``There must first be a Wanja who is taken care of, before she can be of service.`` ``There must first be a Wanja who is taken care of, before she can be of service.``
Wanja Muguongo is a queer African feminist, social justice activist and movement builder. She is the founding Executive Director of UHAI EASHRI (www.uhai-eashri.org), an organization that leverages funding, capacity support, research, and convening to address the structural and systemic discrimination and marginalization that people of non-conforming sexual orientation, sexual expression, and gender identity continue to face in Africa. She served as the organization’s Executive Director until her retirement in January 2019.
“I was fortunate to become a part of the Wellbeing Project after working in the human rights field for over 15 years, and at UHAI-EASHRI for seven years. Any human rights work is challenging, but with founding UHAI, the challenge was compounded by the fact that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, transgender and sex worker communities that I served, and that I was a part of, are criminalised and marginalised. When I was selected for The Wellbeing Project I had hacked my way through seven years of incredibly difficult work – wonderfully meaningful and fulfilling, but exhausting. I was the leader of a fund that makes grants to LGBTQI communities and sex workers in East and Central Africa. When you work in an oppressive system with the goal of changing that system, you are constantly aware of how little power you have and how much power the oppressors have.
Further complicating the work, UHAI EASHRI is a participatory grantmaker, one of the first of its kind in the human rights philanthropic sector. It makes grants from the perspective of activists rather than the philanthropists; to remove the disconnect between where the money comes from and where the work happens. In my role I raised money while making clear to the donors it was the beneficiary communities themselves who would be the decision-makers on what the money would be used for and by whom. That’s a significant power shift, and I needed to make sure that shift was authentic, and doing that is really, really difficult considering how much power donors want to wield in philanthropic relationships.
I was so physically and emotionally burned out by the time I was introduced to The Wellbeing Project, that I could almost smell the smoke. I had not taken time off work or vacation time in seven years. It felt impossible to take a break while terrible homophobic laws were being debated and passed in African legislatures, while the space for democracy and dissent was shrinking, and while at the same time fundraising and trying to ensure that activists had the resources they need and that staff got paid.
When I showed up at the initial retreat for The Wellbeing Project, the first thing the organizers asked us to do was introduce ourselves to the group without talking about our work. That was the beginning of the wellbeing shift for me. I had been consumed by my work and responsibilities my entire life. For the first time I was asked, ‘Who am I when I am not at work? Who am I when I am not doing this?’
The Wellbeing Project created space for me to interrogate myself and discover who I was outside of all the responsibilities I had. I was able to ask myself who I was when I was not an activist, mobilising action and raising resources.’ I asked myself, ‘What brings me joy that doesn’t have to do with the movements I serve? What brings me sorrow that doesn’t have to do with the work?’ I began to search for those things, people, and places that bring me joy.
Because of the journey of self-care that I began with The Wellbeing Project, I was able to reflect on what I had achieved professionally and see the impact of my life’s work, and I was therefore able to give myself the permission to leave. I started my exit planning and within 3 years I resigned from my role and left human rights work. I left not only my job but also the human rights field, recognising I had done enough. It was as much as I could do, recognising the finiteness of my contribution. It was important to leave and feel I did my part and not feel guilty. In conversations I had with partners in the field and donors I was asked, “How can you leave when there’s so much to be done?” I was one of the few African women in human rights philanthropic leadership. I had to be clear in my head and recognise I had accomplished what I had set out to do, and now it was time to stop.
My exit planning took three years. Closing that door is one of the hardest things for founding Executive Directors. My exit journey also helped me explore power and control, and how the loss of power and control can be so unfathomable and untenable sometimes. Who am I when I don’t have the title of CEO behind my name? How am I going to reinvent myself? My departure helped engender important conversations about leadership transitions in our field. How do leaders commit to being themselves and give themselves permission to leave? The stakes are so high and you feel really guilty.
While I will always be in service to others and to the earth and to life, now I have become more aware of what I want, rather than what is needed. It’s a mindset shift. I have allowed myself to interrogate my sense of responsibility to others and to the world and to ensure that I can serve without getting lost in the service of others.“
``AS IMPORTANT AS IT IS TO TAKE CARE OF OTHERS IT IS ACTUALLY TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.`` ``AS IMPORTANT AS IT IS TO TAKE CARE OF OTHERS IT IS ACTUALLY TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.``
Jose Mari Luzarraga is building a generation of changemaking entrepreneurs by re-defining education based on team learning and experimentation. He is the creator of the Leinn degree and co-founded Mondragon Team Academy, (MTA), global teams that adapt the vision of Mondragon by inserting it into the education system. Bachelor and Master’s degree students create people centered enterprises that generate economic and social impact through teampreneurship and learning by doing.
“The Wellbeing Project arrived at a crucial moment in my life. After 15 years fully devoted to serve others as a social entrepreneur, I was nearly at the edge of burnout. My life consists to reach and serve a growing number of yougsters, while dealing with many difficult issues on my own. I feel, accept pain, and suffering in my everyday life as something needed to serve better and it was having a negative impact personally and family wise.
This personal awareness of where and how I was, only came with The Wellbeing Project. Before the program I was focused on more: reach more and accept more challenges.
For me The Wellbeing Project showed me that “I could not serve and take care of others if I do not serve and take care of myself”, that we need to love others as we love ourselves. It is not about saying YES to others and NO to yourself, but the only way on the long run is to learn how to say YES to others and YES to yourself.
Throughout this personal transformation experience with great social entrepreneurs and human beings something became clear to me. On the one hand we need to accept, understand and embrace that being a social entrepreneur requires huge devotion and strength while: dealing with daily and tricky challenges, opening new paths where there are none, breaking and evolving thought models, making what is hidden or unknown to seen and understood… Being social entrepreneurs, we have the crucial, difficult and fascinating mission to “challenge the status-quo for a better world and humanity”.
On the other hand, we need to understand that the only way to do this, is to start with yourself. In the long run I cannot bring light to others if I do not light up myself. And for doing that, we need to load ourselves with the proper tools and activities to trigger the wellbeing and personal cultivation process. Wellbeing is a “life long journey”. It is a daily learning process.
The Wellbeing Project supported me with: “the understanding and awareness shift”, “providing the proper needed tools and activities” to start and nurture wellbeing, while not living this alone but “team learning” together with peers sharing the same learning journey.” JML
``I HAVEN'T FIGURED IT OUT BUT I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING DOWN SOME KIND OF PATH.`` ``I HAVEN'T FIGURED IT OUT BUT I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING DOWN SOME KIND OF PATH.``
By Edouard Gatignol
Early on from his childhood, Premal Shah sought a sense of belonging and understanding. Having grown up fully aware of how lucky he was regarding what he calls “the birth lottery”, he understood that having been raised in a loving and caring family was something that he would cherish throughout his lifetime. Yet, in the meantime, Premal experienced exclusion at school when he was discriminated for the color of his skin. This impacted him profoundly, and led on to forge the young man he would later become. His need for recognition and love pushed him to run for student council president at school- he thought that visibility would maybe make him more popular, and therefore be accepted by the other students.
He recalls an event that became pivotal in his approach to life: coming across a resume, a single sheet of paper that included one’s entire life story, helped him rethink his own. Premal became aware that doing things to be loved to seek attention wouldn’t get him anywhere and he started building from his own strengths. This new spirit of energy and desire to thrive led him to change attitude when he came back to school after the summer and enrolled in multiple activities. At that time, he questioned himself on what was most important to him: India, microcredit, and poverty were his answers, and therefore became his main priorities. Sorting things out and clearing his mind radically helped him become a better student and finish his studies full of self-confidence. After college, he joined what was the beginning of the Paypal adventure. This was a time that was stimulating as he was at the heart of building something that seemed to have an immense potential. He was doing what he loved, and work became an obsession. Nonetheless, he slowly started to wonder how he could combine both microcredit and Paypal. When he understood that this could not be done within the company, he began to feel disconnected with it. His main goal was to help the poorer, less advantaged, and microcredit would be the key to doing so.
Premal’s next move was to create Kiva: the world’s first online lending platform connecting lenders to entrepreneurs. Motivated by a desire to do good and to stick to an ethical, honest business development, he put all his time and energy in this new project. However when the Kiva board rejected his desire to become CEO, he felt deeply hurt. This is when he decided to turn to The Wellbeing Project. Premal applied to The Wellbeing Project because he was angry and disappointed, feeling he had put so much effort into something sincere and true. His experience as a participant of the Inner Development Program ignited a change in his vision of self-worth, ambition, and work. He learned how to deconstruct, dismantle, and undo everything that he had been taught over time in order to rethink and reevaluate his own happiness. Lacking a certain amount of tools due to the educational system in which he had been raised, Premal also learned knew ways of understanding himself. He left behind him many frustrations and difficulties he had accumulated over the years.
“If I had to summarize the before versus the after of participating in The Wellbeing Project, I’d say this: it helped me shift from fear based on operating system to one based on love. I feel like I can trust the unfolding of life, and follow what feels most enlivening. So much of my fuel was based on fear of not being enough. Now, I realize I am love. And no one is in the binary bucket of “admirable” or “inadequate”. It is quite the opposite, everyone else is love as well. This changes everything. “ Premal Shah
Now driven by a spontaneous desire to go where things will bring him, Premal is currently taking the time to rebalance his life towards family, health, and connecting with others. For his future, he focuses on being more dynamic and productive, and more involved as an activist. Although he has not yet found all the answers, it is with more confidence and energy that he is moving forward.
