Freedom to tailor work life to suit all your life
by Jedd Schroy,
2016-03-22 05:43:49.0
THE famed British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge once said: "I beg you to believe that life is not a process, it’s a drama." Like any great drama, it’s filled with heroes and villains, thrill and suspense, hope and despair, foreshadowing and character development.
In the struggle for human rights, this drama gained a significant victory in 1948. History was made when for the first time the United Nations enumerated which fundamental human rights were to be universally protected.
Fast-forward a few generations and Human Rights Day in SA is a collective observance that affirms these ideals and their culmination in the country’s historic evolution into a democracy. However, affirming these ideals in the human rights narrative is only the first step. It is the starting point and foundation. When it comes to the universal right to work, we are just beginning to see the ingenuity of microentrepreneurs and what they are creating as a result of being free to choose.
A few decades ago, the dream of empowering South African microentrepreneurs in developing small businesses would have been just that –– a dream. The majority of South Africans weren’t free to own businesses, among many other things, but times have changed and so have the recognised rights of those who call this corner of the world home.
The new narrative for the South African drama is one of freedom, democracy and justice. The country is writing a new song and carving out a new path forward. It isn’t clean and tidy, but messy and chaotic.
Minah experienced this messiness first-hand. As a young, soon-to-be mother, she sat in a hospital room as her doctor drew up adoption paperwork. However, there was one problem. Minah wasn’t giving her baby up for adoption. She spoke isiXhosa, and her doctor spoke English, causing a miscommunication with drastic repercussions. Thankfully, the crisis was averted, and Minah was able to keep her baby boy.
Being denied her human right to dignity, and the right to receive basic healthcare as a new mother in a manner that she could understand, was an experience that marked Minah forever. She vowed to help others who were in her situation — not through charity or advocacy, but through entrepreneurship.
She started a language service, translating for women who were not receiving medical information they could understand. By creating a business, she was able to serve both patients and doctors, as well as create a means to provide for herself and her family. Everybody won.
In the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha, another entrepreneur is taking advantage of this opportunity, by expunging criminal records for youth who made mistakes in their early teenage years. These young men, now in their mid-20s, were finding it impossible to find work due to their past. Now, they receive help in legally overcoming their past and finding employment.
What if we could make progress in the protection of human rights and grow the economy at the same time? Trade is a powerful tool for advancing the common good. Both parties need and want something the other has.
Like Minah witnessed in her own life, entrepreneurship has the power to take the ideals of human rights and see them flourish. Day after day, entrepreneurs awake to opportunity and the realisation that they now possess human rights that have only recently been observed. They are free to travel, to live, to express themselves, to believe or not to believe, to work, to create, to organise.
The power of creativity is untapped for many. Entrepreneurship is one way to realise the latent potential within to choose a different character to play, and enter into a new scene in an unfolding drama.
Recognising and celebrating our inalienable human rights allows entrepreneurship to flourish, because we are made to be free to work, and free to choose.
• Schroy leads Paradigm Shift, a nonprofit organisation that operates in eight countries
Picture: SHUTTERSTOCK
THE famed British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge once said: "I beg you to believe that life is not a process, it’s a drama." Like any great drama, it’s filled with heroes and villains, thrill and suspense, hope and despair, foreshadowing and character development.
In the struggle for human rights, this drama gained a significant victory in 1948. History was made when for the first time the United Nations enumerated which fundamental human rights were to be universally protected.
Fast-forward a few generations and Human Rights Day in SA is a collective observance that affirms these ideals and their culmination in the country’s historic evolution into a democracy. However, affirming these ideals in the human rights narrative is only the first step. It is the starting point and foundation. When it comes to the universal right to work, we are just beginning to see the ingenuity of microentrepreneurs and what they are creating as a result of being free to choose.
A few decades ago, the dream of empowering South African microentrepreneurs in developing small businesses would have been just that –– a dream. The majority of South Africans weren’t free to own businesses, among many other things, but times have changed and so have the recognised rights of those who call this corner of the world home.
The new narrative for the South African drama is one of freedom, democracy and justice. The country is writing a new song and carving out a new path forward. It isn’t clean and tidy, but messy and chaotic.
Minah experienced this messiness first-hand. As a young, soon-to-be mother, she sat in a hospital room as her doctor drew up adoption paperwork. However, there was one problem. Minah wasn’t giving her baby up for adoption. She spoke isiXhosa, and her doctor spoke English, causing a miscommunication with drastic repercussions. Thankfully, the crisis was averted, and Minah was able to keep her baby boy.
Being denied her human right to dignity, and the right to receive basic healthcare as a new mother in a manner that she could understand, was an experience that marked Minah forever. She vowed to help others who were in her situation — not through charity or advocacy, but through entrepreneurship.
She started a language service, translating for women who were not receiving medical information they could understand. By creating a business, she was able to serve both patients and doctors, as well as create a means to provide for herself and her family. Everybody won.
In the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha, another entrepreneur is taking advantage of this opportunity, by expunging criminal records for youth who made mistakes in their early teenage years. These young men, now in their mid-20s, were finding it impossible to find work due to their past. Now, they receive help in legally overcoming their past and finding employment.
What if we could make progress in the protection of human rights and grow the economy at the same time? Trade is a powerful tool for advancing the common good. Both parties need and want something the other has.
Like Minah witnessed in her own life, entrepreneurship has the power to take the ideals of human rights and see them flourish. Day after day, entrepreneurs awake to opportunity and the realisation that they now possess human rights that have only recently been observed. They are free to travel, to live, to express themselves, to believe or not to believe, to work, to create, to organise.
The power of creativity is untapped for many. Entrepreneurship is one way to realise the latent potential within to choose a different character to play, and enter into a new scene in an unfolding drama.
Recognising and celebrating our inalienable human rights allows entrepreneurship to flourish, because we are made to be free to work, and free to choose.
• Schroy leads Paradigm Shift, a nonprofit organisation that operates in eight countries
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