Finally Starting

The past few weeks have been a blur. My life has been completely devoted to leading the team of FORGE ambassadors to implement their projects in Meheba. The team left Meheba one week ago, and their projects have exceeded all my expectations. And I had really high expectations for them. In fact, in the past two months, the people I taught to design, implement, and manage community development projects have been teaching me just as much as I taught them. Watching their five projects develop from just ideas to buildings, workshops, employees, programs, and smiles has made me very proud to be their leader. I can't wait to see what happens to their projects throughout the next 4 months that I will be in Meheba. I wish I could bring you all to Meheba to see the projects and the people they have empowered.

 

A few days before we left Meheba, we had a going away party, to which we invited every single person that we had worked with over the past two months. There were a total of about 80 people there. Many of the people hadn't even met each other. But we brought out a guitar and a couple drums, and soon enough everyone was on their feet, dancing and singing together. It was inspiring to see how many people in the community had gotten involved in our projects in such a short time. I tried to imagine what the people there would be doing if FORGE hadn't come. I tried to imagine what we would be doing if they hadn't been in Meheba to work with. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you bring people's complementary resources together; they had knowledge of the community and relationships in the community, while we had information, money, and relative power. Without this combination, the projects wouldn't have worked. I had to give a speech in between dinner and the dancing, and while I spoke I found myself overcome with pride and sadness. I was sad that the relationship between the ambassadors and the refugees was about to end. It's amazing what tight bonds can form between people when they are working passionately towards the same goals.