Something that I have learnt from my work as a Human Rights and Social Justice Activist is that a victim who is facing adversity does not care about the colour, creed, race, ethnicity, gender of the person/s who is taking action to save them. All the boxes that society tries to put us into in order to define us falls away. Boxes are created to emphasize how different we are, not in a way that says that although we are unique and we have lots in common, but rather that our uniqueness makes us far more superior.
In my world I have found that the more commonality I have been able to find together with someone the more likely the solution matches what they need. If I meet a young person and I sing (or try hahaha) a few lyrics from the latest pop song, or lyrics from a rap, I usually get a smile, laugh or curious frown followed by something like, “gee, how do you know the song … you are so old”. This is followed by laughter. Justice Albie Sachs, the former justice of the Constitution Court, once pointed me out in a gathering and said, “You see Andy, he is one of the few Human Rights Activists who smiles”. I was taken aback that out of everyone in the room he picked me. He then continued, “I hate Human Rights Activists who walk around with hung dog faces. The last thing that people who are facing adversity want to see is someone with a hung dog face. They want to see a smile. A smile brings hope.”
Justice Albie Sachs’s words always reminds me that I must get to the point of smiling and laughing together with whoever I am collaborating. Even when engaging with victims at the onset and I am doing 99% of an intervention, I remind myself to smile. Even its 99% on my part and 1% on the part of the victim, its still collaboration. I have seen the power of smiling and laughing with victims, whether it is someone who has lost everything in a fire, including a child, or a victim of gender based violence or someone who has lost their job. The same is true when collaborating with an organisation or between organisations. Finding commonalities, helps us to smile.
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