7Is for GIs
Seven Indicators for Global
Integrators
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Member Care Updates and Global Integration
Updates.
We
think that the time is coming for a diversity of colleagues to join together
intentionally, visibly, and practically on behalf of global
integration (GI). GI put simply is how we
skillfully integrate our lives and values on behalf of the issues facing
humanity. Likewise we think that the time is coming for colleagues to carefully
reflect and act on what it means to
be good global learners-practitioners--to seriously consider
what it means to be what we are calling global integrators (GI-People).
*****
This
entry identifies seven core indicators--seven I’s--that we think are important
to help guide Global Integrators. There are surely more too! The seven
indicators are qualitative markers rather than quantitative measures. The descriptions below also include Member Care
Updates which provide resources that specifically
relate to the indicators. Indicator 7, Imparting your life (love) links them all.
Clarify your:
Interests
Involvements
Influences
Cultivate your:
Interior
Integrity
Inspirations
Impart your life
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1. Issues--Pursue your passions.
What issues matter to you the most? What are you passionate about? What
are you naturally motivated to learn more about? In short: explore, expand,
engage.
Clarify your interests further as you explore
what other sectors, organizations, countries etc. are doing with regards to
these issues. Be prepared to expand your “experiential boundaries,”
knowing that it can be a bit uncomfortable but also rewarding. It may take time
and effort to significantly connect and contribute. Don’t go alone but get
involved with others. Find compatible colleagues with similar interests and key
groups and networks in which you can be part and engage together on
global issues.
2. Involvements--Till the terrain.
How much do you want to get involved in specific global issues? With whom? What is realistic for you given your current
commitments and need to make a living? Here is a “continuum of involvement” for clarification.
Informed----------Included----------Immersed
The continuum begins with more minor
involvement in a global area, such as reading the reports, a journal, or a UN
publication about things like human trafficking, climate change, or the
sustainable development goals (informed). It then proceeds
to a midpoint and the inclusion of a global area in one’s work such as road
traffic accidents, child disabilities in a specific region, or non-communicable
diseases (included).The end of the continuum could involve
becoming a recognized participant in a global area or part of a group
(organization, sector) such as working part-time in a human rights advocate in
a non-governmental organization, developing culturally relevant psychosocial
support for victims of gender violence, or setting up elementary schools for
refugee children in a country (immersed).
3. Influences--Get a grid.
What has influenced your desire and ability to connect and contribute
more globally? The gird below can help you clarify these influences.
List 3-5 items for
each of the six categories below. As you review your
past, you will likely get a better sense of what your future course might look
like.
•
Principles/Beliefs
•
Documents/Materials
•
Organizations/Groups
•
People/Models
•
Milestones/Gravestones
(important
events/experiences, for the better or worse)
à Charting a Future Course
Applications for
Member Care—Interests, Involvements, and Influences
Strategies for
Crossing Sectors: February 2014. “How do we
practically connect and contribute across sectors in order to stay in touch
with our globalizing world and to further develop our member care
skills? The first resource links you to core suggestions for Charting
Your Course through the Sectors (from chapter two in the
new Global Member Care book) [interests, involvements, influences, as per above in this
entry]. This chapter also updates the international member care model (five
spheres, 2002, O’Donnell and Pollock) to help guide us into the next
developmental phase of member care. The second resource provides suggestions
for how you and your colleagues can effectively use the multi-sectoral
materials in the new Global Member Care book (from
the Application section on the Global MCA website). Crossing sectors is a crucial direction
that supports and shapes good global practice in member care.”
4. Interior--Self-Care
How do you cultivate your inner world? What things do you
do practically for self-care, personal growth, and resiliency?
Grow
deeply as you go broadly. Practice the basics of self care, such as good nutrition,
sleep, expressing gratitude, prayer/reflection, time with friends, exercise,
etc. especially during seasons of stress and times of adversity.
Member Care Application—Interior
Resiliency Toolkit–Strengthening Ourselves and Others: November 2015. “This Update focuses on developing resiliency.
It provides practical resources to promote well-being
and effectiveness (WE)
for workers in mission, aid, and development as well as for member
care workers themselves. The resources include brief assessments and
articles–core items in a versatile toolkit
to strengthen yourself and others. Periodically we
do special Updates that
feature items to put in such a member care toolkit. Five past
examples are archived HERE: 12/2009
Resiliency, 8/2010 Self-Care, 3/2012 Work-Life Balance, 1/2013 Cool
Tools, and 10/2014 Creative Healing. We finish the Update with a reflection on
resilience from Pearls
and Perils of Good Practice (available now
as an ebook) as well as one of our
favorite resiliency songs, Ready for the Storm.”
5. Integrity—Being Moral
How do you cultivate your highest standards and values? To
what extent do you follow them both privately and publically? In what ways can
you be susceptible to corruption—the opposite of integrity--in its many subtle
forms?
Integrity
is moral wholeness. It is living consistently in light of your highest virtues
and values (moral wholeness). It acknowledges personal weakness and wrongness, including
the possibility and likelihood of self deception/justification, and seeks to
live act virtuously with courage and consistency.
Member Care Applications—Integrity
Counting the Cost–Living with Integrity and Courage: January 2015. “This month’s Update is a summons to act with integrity and
courage in our lives–to support us as we “count the cost” of doing what is
right and helping vulnerable people. The first set of resources features three
thought-provoking items: a) a TEDx presentation by a humanitarian journalist on
her experiences covering war and the courage of ordinary people; b) a
compelling exegesis on Christ’s parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25;
and c) the millennial homily by John Paul II honoring Christian martyrs in the
20thcentury. The second set of resources feature three
items that point us towards the personal qualities needed to do member care and
mission/aid well: a) the recent Global Integration webinar on healing/mental
health in our violent world; b) the compilation of articles in b) Sorrow and Blood and c) Serving Jesus with Integrity.
We finish this Update by
taking the call for integrity and courage to the macro level: the final video
lecture from Jeffery Sach’s online course on The
Age of Sustainable Development (safeguarding the world’s future—people and
the planet).”
Member Character: July 2012. “This issue focuses on the development of
character for all those in mission/aid, especially member care workers. We see
character as the core qualities of a person. These qualities are consistent
over time and also reflect one’s moral goodness. Character is shaped by our
life experiences, including hardship and role models. We include two set of
resources from a Christian Perspective and a Social Psychology Perspective, in
order to stimulate your own character growth and to support you in your work.”
6. Inspiration—Sustaining Sources
What gets you going in the morning? And what keeps you going through
life? Is there a set of beliefs and values, sense of purpose and meaning, to motivate and sustain you? Something
transcendent? Humanitarian principles, ethical imperatives, sense of duty, love,
faith, God? How do you cultivate these?
Member Care Applications—Inspiration
Jesus Christ—The Lord of Member Care: September 2015. “This month we feature the main person
in the Member Care field, Jesus Christ. We have lovingly referred to
Him in our member care writings over the years by many different
names: the Master Carer, the Good Practitioner, the Heart of Member
Care, the Multilingual Messiah, the Pearl of Great Price, the Precious Pantocrator (The Almighty),
and the Pierced-One. These names are actually titles of
great honor and they are the focus of this Update: Jesus
Christ the Lord
of Member Care (a new title!), the One whom we all
seek to know, love, and serve with all our being.“
7. Imparting your life--Love
How much is laying down your life and serving others part
of your work and life in general? How much do you want to give of yourself to
others, being compassionate, maintaining the human quality of your work--doing to others as you want them to do to you?
Love
is not a soft skill. It is tough work. And it is core, in our view, for doing member
care well, and doing global integration well, for doing life well.
Member Care Applications—Imparting your Life.
Ordinary Heroes: March 2013. “This month we focus on ordinary heroes, especially those
whose ongoing, sacrificial and often unrecognised acts of goodness truly help
others. Member care workers, and the mission/aid workers whom they support, and
the people with whom mission/aid workers support, can often fit into this
definition of ordinary
hero. The first set of resources focus mostly on understanding ordinary heroism.
The second set of resources focus on supporting
ordinary heroes, emphasizing women whose lives are ransacked by
exploitation, poverty, and degradation.”
