Humanize the Earth!

Humanist Movement

November 28, 2005 at 1:12 am | In meaning in life, humanize |

I’ve written before about the Humanist Movement, but not lately, and not from the perspective of where I am today, internally. So, thanks to HeatherPoet’s nudgings, here goes.

The Humanist Movement started in 1969 in Argentina and Chile with some simple ideas: the human being as the central value, active non-violence as a point of view and strategy, the connection between the personal and the social, etc.

It was the connection between the personal and the social that really got me in 1996 (I didn’t actually join until 1997). Before that I’d always been interested in both overcoming my own suffering (therapy, group processes, etc, etc) and changing the world (volunteering, helping others, etc, etc) and those two parts seems completely disconnected. Changing myself seemed empty without connection to something larger and helping others felt like fixing a broken cog to put back in the machine that never changed.

There were about 25,000 volunteers involved worldwide when I joined in 1997. By the way, we’re all volunteers. There’s no paid staff, no board of directors, no headquarters and no bank account. We’re organized into teams (similar to a pyramid in many ways) and each person makes all decisions about her or his involvement, without being told what to do by the orientor (the person that forms the team and acts as a guide from her or his experience). Now there are more than one million volunteers involved in over 100 countries.

Each team has a weekly meeting where they start with personal work, with each person looking inside and sharing experiences, as a way to help each other overcome suffering. The 2nd part of the meeting is about organizing social projects of education, healthcare or quality of life. In western countries this part tends to be about conversation clubs, immigration issues, parties and social events, and other ways to bring people together in a different way. In Africa, it tends to be about setting up adult education, especially literacy, or all-volunteer schools for kids that can’t afford government schools, or volunteer clinics, or malaria-prevention campaigns, etc, etc.

For the first few years I didn’t have a team of my own; I worked to support others. Then I decided to form my own team about 3 years ago. In Africa. So for the last 3 years I’ve been working to build a team in the Liberian refugee camp Budaburam in Ghana. At first it wasn’t organized around a particular social project and later it was specifically around a “Stop Malaria” campaign. Last December we were up to about 1000 people in my team and their teams and their teams, etc. And then the whole thing feel apart. I can’t tell exactly why, though my suspicion is because of the fundraising I did. You see, the Humanist Movement is not a funding agency and has no money to support projects. All of my travel was on my own expense. When I saw malaria prevention activities happening in a completely self-organized and self-financed way, I wanted to support that and so asked my family and friends for money to extend those projects. In two rounds, we raised $US350 and then $US1000. And that’s when things started falling apart. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

At the same time, since about July of 2004 I’ve been working on building my team in the US, both by having meetings at my house and also by having conference call meetings. I’d noticed for a long time that the word “humanist” and the idea of joining something was somewhat of a barrier here in the US, so I dispensed wtih both. I’m very upfront that I’m in the Humanist Movement, but the meetings have various other names, Inviting Friends and Partners, Breathing In & Breathing Out, etc. I tell people that we’re using the Humanist Movement personal work and the methods of running a meeting and a point of view from there, and I leave it at that, not asking anyone to join or form their own team. I do suggest that they can do these meetings themselves and form their own group (staying in my group for continued, on-going support). Perhaps someone will at some point.

So my point of view has been shifting. While it’s true that a strong filter (joining and paying a membership fee and agreeing to form your own team) produces strong members, it’s also true that many interesting people are thus excluded. And I’ve come to strongly believe that getting the ideas out and into use is more important than building the organization itself. Humanizing the earth is not the same as building the Humanist Movement.

So back in September some of my conference call attendees felt it was important to have a more consistent group, without new people coming all the time and making the group start over. So we asked for a committment of 6 months worth of bi-weekly meetings. We’re about half-way done and I’m starting to think about how to bring new people in again. Maybe a general conference call where all are invited once a month for the next 3 months, coinciding with the last 3 months of the other, committed group? And then a call for 6-month committments from anyone from either group? Perhaps? Please feel free to give feedback.

And also feel free to ask questions about what I’ve written above. I’ll either answer in comments, or write a follow-up post for a more extensive answer.

peace, force and joy,
ted