I recently learned that books don’t have to be hard cover, soft cover or digital! Have you heard of “human books”? The concept started in 2000 in Copenhagen, Denmark as a way of overcoming prejudice and has spread literally around the world. I read about just such an event in Florida where rather than go in to the library to check out a book, you could “check out” a “human book”, spend 15-20 minutes hearing that person’s story, then ask questions for another 10 minutes. What a fantastic interactive event for just about anyone who has a curious streak and wants to have a dialog with their “book”, and not just a one way reading experience!

Here’s how one such organization, Urban ReThink, describes how you can become a human book:

“If you have a story of a unique personal experience or a fictional story which you would enjoy sharing, or if you would be willing to serve as a reference on any topic of your choosing, consider participating as a “human book.” Human books are regular people like you and me who are open and ready to share their experiences and knowledge with others.”

Here are the three types of human books you can become along with some examples:

Autobiographical – This human book tells a story based on a particular experience they lived. It could be anything from a silly story about a crazy misadventure with your friends, to a significant story of a challenge you’ve overcome, to the story of how you opened your own business.

Fiction – This human book tells a story which is fictional but it must be told as if they are the character in the story who is speaking about their life. It could be the story in the day of the life of a boot as told by the boot itself.

Reference – This human book has knowledge on a particular topic. When checked out, the “reader” may ask them specific questions or ask for a nutshell overview of said topic. For example, if the reference book was on photography, the reader could ask them how to best photograph their pets or they could ask how a camera works in a nutshell. These human books need not be experts and have all of the answers, but it is important to be able to suggest how a reader may be able to find the answer they seek.

As explained in this video from Acadia University Vaughan Library, it’s a way to have access to people you would not normally meet and interact with in your everyday life.

What a fascinating concept! And one that can be universally explored and used in a variety of settings. Click here to see where it all started in Denmark.

My first introduction to Heifer International was at the church where I grew up through childhood and adolescence.  Every year around Christmas time, a booth was set up during Coffee Hour in the church’s basement, with devoted volunteers trying to entice church goers to purchase a rabbit, a beehive or a goat for a family struggling with nutrition and survival in the developing world.  Later in High School, I traveled with a band of my peers during Spring Break to do service work at one of Heifer’s training facilities in Little Rock, Arkansas.  There, we learned about sustainable farming (though it wasn’t a buzz word in the 90s, like it is now).  We shoveled sheep dung, mucked out goat stalls, lugged the chicken coop around the yard to aerate the dirt.  I’m not sure how happy my family was on my return when, at Easter brunch, I proclaimed that pee and poop could run the world, and then explained to them the detailed cycles on the farm.  I was quickly sold on the idea.

Heifer’s aim is to end hunger and poverty through mutual effort (money from donors to pay for much-needed livestock; training from skilled program managers on how to best utilize those resources; and the commitment from families to transform their lives through their own hard work). Heifer provides gifts of livestock and training, helping families to “improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. We refer to the animals as ‘living loans’ because in exchange for their livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift.”

Now in Oaxaca 19 years later, I have met local program managers for the Heifer projects based in Mexico (one of which is a member at the Hub), that support initiatives all over southern Mexico. It’s incredible to see the  work that is involved in coordinating, facilitating and training small families to best take advantage of Heifer’s resources.

In a recent newsletter Heifer sent out, they shared news of the launch of an expansion of their model.  You can read the entire notice here.  The central change is a shift from helping raise marginalized communities up to subsistence through sustainable techniques, to now going beyond that–supporting community-based work to build “social capital and business skills and knowledge that empowers the communities to take appropriate actions to achieve sustainability.”  Heifer International is making a push to join a “global movement building coalitions of governments, the private sector, multilaterals, bi-laterals and foundations to find more effective solutions to end poverty and hunger.” These efforts will hopefully grow Heifer’s impact each year.

I’m inspired by projects like Heifer who, even though already successful in their work, still strive to adapt and change their operational model to meet the very real needs on the ground.  Adaptation and flexibility can combine with grounded experience to form stronger and more-resilient initiatives.  That can only help usher Heifer, and all of its beneficiaries, into a more hopeful tomorrow.

What growing initiatives have you seen out in the world?  Tell us about an initiative that you know that is adapting to meet growing needs in today’s reality.  We’d love to share their story with our community!

Saludos,

Megan

Remember the movie Pay it Forward, based on Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novel?  It was a 2-hour flick boasting the concept of karmic social responsibility?  I remember being slightly disappointed in the Kevin Spacey-Helen Hunt vehicle.  The preview had me jazzed to see a movie that could be both compelling and inspire a renewed interest in creative human kindness.  But in reality, I felt it falling short in inspiring a population to take up its central plot device to transform the world.

Paying something forward actually has its roots in contract law, wherein creditors ask debtors to pay their debt forward to a third party beneficiary, often unknown to the creditor.  In sociology, paying forward is a concept referred to as “generalized reciprocity.”  Likewise, invitations to pay forward a kindness can be found in poetry, theater and philosophical ruminations all throughout history.  And in more recent years, the concept of paying forward kindness has been utilized by such organizations as Kiva.org, where lenders of small entrepreneurs can, instead of collecting the repaid loan, decide to forward the money on to an additional entrepreneur in need. Or like at the Hub where I work, the Pay it Forward concept is used in a kind of Timebank, where users can receive the help, that then they pay forward to others with a skill they have that is in need (FYI, HarmonyWishes community, we’re currently looking for small donations to help us get our Timebank system up and in use for a wider group of Oaxacans.  Click here to help!)

So, perhaps I was wrong to write off the movie so quickly.  It appears that the Pay it Forward idea is galvanizing do-gooders around the U.S. in the last several months.  I first learned about the recent Pay it Forward  trend in coffee shops from Cord Jefferson’s Good Magazine article this January, “It all started two years ago at Corner Perk, a small, locally owned coffee shop, when a customer paid her bill and left $100 extra, saying she wanted to pay for everyone who ordered after her until the money ran out.” Soon the idea caught on with the wider community, finding others stopping in to do the same. But Corner Perk isn’t the only coffee shop to report these random acts of kindness.  It seems the benevolent winds have wafted into even the largest of coffee chains like Starbucks.

The Pay it Forward concept isn’t exclusive to coffee shop purchases.  That same kindness has extended to big department stores, like Kmart, where anonymous donors have been paying off layaway accounts for strangers.  In another article by Jefferson on Good’s site (he’s got a great series entitled “People Are Awesome” that’s worth following), he observes, “So far no organization has come forward to claim responsibility for the layaway giving movement, meaning either organizers want to stay anonymous or this is just a very kind, very heartwarming grassroots effort spreading virally across the country.”

I wonder if Ryan Hyde imagined a grassroots movement like this sweeping the nation, heck, the world (!) after the release of her book, or later the movie–only to be slightly disappointed.  Well, don’t despair! Your idea has been slowing churning in the collective subconscious.  It needed only the effort of a small few, and some good press coverage, to spread a bit further.  Let’s see how far it goes.  Maybe another 12 years will see the Pay it Forward concept reaching further.  I’m curious to see the impact of a thousand tiny kindnesses.  How about you?

Cheers,

Megan