Investing Time in People
I am in the US for two weeks care of Ashoka and National Geographic as PEPY was a winner in the Geotourism Challenge last year. I am getting my talk ready for the conferences they are bringing us here to speak at, and one of the themes I usually focus on is about investing time in people as a way to effect lasting change (as opposed to giving things away).
As I have been thinking about my presentation, I realized that the Geotourism Changemakers team are doing exactly that for us: investing time in us, not just giving us an award. I have been a part of competitions which are about a thing – giving you a prize, money, or recognition. That’s nice and all, but the Ashoka/Nat Geo team have gone out of their way to make this award be much more than just giving us a prize. They have invested time in each of us, have flown us here to the US to speak at the Geotourism Summit as well as the Educational Travel and Learning Conference in Providence, RI, and generally have invested effort to help us develop the connections which might be needed to improve our work.
I commend them for that and I look forward to this week of conferences and meeting new (and hopefully inspiring!) people. Plus, I got a free trip home to see my parents! That’s a prize in itself!