Insufflating air into a sinking ship. Trying to seed values in a troubled society
“Most people in Venezuela are paralyzed by fear, unable to act, and they respond to the crisis with frustration, rage and blame, and later with a collective depression. Having lost all hope, many are leaving the country, some as qualified immigrants in other countries, and others — the majority, as refugees. There is a minority of people working on the causes of the crisis, because at its core, this is a crisis of values. We are among that minority”.
Last February 10 we launched the program “U Leadership for Societal Change”, code named “Proyecto Hikola” (Hikola means vital energy in Yanomani language). It is an 8 weeks Theory U based sensitization program, directed to 100 key members of the educational ecosystem (teachers, parents, administrative staff, workers and managers) of 25 schools belonging to all the social strata of the Venezuelan society. We are training them as Social Change Agents who will have the responsibility of promoting reconciliation and integration in their communities through a process based on individual, family, social and citizen recognition. With this program, we hope to spark the beginning of a cultural transformation of their communities, which will be a key factor in the reconstruction of the fractured Venezuelan social mesh.
We, the members of the Caracas U.lab Hub, Maria Antonieta Angarita, Marietta Perroni, and myself, had been working for three years now on our respective U.Lab prototypes. During those years, slowly but surely, our individual efforts were crystallizing, and they integrated during our formation of 30 change makers in the 2017 U.Lab, were we worked for the first time as a team. Many things happened at the end of 2017. As soon as we began to work as a coherent team of change makers, we were able to forge alliances with key stakeholders. The Universidad Metropolitana of Caracas (UNIMET), thanks to the efforts of Professors Maria Elena Garassini and Pura Zavarce , served as an extraordinary venue to hold the space for the 30 new Ulabers. In the final sessions of our facilitation, we performed two Social Presencing Teather (SPT)experiences. One about the Venezuelan society, and the other about the future of our hub. Both were premonitory of things to come.
We were overwhelmed by what the universe had prepared for us. In just one week, from Dec 7 to 14, in which we wrapped up the 2017 U.lab. Professor Nancy Gutiérrez, another lecturer of UNIMET and brand new Ulaber, joined in the efforts to make of UNIMET a more permanent venue to our U.lab Hub. We also established an alliance with Opción Venezuela, an ONG that promotes entrepreneurship among the Venezuelan youth, which is headed by Félix Ríos, and to which Barrett Values Centre Fund approved a grant in order to carry out our program “Proyecto Hikola”.
We started 2018 on high gear. We read Otto Scharmer’s article in the HuffPost “Education is the kindling of a flame”, and felt that our project was totally aligned with its content, so much, that we translated it to the Spanish language and published it on Medium as “La educación es el encendido de una llama. Cómo reinventar la universidad del siglo XXI”. UNIMET approved the use of their extraordinary facilities for the hosting of our “Proyecto Hikola” program for societal change. They also approved our proposal to facilitate “Theory U” to the faculty of that university. We´ll kick off that program on march 1.
It is a weird feeling that the three of us have when we take our head out of our projects and take a look at our surrounding reality. According to the latest Barret Values Centre report, Venezuela is ranked among the countries with the highest entropy score in the world, and the highest in Latin America, with an index of 72%. Entropy is known in Physics as the degree of disorder in the system. Richard Barrett defines Cultural Entropy as “the degree of dysfunction (friction and frustration) in an organisation or any human group structure (community or nation) that is generated by the self-serving, fear-based actions of the leaders. As the Cultural Entropy score increases, the level of trust and internal cohesion decreases”. This exceedingly high index explains the serious tensions in all areas of our society, manifested by the current collapse of the economic, social, and political structures and institutions.
I have been exposed to highly stressful situations in the past, and my reactions before those experiences have been totally involuntary, and of two kinds. On one extreme, I have been paralyzed by fear, unable to do anything to defend myself, with an aftermath of guilt and anger. On the other extreme, I have been so focused, and have acted so swiftly, that when I remember those occasions, I recall them on the screen of my mind as a slow motion movie, in which I can pinpoint every minute detail. Those are typical stress responses. I see those responses showing up in massive scale in our society at this moment in time.
Most people in Venezuela are paralyzed by fear, unable to act, and they respond to the crisis with frustration, rage and blame, and later with a collective depression. Having lost all hope, many are leaving the country, some as qualified immigrants in other countries, and others — the majority, as refugees. There is a minority of people working on the causes of the crisis, because at its core, this is a crisis of values. We are among that minority.
Our focus is to bring a consciousness of values to our society through the trainings that I described before. We are very resilient and steadfast in our efforts. But with no resources of our own, we only have our passion, knowledge, experience and faith that we can make a difference. Consequently, the effort is so enormous that sometimes we feel as if we are trying to insufflate air into a sinking ship, with the detail that we are on board of it. Therefore, for us this is not only a matter of doing the right thing, or of seeding consciousness in society, or making of this a better world, or of trying to change this society into a sustainable one. On top of all that, for us it is a matter of survival, we don't have a choice. Every day when I woke up, I have a dialogue with myself that paraphrases Pinky and the Brain. “Gee Helio, what are you going to do today?” — “The same thing that I do every day, try to save the world — our world”.
In this effort, we don't need more daring, focused and motivated change makers, we have plenty of those, judging by the exponential growth of the attendees to our programs. In order to create a critical mass of positive change in the Venezuelan society, we need more daring, committed institutions, like U.Lab, UNIMET, and Barrett Values Centre. With them, we can be the catalysts for the change that this society is longing for.
Therefore my dear friends, if you feel identified with our work, please share this wide and far. We will appreciate it deeply. And so will the people of this country.
With love
Helio Borges
Helio Borges is a bilingual (Spanish- English) writer, Ontological Coach, Facilitator, Certified Lecturer, and Well-being Promoter. He has an experience of more than 20 years in Change Management in organizational settings. He is a member of the community of changemakers who uses the “Theory U” methodology, created by Otto Scharmer, Senior Lecturer of MIT, where he co-hosts the Caracas u.lab Hub in Venezuela. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Boston University.
