I am because We are...!

A journalist and philosopher Lia Diskin shared a touching story of a tribe in Africa at the Festival of Peace, in Florianopolis, South Brazil. An anthropologist had been studying the habits and customs of the African tribe and always been surrounded by the children of the tribe. He proposed a game for the children to play.

He'd bought lots of candy and sweets in the city that he put in a basket with a beautiful ribbon attached and placed it under a solitary tree and called all the kids together. He drew a start line on the ground and asked them to wait behind the line for his signal and they should rush over to the basket on his "Go...!"

The first to arrive there could win all the candies. However, when he said "Go...!", they all unexpectedly held each other's hands and ran off towards the tree as a group. Once there, they simply shared the candy with each other and ate it happily.

The anthropologist was very surprised. He asked them ‘why they had all gone together, especially if the first one to arrive at the tree could have won everything in the basket, all the sweets…?’

A young girl simply replied...

"How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?"

The anthropologist was dumbfounded! For months and months he'd been studying the tribe, yet it was only now that he really understood their true essence...

“Africans have a thing called UBUNTU. It is about the essence of being human; it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being willing to go the extra mile for the sake of another. We believe that a person is a person through other persons, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I inexorably dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms. Therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in community, in belonging.” 

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Ubuntu (oo-boon-too, n.) means, "I am because we are." UBUNTU is a Zulu or Xhosa word, and a traditional African concept. It's a term for humaneness, for caring, sharing and being in harmony with all of creation...!

CSR can get a hint from Ubantu, isn’t it…?

Stay tuned and Be Aware! Way to go…