12-years old, speaking at the 1992 UN Earth Summit
Communication Theory has one basic model: Sender > Message > Channel > Receiver. For the purists, when one engages in reciprocal communication the model expands to incorporate Feedback, Noise, and even, alternative channels–but for the sake of this post, we’ll emphasize the core principles of uni-directional communication. The power and effectiveness of what is being communicated is affected by each of these “steps”.
Fireflies have always been one of nature’s most beautiful and intriguing miracles. I could still spend hours and hours on a hot, dark summer night tracing the paths taken by the fireflies in my parents’ backyard. The fun, of course, comes from tracing the path between “blinks”, when the firefly fades to black and you are left guessing as to where they’ll appear next.
Perhaps this nostalgia explains why, when I saw the “Firefly Watch” site from the Museum of Science, Boston, I was both transported and transfixed.
I’m getting older. I realize this because the arrival of summer just doesn’t matter as much as it did before. Beyond serving as an indicator for when I can stop wearing sweaters and when I need to start giving up my weekends in favor of weddings, summer brings little in the way of day-to-day change.
That’s not the case for the younger kids in my life—little cousins, nieces, nephews. To them, summer is the light at the end of the tunnel. There are no weddings (or at least, nothing they need to plan for). There’s only opportunity.
I am fascinated by what “opportunity” means to this generation. When I was young, I had two non-religious opportunities to get involved. I could volunteer at our local hospital, or I could volunteer with our local congressman. I ended up doing both—and feeling fulfilled by neither.
Editor’s Note: This is first in a “Kids Did” feature series by Suneet Bhatt, co-founder of Dream Village and Social Symmetry. This series will explore what kids are doing around the country to help their local community environment.
Times are changing. I went to elementary school in the early 80’s, and I remember participating in the shift toward the disposable society. Instead of Tupperware sandwich containers, I started getting plastic wrap. Instead of a Thermos I started getting Capri Sun (my main squeeze) or some other juice box. Everything was wrapped in plastic. And everything ended up in my stomach or in the trash can; sometimes directly, and sometimes by way of a ricochet off of say, the face of a close friend. Kids will be kids.
