During an enriching conversation with a fellow Saffer yesterday, it struck me just how many people are doing so much good in South Africa. My friend, for instance, quietly pours a small fortune into helping society’s most vulnerable. There are many like him. Contributing because they can, without any desire to ever be acknowledged.
In that vein, the email from an organisation called Little Eden caught my attention yesterday. It is a small charitable organisation base in Edenglen, which looks after some of society’s most vulnerable. The note promotes a project where CEOs are asked to spend one day a year in a wheelchair to raise awareness about those who spend their lives in them. Nice to see Discovery’s Adrian Gore among the supporters.
Cynics are quick to write off such efforts. They are wrong. My brief exposure to homelessness via last year’s CEO SleepOut forever changed the way I look at those forced to sleep al fresco. A whole day in a wheelchair would surely change one’s perception of the permanently immobile.
There’s a lot to be said for experiential exposure. Including the way it encourages an approach of striving to understand others before demanding to be understood.
