Our World Inside Out
Last year I had one of those life changing moments … a friend introduced me to Simon Hong, the former Creative Director at Re: M&C Saatchi Brand & Design. I went to seek his personal advice about how I might find the ‘pub sentence’ to describe Igniting Change’s work. After a good hour of my talking about the range of work we are involved with, including the Youth Unit at Port Phillip Prison he wrote the following on a piece of paper …
I was gobsmacked and to be truthful, tears of joy feel down my face. Simon had unlocked a key to our work which is all about encouraging people to see the person, not the label.
Before meeting Simon, I had come from talking with a group of homeless young people who inspired me with their ideas, their resilience and most of all compassion. Yet so many people have the attitude ‘it’s their own bloody fault’ … for me, no young person lives on the streets out of choice … they so often find themselves there for very good reason.
Since that meeting with Simon, Igniting Change has been on a journey with our latest initiative Our World Inside Out which has launched with a notebook for the heart as well as the mind.
Each word and thought bud was carefully thought through. We kept people close to the issues advising us at all times. For example;
which I just love because surely anyone who gives up is a hero - but when we tested it on both users and former users they didn’t like it … they do not feel in any way heroes and so, for our notebook we changed it to,
with the thought bud of, “people dealing with an addiction have many demons to battle, maybe not too dissimilar to yours. ADD something to your life by supporting and encouraging them to succeed”.
The notebook is only the start of our journey with Our World Inside Out. If you have your own ‘words-within-words’ to inspire people to see our world in a more positive, more inspirational way please share them with us.
P.S. Please email us at info@ignitingchange.org.au to purchase your own Our World Inside Out notebook
