Proposal:
To utilize the power of the coach approach as exemplified today with the evolution of the profession of Personal and Business Life Coaching (aka leadership coaching, personal coaching, wellness coaching) for personal and professional growth, I am proposing that a Coaching the Global Village project be developed to create positive social change for the underserved, undervalued, underfed, undereducated, and under appreciated in many of the villages and towns of the world, especially in places like Africa, South America and Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize, Haiti or others.
My larger vision:
A coaching initiative I am calling "Coaching the Global Village," in partnership with Rotary International, Peace Corps, or some already established global organization; where we can use the coach approach to combat hunger, poverty, and education in the poorer regions of the world. (Coaching is a special dialogic process that is different from consulting or training, It is meant to empower those being coached to co-create new ways, unsought before, to make desired changes). Ideas such as micro banking and sustainable products have been very useful in many villages of the third world culture, and I believe that the “coach approach” can be added to existing programs to empower the natives and teach a method that will live on after the coach trainers are gone.
Rotary, of which I was a member for 15 years, is already in almost all countries. . .so I hope to propose a joint effort with them, and then attract coaches who will volunteer their skills in third world countries. Just as the medical profession has DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS, we surely have many highly skilled coaches who would volunteer their skills to provide coaching to village leaders (both formal and informal leaders) along with men and women who want to improve their lives economically, socially, spiritually; and live more purposefully and in a way of thriving rather than merely surviving.
Many services are needed in these poor villages, and coaching as a conversation of empowerment will evoke their own wisdom and guidance to make a collaborative and creative effort to change their living situations. If more food is needed, what are the pathways? If better education is needed, what can be done creatively? What is some other village of the world doing that might work here? All of this can be accomplished in conjunction with existing governmental and international non-governmental organization programs, and it can be magnified in ways outside of governmental bureaucracy — just as Rotary International has been successful eradicating polio throughout the world — or just as the model of micro banking that has been shown to be effective in small villages in third world countries. Once this concept is piloted within an existing organization, then it could be replicated throughout the world by trained and qualified coaches, who then in turn, train the local society to utilize the coach approach for community enhancement in all areas.
A "Wheel of Life" process fits well in tribal cultures around the world. Circles are the way to best communication and the wheel of life concept can be used by individuals, families, communities, and businesses.
And through these efforts, somebody who helps get this initiative visible on a huge global stage would win the Nobel peace prize!!!!! And I could be there to cheer for them.
Patrick Williams, EdD Master Certified Coach and Psychologist
Author, Speaker, Trainer, Coach and Ambassador of Life Coaching