Day: September 13, 2010
Training log: 12 September. 8 km circuit harbour run
Perfect day for running around the harbour on Sunday with a glorious course looping Circular Quay starting at Hyde Park. Passing Mrs Macquaries Chair, and around the Sydney Opera House before taking the Cahill Expressway Overpass footbridge, and then circling back around through Hickson Road passing back through the ferry terminal. Returned to Hyde Park along Macquarie St.
This is a good high speed route with variation of direction and elevation. I maintained overall time of the run, but no heart-rate data.
Stretched before and after the run which was important and left me feeling limber and in good shape.
10 City Bridge Run- Objectives 1, 2, 3.
There are three objectives for the 10 City Bridge Run:
- Raise the awareness of an individual’s capacity to act to positively influence the eradication of extreme poverty from our world.
- Make representation of a global ‘pictorial petition’ to the G20 leadership at the 2010 G20 Summit to be held in Seoul as well as to the United Nations Secretary General. The ‘pictorial petition’ will be in the form of a book featuring 24,000 photographs of people as ‘bridge builders’- connecting with each other symbolically to raise the awareness of this issue.
- Identify 10 actionable items which people across the globe can participate in which will make a difference over the next five years to help in the eradication of extreme poverty. These action items are not pre-determined, and will be arrived through a crowd-sourcing process during the month of running.
Join us on the journey: be part of the difference that makes a difference.
Is the seemingly impossible possible? Muhammad Yunus and the idea of a ‘poverty museum’
Professor Muhammad Yunus who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, during the Skoll World Forum of Social Entrepreneurship held at Oxford earlier in 2006 spoke of his idea of a ‘Poverty Museum’ to be built in the future when extreme poverty is finally eradicated. As I listened to him speak, I remember thinking that this was an interesting idea, but maybe too fanciful, even impossible. But think again: we can now read Charles Dickens and learn about a form of poverty that is all but historical in the UK, or we can visit a museum in South Korea and learn about the poverty experienced after the 1953 Truce across a country which had a GDP the same as Ghana in 1960, and is now recognised with a strong economy.
Much has been written about this issue. Not everyone agrees with each other.
Five years short of the 2015 reporting date for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and how is our progress?
In 2008, 8.8 million children died before their 5th birthday. 0.1% of these deaths were in the “Industrialised World”. A staggering 50% of the deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
This equates to more than 24,000 children who tragically die every day.
The silent killer is preventable illness caused from the effects of extreme poverty.
What might this be compared with?
To put this into some perspective, consider that this might be seen as equivalent with:
- 1 child dying every 3.6 seconds
- More than 16 children dying every minute
- A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring every 10 days
- A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every 10 days
(Source: UNICEF The State of the World’s Children Special Edition: Celebrating 20 Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, November 2009, p.18-19)
It is not all bad news either. Taking a longer term view, since 1960 (when child mortality numbers were first being recorded) the annual number of child deaths has more than halved, from 20 million in 1960 to just 8.8 million in 2008. However, even though child mortality figures have shown a declining trend across the last 25 years, the situation which the world faces compounded by multiple systemic crises is still nothing short of outrageous: the effects of climate change mixed with the hyperinflation of world food prices, complicated by a looming economic stagnation of the West…
Progress has been made, but it is unevenly distributed. We continue to live in an imperfect world. Neither the UN nor the G20 has any magic wand to solve problems. The allocation of aid on its own will not solve this problem. Money makes a difference, but it is far from all there is. This year, natural events in places like Haiti and Pakistan show the constant demand for aid and support. Realistically, how much of this issue will be tackled by the G20 in the short space of time the leaders have together? How much impact might a ‘pictorial petition’ have with leaders meeting around an agenda influenced by complex issues with significant momentum? We could always do nothing and just complain about what a mess the world is in…
Let me provide an alternative and suggest you join us and become a bridge builder. Contributing a photograph while this crazy ’10 City Bridge Run global endurance challenge’ is being conducted might not seem like much, and might well represent nothing more than a symbolic act. However, what is the cost to you? It takes no time, and besides it is free. So snap off a photo and send it to us for inclusion in the book. And while you are at it, maybe open a conversation about this issue with others. More than likely, this is already something you are working on or have contributed towards. We recognise that many excellent initiatives are being undertaken by humanitarian workers quietly and selflessly making a difference. We would love to hear you thoughts.
Read about the outcome we hope to influence and the outputs we will be crowd-sourcing and co-creating through crowd-funding the necessary financial resources to make this work.
Lost in Riverview
Saturday evening I headed out for a 24 km training run, but was confounded as darkness fell and I became geographically embarrassed in the streets of Riverview.
For those unfamiliar with Riverview, it is a leafy enclave of a suburb nestled snugly in the North Shore.
From Riverview you are able to enjoy spectacular views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and running at first I saw it over my left shoulder, and then later (thinking I was still headed in roughly the same direction) I saw it over my right shoulder as I looked around to check on surrounding landmarks. As soon as I realised I was going in a big circle I stopped to ask some kids kicking a footy on the street how I might run back to Sydney. They thought that was one of the most ridiculous things they had heard in their life…too far away for running!
Riverview is a privileged suburb, and enjoys beautifully designed large houses, sporty cars, and well maintained gardens. Speaking with the kids playing kick-to-kick I soon discovered there were no buses operating at that time of night, and the nearest train station was miles away.
Not only was I miles away from where I would have preferred to have been, but I became aware I was worlds apart from the situation where people live in extreme poverty- the two environments are almost without comparison they are so completely different.
With no option but to run my way out of the problem, it became a problem solving exercise and a test of mental stamina and toughness that running training develops. After a certain stage in training when fitness has been proven, much of the training becomes more about a competition within yourself: will you blow off training one night? can you run hard when it hurts? will the small niggling pain that you feel (which every athlete gets and endures) eventually make you decide that it is just not worth it?
I worked my way out of the situation and salvaged the run. I passed an unfortunate car prang along River Road and thought that things could always be worse. When I finally was back onto ground I was familiar with and crossing the Fig Tree Bridge, then across the Gladesville and Victoria Bridges, I felt a great sense of achievement known to those who have experienced ‘the loneliness of the long-distance runner’.
As I came off Victoria Bridge, I felt I had proved enough to myself and a bus came tearing along the road, close enough for me to catch back to Town Hall.
For a short period of time I was contemplating: ‘was the seemingly impossible possible?’ The discipline of overcoming small challenges gives us the strength to combat the larger problems we encounter. Maybe this has some relevance to how we can address the situation of extreme poverty: a lesson from the most unlikely of places, Riverview.
Seth’s response
I subscribe to Seth Godin‘s blog. Daily, Seth posts a few small words encasing a big idea to think about.
I emailed Seth a few days ago about a question I had in relation to what he had written, and his response gave me more food for thought.
My question was about leadership. His answer basically encouraged me to keep going in the same direction. My reflection on Saturday was:
Leadership presents both opportunity and responsibility. Often the temptation is to first find validation or comfort through following others. Leadership in fact involves rising above this temptation and, through your actions, writing the narrative for those who follow.
The work required to eradicate extreme poverty involves some of this pioneering leadership, a lot of innovation and many to follow making good with what appears to work. Not everyone needs to lead, but not everyone should follow either.
What role are you playing? Leader? Innovator? Follower? Bystander? All of the above?
Building Bridges 