“We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.” Wangari Maathai

Last year, I had the good fortune to attend a very special birthday party, a birthday party for over 200 children.  Besides the size of the birthday being larger than usual, the other unique feature was that, the party was an all day event hosted for the 200 children by well wishers. I am proud to say that my organization was the master mind of the event, and we roped in a few partners to assist with the event.Our combined teams, organized and planned the entire event, including sourcing for supplies, materials needed and coordinating all the logistics.  We worked as collaborative teams with our partners, each team with assigned tasks, all towards the success of this special day.

The menu for this birthday was very special yet very typical of a children’s birthday, burgers, chips, ice cream, I mean what else would kids want right?, All the food items had been donated, actually, now that I look back I realize that most everything given to be used or consumed that day was mostly given by well wishers, we hardly had to purchase anything for the event, paper plates and cups, I think. The majority was given by suppliers, people who at worst charged the basic cost and did not care that they did not make a profit on the event; one of the nicest examples of humanity that I have ever seen!

Partnerships and collaborations are a great way to give service.  It is nice when human beings come together for a common cause, and they give of their time, their services or products for that cause.  Acts such as these invariably make people feel good about themselves and each other as partners in a beautiful crime, the crime of giving! The nice thing about these sorts of collaborations is that there is no measure, nothing is too big or to small, people do not have to show off or compete that they have given the most or the least, what matters is that they have given collectively, and of their own free will.

An organization that liaises with its suppliers and collaborates to conduct community projects must be one that has good relationships with its suppliers.  Suppliers feel confident in the work that the organization is doing and support that work, and the organization in turn has more loyalty to the suppliers that support their community efforts.  “We are in this together”.

In that same birthday party I was able to witness the true impact and power of collaboration in another context.  As part of the birthday, the children in their turn entertained the visitors. Children organized themselves in groups, both official and non-official, with a lot of courage and enthusiasm, to entertain all the visitors, as their contribution to the celebration.  One such group was made up of some young men, rappers; they were dynamic and interesting and had the courage to stand up and showcase their rapping and dancing skills.

When they went on stage initially you could tell they were slightly nervous, wanting acceptance of their art from the audience for whom they were performing.  The music came on, their cue and they begun, wavering ever so slightly! Then the most astonishing thing happened, a lady, one of the audience, one of the collaborators of the day got up, picked up a microphone, went to the edge of the performance area, closer to the audience, and begun to lip-sync in collaboration with the rappers, she turned to the audience and continuously said collabo!, collabo! (collaboration, collaboration).  The audience begun to cheer, her, the rappers, the entire act, they became one.  She continued to lip-sync and the audience continued to cheer, the rappers gained in courage and their rap became stronger, confident, better.  Was it the lady’s support of them, the crowd’s cheers of encouragement or just the general feeling that they are not in this alone, whichever it was, it worked and the act was a tremendous success?  Collaboration in living color!

What I am beginning to see is that, when people or organizations partner or when they work in collaboration, it is as though they are supporting and agreeing and encouraging each other. The lady with the Microphone was basically saying to the young men,” I like what you are doing and I accept and support you, we are in this together”! A vote of confidence, and it worked for the young rappers, as well as encouraging the audience to also collaborate with the act.. In my comprehension, this is why artists look to audiences to clap in unison with the music or encourage them to stand up and dance all signs of showing their ultimate support by becoming a part of the act.

This leads me to look at community projects generally, and stakeholders within the community.  Should they collaborate and act in unison for the community does that give the community’s a sense of security, to be better to try harder to work towards development? When not one stakeholder but many are in collaboration, using one voice towards development, does that not make the work easier for all involved and create a sense of camaraderie between the community and collaborative stakeholders? Tukopamoja! (We are in this together!)